Reflections on politics of the week

The House of Lords debates the future of its hereditary members, perhaps greed is good after all and a Cabinet spat flares over the UK's (in)action on Syria in 2013

Never a dull week: after losing a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly, Michel Barnier resigned as French premier and has been replaced by veteran centrist François Bayrou; it was confirmed that deposed President of the Syrian Arab Republic (and London-trained ophthalmologist) Bashar al-Assad had been granted asylum in Moscow; and departing President Joe Biden issued 1,500 pardons and clemencies in a single day, making US history. In the news agenda’s second tier, there were a few items that I wanted to scoop up and flag in the now-traditional way.

Attend His Majesty in the House of Peers

Wednesday saw the Second Reading debate by peers of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, the government’s proposal to take away the right to sit and vote of the remaining 92 hereditary peers left behind as a compromise by Sir Tony Blair’s House of Lords Act 1999. I explained fully and forcefully in October why I think this is such a bad bill—inadequate, ill-considered, disingenuous, mean-spirited and simplistic—so I won’t go over all that again, but for those who are interested in constitutional matters, Wednesday’s debate is worth reading.

The Shadow Leader of the House of Lords, Lord True, had a difficult bat to play but played it well, with a considered and moderate speech tackling the bill itself rather than the wider subject of reform of the House of Lords. Nick True is steeped in these issues, having served as Private Secretary to the Marquess of Salisbury (then Viscount Cranborne) and Lord Strathclyde as leaders of the Opposition in the House of Lords from 1997 to 2010 and Leader of the House of Lords from 2022 to 2024.

The Earl of Kinnoull, Convenor of the Crossbench Peers, could hardly have been more cautious and balanced, as befits his office (he is, of course, one of the 92 hereditary peers facing expulsion). Lord Strathclyde, a former Leader of the House, encapsulated most of the objections to the bill, while Lord Burns, a former Permanent Secretary to HM Treasury, expressed support for the measure but underlined some objectionable consequences. Lord Wakeham’s contribution was valuable on the grounds that he is, as he reminded his colleagues, the only person alive who has served both as Leader of the House of Commons (1987-89) and Leader of the House of Lords (1992-94). Lord Morse, former Comptroller and Auditor General and head of the National Audit Office, did not dispute the principle of the bill but questioned its practical implementation. Lord Hampton, a recently elected crossbencher, lightened the mood but still made a serious point.

The one thing I do want to say is this: the fact that so many peers spoke (the House extended its usual sitting hours to accommodate all those who wished to contribute) will without question be used by some commentators to reinforce the narrative that peers are at their most active and loquacious when discussing themselves. It is not without foundation, and some inward-facing debates can see the House of Lords (just as in the House of Commons) at its most self-important, grandiose and solipsistic. But this bill matters. The composition of the legislature is a fundamental element of our constitutional settlement, and the immediate effect of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, if it is passed in its current form, will be to leave the upper house of Parliament comprised wholly of appointed legislators, for the first time in our history. Some will argue that is a price worth paying, or less of an outrage than the privilege of heredity, and they are entitled to do so. It must, though, be recognised. This bill does nothing to make the House of Lords more democratically legitimate or publicly accountable.

Given the importance of the issue, peers are absolutely right to debate this at length. It would be an absurd ordinance to say that somehow the House of Lords was ineligible to discuss its own future, and there is no question of hidden interest or ulterior motive. It was in general a good debate, courteous and informed, but it will, I suspect, make no difference at all. The government will get its way, the House of Lords will not be in the slightest whit improved as a scrutiny body and—I predict—we will hear no more of further substantial reform for a long time, probably the rest of this parliament.

Greed is good, actually

One of the odder stories of the week was a split, almost an ideological clash, between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition over sandwiches (yes, sandwiches). Very briefly, Kemi Badenoch, interviewed by The Spectator, mentioned that she rarely stopped for lunch and had a particular dislike of sandwiches.

What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps. I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time… Sometimes I will get a steak… I’m not a sandwich person, I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast… I will not touch bread if it’s moist.

I don’t for a second imagine this was a deeply felt rallying cry against the sandwich on Badenoch’s part, nor do I think liking or disliking sandwiches is part of a culture war. The phrase “lunch is for wimps”, however, caught the attention of some. It is, of course, a line uttered by corporate raider Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, in Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece Wall Street.

