The return of Tory sleaze?

‘It’s the return of Tory sleaze’: so said Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. His was an assertion immediately echoed by various leading Labour figures across social media. Former prime minister David Cameron’s questionable relationship with Greensill Capital is the immediate occasion for this potentially toxic claim. But Labour clearly hopes to drag Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and many other ministers into the mix. For, as Starmer went on, ‘sleaze’ is ‘at the heart of this Conservative government’.

In contrast, Johnson is seeking to protect himself against the taint of ‘sleaze’ by announcing an inquiry into claims of impropriety. Perhaps it will protect him. But in the meantime, Labour will do its best to advance the case that Cameron’s lobbying of ministers is just the tip of the iceberg, that Johnson’s is an administration intent on looking after its friends and donors, literally at the nation’s expense.

During the Covid crisis, Labour tried to interest the public in ministers’ habit of granting huge contracts to their chums, which often failed to deliver on their promises and left those working on the pandemic frontline bereft of PPE.