A quiz question: who wrote in April 2022: “Honesty and integrity matter in our politics, and for our democracy. Today the Conservatives failed to stand up for either.”? Yes, you guessed it, that little vignette, gleefully rubbing salt into Boris Johnson’s gaping wounds, was authored by none other than our esteemed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.
And who could disagree with her about the importance of honesty and integrity? Of course they are important. Crucial, in fact. But if you’re going to point your wagging lefty finger at your opponents, you’d better make darn sure that your own past is free of blemish or blame.
And that, of course, is impossible. All of us, even Reeves, are sinners. None of us, however virtuous we might believe our politics to be, can claim to be free of fault, deception or some form of dishonesty at some stage in our lives. And these days, it’s all there, somewhere, on the Internet.
That’s why it is so dangerous – crushingly stupid even – to weaponise the issue of integrity. Because at some stage your opponents will discover something about you just by asking Mr Google and his close mate Mr Twitter. And you will not only then be accused of lying, as Rachel Reeves is now, but of the ultimate political sin: rank hypocrisy. The British people will forgive a lot, but we draw the line at hypocrites.
And let’s be blunt about this. No political party in British history, and, for all I know, world history, has used the issue of “integrity” quite as ruthlessly as Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. It was never enough for them merely to disagree with the Conservative government, or to try to explain why Labour might be a better bet. No, they chose instead to overreach by a country mile, telling the public that the Conservatives weren’t just wrong, but were uniquely dishonest, disreputable and corrupt. Venal, vile and vituperative. I mean, what about that piece of cake Boris ate!
In normal circumstances, I really couldn’t care less whether Rachel Reeves editorialised her CV to make it sound more impressive, or whether she incorrectly claimed to be a junior chess champion when really she wasn’t at all, or whether she was actually working in retail banking rather than as an economist as she suggested, or whether she claimed credit for something she’d actually nicked from Wikipedia.
Yes, she stands accused of all those things, and they’re all, in their own way, a little reprehensible. But it’s not like she drowns puppies in her spare time.
Yet, when we consider just how ruthlessly Reeves and Starmer laid into their political opponents for their own human failings, I have to ask why we should show Reeves any leniency at all. Why should we forgive her for natural human failings when she fails to do the same for others, and when she actually goes further and says they’re not fit for office?
And why, for that matter, should we believe her when she says she discovered a “black hole” of £22 billion in the public accounts? Why should we take a blind bit of notice when she claims to have had the worst economic inheritance of any incoming Chancellor since the war? Why, in fact, should we believe that for all her virtue-signalling and posturing during her grubby budget speech this month that she is anything other than the kind of politician she accuses Boris Johnson of being?
Once you get a reputation for lying, it’s tough to recover. But once you’re seen as a hypocrite, it’s impossible. That is the hole that Reeves has dug for herself.
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