Gekko is seen as the epitome of capitalism’s unacceptable face, to use Sir Edward Heath’s memorable phrase (he was referring to mining conglomerate Lonrho and its buccaneering chief executive, Tiny Rowland). This made it a short step for those so inclined to associate Badenoch and the Conservative Party she leads with Gekko’s other hallowed phrase “Greed is good”. What could be more condemnatory, more toxic, more loathsome than that beggar-thy-neighbour, Devil-take-the-hindmost creed?

This ignores a few critical facts. The first is that Gordon Gekko is not presented in Wall Street as a hero, and ends the film sentenced to imprisonment. The second is that Oliver Stone is as far from a cheerleader for a right-wing, free-marketeer ideology as it is possible to imagine. The third, and most important if most difficult, truth is that Gekko is largely right.

The three words “greed is good” have to be taken in their context. Gekko is addressing a meeting of the shareholders of a failing corporation, Teldar Paper, and he appeals to his audience by condemning the inefficient and indolent management of the company. The shareholders, the people who have invested in and own Teldar, are losing out to privileged and vested interests and Gekko promises them what they invested for, a profit. Moreover, he tells them they should not be ashamed of it. His speech is worth reproducing in full.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity you’re giving me, Mr Cromwell, as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we’re not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market, when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company!

All together, these men sitting up here own less than three per cent of the company. And where does Mr Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one per cent. You own the company. That’s right—you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their steak lunches, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.

Teldar Paper, Mr Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over $200,000 a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can’t figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost $110 million last year, and I’ll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated.

In the last seven deals that I’ve been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of $12 billion. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them!

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Of course Gekko has a hint of caricature: he’s called “Gekko”, for goodness’ sake. But when he talks about “greed”, while the language is provocative, what he really means is competition, the desire to succeed and prosper, as he puts it “the essence of the evolutionary spirit”. That spirit is what motivates capitalism, and what has produced the extraordinary prosperity, in relative and historical terms, that the West enjoys today. Stone and fellow scriptwriter Stanley Weiser knew exactly what they were doing when they chose the word “greed”, but the meaning of Gekko’s declaration isn’t one we should dismiss.

The past is never dead. It’s not even past

The fall of Bashar al-Assad has, perhaps surprisingly, provoked a spat within the Cabinet between Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband, Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary. It goes back more than a decade to August 2013, when Parliament was recalled to debate potential military action by UK armed forces in Syria.

On 21 August, two opposition-controlled areas of Ghouta, just outside Damascus, were hit by rockets containing the deadly nerve agent sarin, killing anywhere between 281 and 1,729 people. It was widely agreed that the Syrian government was responsible for the attacks, though it denied involvement and Assad’s Russian allies claimed it was a false-flag incident staged by the opposition. The United States and France were keen to launch retaliatory air strikes against the Assad régime, on the grounds that the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons against civilians was a step-change in the degree of barbarity it was willing to employ; President François Hollande declared that “France is ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents”, while US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syria that the attacks were a “moral obscenity” and “this international norm cannot be violated without consequences”.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, decided to seek parliamentary approval before initiating a military response, and put a motion to the House of Commons one of the terms of which was that:

A strong humanitarian response is required from the international community and that this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on saving lives by preventing and deterring further use of Syria’s chemical weapons.

Cameron was careful to distinguish military action from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and stressed that the terms of the motion required further parliamentary approval before air strikes. But he was unambiguous in his condemnation of Assad’s actions.

The fact that the Syrian Government have, and have used, chemical weapons is beyond doubt. The fact that the most recent attack took place is not seriously doubted. The Syrian Government have said it took place. Even the Iranian President said that it took place. The evidence that the Syrian regime has used these weapons, in the early hours of 21 August, is right in front of our eyes. We have multiple eye-witness accounts of chemical-filled rockets being used against opposition-controlled areas. We have thousands of social media reports and at least 95 different videos—horrific videos—documenting the evidence… all the evidence we have—the fact that the opposition do not have chemical weapons and the regime does, the fact that it has used them and was attacking the area at the time, and the intelligence that I have reported—is enough to conclude that the regime is responsible and should be held accountable.

Having explained the safeguards, the reservations and the promise of another vote in Parliament, Cameron was clear that the United Kingdom should not rule out military action.

We must not let the spectre of previous mistakes paralyse our ability to stand up for what is right. We must not be so afraid of doing anything that we end up doing nothing… we must play our part in a strong international response; we must be prepared to take decisive action to do so.

