John Bowers KC interview

Will Barber-Taylor: Hello and welcome. In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by John Bowers, Principal of Brasenose College and author of the forthcoming book, Downward Spiral.

John Bowers: Hi, it is nice to be here.

Will Barber-Taylor: It is wonderful to have you. The first question I would like to ask is: what made you decide to write the book in the first place?

John Bowers: I was concerned for some time about the decline in standards in public life, especially during the Johnson regime. What particularly caught my attention was the case of Priti Patel when she was criticised by the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests. The report was held back for around seven months; it was unclear who had written it, and she did not resign. The only person who did was the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests. I thought it was a good idea to write about this, particularly coming up to 30 years after the Nolan Principles, to see whether they were still adhered to or whether they needed to be updated, and whether our system of ethical regulation was fit for purpose.

Will Barber-Taylor: One of the things that you discuss in the first chapter of the book is about historic corruption and lack of ethics in politics. How important do you think it is to make the point on how standards have fallen? Is what we have seen in recent years a new phenomenon or the worst version of that historic corruption?

John Bowers: I think there have always been times when there have been problems with public standards. This does not mean corruption in the legal sense, but that of a lack of morality and ethics, although the Baldwin and Attlee governments were relatively scandal-free. I argue in the book that the period of Boris Johnson in Number 10 was the most corrupt and immoral in the UK since Lloyd George. There was a brazenness about the misdoings and a tsunami of issues, one after another. Maybe that was because of populism and the security of a big majority, but it was a lack of ethics that brought him down in the end. I felt it was necessary to give a historical perspective. I wanted to test whether the Johnson period was an aberration or whether it was necessary to change our system, which for so long has relied on the idea that ministers, and in particular the Prime Minister, would be a good actor, as Peter Hennessy would put it, a “good chap”.

Will Barber-Taylor: Boris Johnson is a very controversial figure in many ways, regarded differently by different groups of people. You mention in the book certain feelings of warmth towards him in the run-up to the 2019 general election in Grimsby. What do you think it says, both about the Conservative Party and the political system at large, that someone with a record like his was able to become Prime Minister? Particularly regarding the fact that he was not exactly scandal-free before he became Prime Minister. 

John Bowers: I do not want to be too party political about this, and the book is not party political. But I do think that his leadership is indicative of a lack of checks and balances. He did have and does have strength. You mentioned Grimsby because that is my hometown, and I still have a house there. I think there are three reasons why people there really liked him. Firstly, he simplified politics when other politicians made it more complicated. Secondly, he had a sunny disposition and was not doing ‘gloomsters’, as he would have put it. Thirdly, he would be a good person to have a beer with in a Grimsby hostel, and I think people still feel that. But it is extraordinary that someone with his track record, which I look at in great depth, perhaps too much depth in the book, of misleading people, was able to succeed. I suppose, at the end of the day, that is democracy. However, I think it has exposed how we cannot rely on informal conventions and people behaving as good actors. We have to at least identify and codify the conventions that apply to the Prime Minister, because there is very little in law about the position. We need to make sure that the bodies that adjudicate or comment on the Prime Minister are in statute and cannot be abolished without a big row. That particularly applies to the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests. I think it was right to concentrate a great deal on him and his personality in presenting him.

Will Barber-Taylor: Two particular roles of czars and non-executive directors seemed to grow during his time as Prime Minister. Could you explain what you mean by these roles and their significance under Boris Johnson?

John Bowers: The significance is that neither role falls within the public appointment rules. These rules are relatively strict, probably not strict enough, but are designed to prevent complete politicisation of the roles and to allow appointments on merit. Czars are appointed to look at particular policy areas. Some, such as during the fracking craze, only lasted a couple of years, but others have been around for some time, like the czar for troubled families. During COVID, the vaccine area, insofar as it was not Kate Bingham who was dealing with the executive responsibility, was under the czar, Lord Deighton. They can influence policy, deep dive into particular areas, and while they are much commented on in the press, there is no regulation at all. Thus, the public appointment system can be completely subverted by setting up a czar.

