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The rot at the heart of Westminster

Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson.

Terina Hine (CounterFire) 23 October 2025

Our political system is increasingly ridden with corruption due to the revolving door between media, business and politics, argues Terina Hine

The 2018 hardback edition of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman, assistant editor of the Spectator, was given a glowing endorsement on its title page by Peter Mandelson. The endorsement was not meant to be ironic.

Such is the cosy relationship between Westminster politicians and journalists. At the time, Mandelson had twice been sacked from ministerial roles for corruption, had a known close relationship with a convicted paedophile, yet was in the midst of being rehabilitated by the Labour right in order to attack Corbyn.

Since the beginnings of New Labour, the political class has become increasingly distant and professionalised: more and more PPE or law graduates who cut their teeth in student politics, fewer and fewer with experience of ordinary working life. Far too many move seamlessly from parliament to senior posts in the media and corporate world, or vice versa. The MP departing the Commons for a lucrative career in the boardroom, greased by deals, corporate ‘gifts’ and ‘relationships’ gained whilst supposedly serving their constituents, has become commonplace.

In Hardman’s book, she refers to a parliamentary culture that enables and encourages MPs to feel superior and entitled, such that even those who entered politics to do good, or those few from a working-class background, such as Angela Rayner, find it almost impossible not become arrogant or be tainted by a sense of impunity.

That Mandelson was appointed as an ambassador beggars belief. That he was appointed as UK ambassador to the US because of, and not despite his history, speaks volumes. Starmer twice defended Mandelson. Fully aware of the case and utterly deaf to public opinion, Starmer said, ‘the ambassador has expressed his deep regret and is now playing an important part in the US/UK relationship.’ As I write, Mandelson still remains a Labour peer in the Lords. Impunity is clearly alive and well.

When Paul Ovenden, ‘top Starmer aide’, resigned over his vile WhatsApp ‘shag, marry, kill’ messages about Diane Abbott, one senior government source said sorrowfully, ‘Keir has relied on him heavily every day since [the election]. His loss to the project is monumental.’ Respected media commentators lamented Ovenden’s departing the political scene for an ‘indiscretion’ committed seven years ago, as if that’s a legitimate excuse. Most believe he will be back.

These scandals are just the latest examples of the rot at the heart of this government. Of course, it’s not just this government that’s rotten.

There was cash for questions in 1994, the expenses scandal in 2004, more recently we had Cameron’s lobbying and billions of pounds worth of Covid-related scandals. The leaks in the ‘Boris Files’ suggest Johnson used his prime-ministerial contacts for personal profit to a far greater extent than previously thought. One stand-out file relates to Johnson’s lucrative, commercial relationships with the Gulf States, a leaf no doubt taken from the Blair playbook.

People are not stupid and the rot is plain to see. The revolving door between politics, the media and the corporate world has resulted in a debasement of our political system that seems beyond repair and has resulted in a huge dissonance between the political class and general public.

This dissonance doesn’t just lead to an ever-continuing cycle of corruption, but also produces massively unpopular policies and disengagement from the political process. Lack of housing reform, support for Israel’s genocide, the two-child benefit cap, disability-benefit cuts, the winter-fuel allowance cuts; these examples show that ignoring public opinion lost the government considerable political support and credibility regardless of its parliamentary majority.

The dysfunction surrounding the launch of Your Party revealed how important it is for even the best of our MPs not to become divorced from the masses and movements that lend them support. If we want an end to the rot in politics, political power must become rooted in mass membership and the trade-union and social movements, and the media disentangled from the political elites and corporate world.

Without this, the Westminster stage will remain inhabited by the wrong politicians: an unrepresentative, tone-deaf Labour government and ragbag Tory opposition with Reform eagerly waiting in the wings.
https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-rot-at-the-heart-of-westminster/

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