Ed Miliband was at this time the Leader of the Opposition. He had tabled an amendment to the government’s motion which set out an even more extensive list of conditions which should be met before military action against Syria should be contemplated, particularly requiring “compelling evidence… that the Syrian regime was responsible for the use of these weapons” and “precise and achievable objectives designed to deter the future use of prohibited chemical weapons in Syria”. He presented the Opposition’s case as one of caution and moderation, but many Members, on both sides, were sceptical that it was all that different from the government’s proposed course of action. One might also wonder—I did at the time—who else might have been responsible for the chemical attacks if not the Assad régime.

The Labour Party’s amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 220, but the substantive motion, approving the government’s plans, was also voted down 285-272. Clearly disappointed, Cameron nonetheless undertook to abide by the opinion of the House of Commons.

I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons. It is very clear tonight that, while the House has not passed a motion, the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the Government will act accordingly.

There were some who felt that the House, and the Opposition, had hobbled the government and that the UK would be diminished in the eyes of its allies. George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the BBC the following morning that there would now be “national soul searching about our role in the world”, and added “I hope this doesn’t become a moment when we turn our back on all of the world’s problems”.

In light of Assad’s fall, and the intervening 11 years of savagery carried out in Syria, Miliband’s stance can seem too cautious and dilatory. Which brings us to the renewed brouhaha: Wes Streeting has suggested that “if the West had acted faster, Assad would have been gone”, and that the decision by Parliament not to take action, among other factors, “created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer”.

Miliband, who now sits around the Cabinet table with Streeting, has rejected this interpretation. Perhaps surprised to be relitigating decisions taken in 2013, he justified his position to Sky News.

Back in 2013 we were confronted with whether we should have a one-off, potential one-off, bombing of Syria but there was no plan for what this British involvement would mean, where it would lead and what the consequences would be and I believed that in the light of the Iraq war we could never send British troops back into combat unless we were absolutely clear about what our plan was, including what an exit strategy was. To those people who say that President Assad would have fallen if we had bombed him in 2013, that is obviously wrong because President Trump bombed president Assad in 2017 and 2018, so he didn’t fall. I welcome the fall of a brutal dictator but I think the view that some people seem to be expressing about history is just wrong.

Inevitably, Streeting has tried to row back on the impression given by his comments. He took to social media to accuse the press of distortion.

I did not criticise Ed. On the contrary, I pointed out the challenges of hindsight, Libya and the uncertainty we face about post-Assad Syria today. It is frustrating, to put it mildly, to see a nuanced answer to a complicated issue presented as criticism of a good colleague.

Recollections may vary. One of the hazards of a relatively long political shelf life—Ed Miliband was first appointed to ministerial office 18½ years ago, after barely a year as an MP—is that it leaves a track record which can be re-examined and debated.

At the time of the vote in August 2013, David Cameron was deeply frustrated by Miliband’s conduct. Downing Street sources accused the Leader of the Opposition of repeatedly changing his position: “To spend the entire time buggering around moving the goalposts is hard to see as anything other than playing politics”. Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader and High Representative and EU Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, wrote a sad-but-damning article in The Observer the weekend after the vote; he said that, while he was proud of the fact that Parliament had exercised its will, he was also “sad; even—dare I say it—a little ashamed at the decision it took”.

What, in this brave new world, will Labour do? Having placed in question its proud tradition of internationalism in pursuit of a mix of genuine concern and political opportunism, will it now join the crowd rushing for the exit, or help lead the way back to saner ground?… criticise the government as one may, we now know the convictions of David Cameron and Nick Clegg—the latter driven by a passionate internationalism. We cannot say the same for Ed Miliband.

Miliband was certainly in tune with public opinion. A poll found 60 per cent of voters opposed to military action, while only 24 per cent were in favour, and nearly half of those surveyed preferred “greater diplomatic pressure on the Syrian regime” such as economic sanctions.

This is not a serious internal rift for the current government. Streeting clearly has no wish to make an issue of it, and Miliband has pushed back hard in his defence of his stance as Leader of the Opposition. It is worth remembering that the former was deputy leader of the Labour group on Redbridge London Borough Council when Miliband was having to decide whether or not to endorse the proposals to strike at Assad’s régime.

As an epilogue, though, it is a useful reminder that a decision not to take action is a positive decision just as much as doing something. Largely because of Ed Miliband and the stance of the Official Opposition, the United Kingdom did nothing to attempt to punish Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people. It may be that taking action would not have been effective either in deterring further use of such weapons, or in hastening the dictator’s fall. But, more than a decade on, we are also entitled to wonder what effect sitting on our hands ultimately had, and what Miliband’s motivations for doing so were.