Morality is not a cliff edge. You don’t skip merrily along the path of integrity one moment, before diving into a great chasm of indecency and dishonesty the next. There is a sweeping path that slowly erodes probity, one step at a time.
Watching the probe into Whitehall parties, it is easy to question what on earth those involved were thinking. How could anyone could sit, coveted and closeted behind Downing Street doors, sipping their wine with friends and colleagues, while demanding the rest of country remained locked away from their loved ones?
No doubt there was a culture in Whitehall, in the very depths of the Government, that gradually eroded the rules and made it seem acceptable. Now Sheffield chief executive Kate Josephs has held her hands up too – admitting her mistake.
Local government tends to be more cognisant of its actions. Would a council hold a party for staff in a lockdown? I’m told not.
While someone somewhere is bound to have broken the rules, council staff are face-to-face with the public every day. They have backbench and opposition councillors in the building. In short, council staff are visible, so the culture is more careful.
Ms Josephs has apologised and may yet pay a heavy price for her lapse in reason. I don’t wish to dwell on her misfortune. But what has also emerged is that Sheffield City Council was repeatedly asked about the chief executive’s attendance at Westminster parties – and the suggestion was flatly denied.
Perhaps it was a technicality; that the press team was only asked about Downing Street shindigs, not Cabinet office leaving dos. But it is a sign of the times, a gentle eroding of honesty that has happened in recent years – modelled by ministers, but all too frequently, adopted at a local level.
Too often, officers, members and comms staff take great glee in winning one over a local journalist – while taking great pains to build trust within their community. Somehow, they miss the point – they are lying to the community.
Under its masthead, The Washington Post has a subheading: In darkness democracy dies. You can’t claim to be a seat of democracy, to skip along the cliff path of integrity and then refuse to shine a light down into the chasm every now and then.