Non-executive directors have existed since the Blair government, but have expanded further under this Conservative administration. The original idea was to use business people to guide departments and it depends on the character of the Secretary of State as to how influential they are. My investigations and much of the book are based on interviews with insiders, some of whom are named and some of whom retained anonymity. Many told me that non-executive directors can be extremely influential: Lord Butler, the former Cabinet Secretary, told me that he was very sceptical of their roles. The book demonstrates that there is simply no coverage of this by the Commissioner for Public Appointments, so the political cronies of ministers are often appointed. This became more acute under the Johnson government than it had been previously.

Will Barber-Taylor: Another area that you look at that has been quite abused, I think, is perhaps the nicest way of putting it, is lobbying. Do you think that lobbying can be justified? Are there those who would argue that it can have a positive and even altruistic effect? To look at lobbying simply as negative and self-interested can perhaps diminish its complexity and its role as a part of our institution.

John Bowers: I absolutely agree, and it partly depends on what we mean by lobbying. If you take it as a very wide definition, any action to influence the legislature or civil servants, or special advisors, then it can enhance the democratic process because it enables legislators and civil servants to be better informed. Politicians simply do not have the resources to get across all the issues. This was well put by Sir Nigel Boardman in his review into the Greensill affair when he said, “It can provide decision makers with insights and data and enables the government to understand the impact of public policy on those it may affect.” However, and this is a big however, the public must know who is doing the lobbying, on whose behalf they are working, because it often happens in the darkness. Increasingly, pressure groups and research institutions are a disguised proxy for the lobbyists: we need to know that. Scott Benton, one of the Blackpool MPs, recently conducted undisclosed lobbying for gambling interests, and this means that he will probably lose his seat. Now, we have a “regulation”, the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists, but this only covers a very small part of the industry. Employed lobbyists or multidisciplinary organisations like law firms, increasingly operating in this area, are not covered. 

In the book, I argue that we need more transparency throughout. David Cameron, as leader of the Opposition, said that lobbying was the next scandal waiting to happen. This centred around “words in the air” over lunch that people did not know. Ironically, he was the person who was at the heart of the Greensill scandal. I do not suppose he thought that would be the scandal. But I think you are right. You could say that some of the most influential lobbying organisations are trade unions and the big charities. However, in those cases, we know exactly who they are and what they are doing. It is more the insidious nature of the word in the ear, away from the public gaze, that is the problem. It is too easy for the registers kept by civil servants to say things like “general discussions.” Or, if it is at a party event, and this is the Conservative, Labour, Lib Dems, the Reform Party as well, it is just not recorded at all. I think that is wrong.

Will Barber-Taylor: In the twelfth chapter of the book, you deal with MPs having second jobs and ACOBA. ACOBA is perhaps infamous, particularly if people read Private Eye, with the jobs and the time limits it puts on MPs taking second jobs or jobs after they are no longer Members of Parliament. What would you say are the major weaknesses of the current system?

John Bowers: The clue is in the name, Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. It should not be advisory, it should be compulsory, and it should have the power to enforce. There are a lot of politicians, including the aforementioned Boris Johnson and George Osborne, who did not put their jobs through ACOBA at all. There is no compulsion to tell ACOBA what you are doing, and they cannot investigate these roles. Private Eye seems to know more about many of the roles than ACOBA does.

I think the particular issue is in defence, where there is a revolving door between senior military figures and the rather few defence contractors that are left. There is an expectation that you move from a senior military role into a defence procurement company. I think that is far too lax. In the book, I call this a cohort system: one cohort lags behind the future cohorts, and that cohort gets into the same thing. I think we have to look at that and make it statutory. We have to give it investigative powers so it can issue an injunction to prevent somebody from acting in breach. I think it only has about three staff as well, which seems very underwhelming.

Will Barber-Taylor: I think you have already touched upon this, but to what extent do you believe that the lack of codification of our political system, and the assumption that politicians are good actors, good chaps, has led to an inevitable, but of course inexcusable, abuse and corruption of our political system?

John Bowers: What is very interesting, and what I do not address in the book, and maybe it deserves a further book, is whether there should be a written constitution. There are real arguments against that, and in the present fractured political system, there could not be a consensus about its contents. But I think there is a role for the codification of our conventions, so that everybody knows where they stand. I think the role of the Prime Minister, what they should do and not do, should be much clearer. Also, I think that, because we have expected politicians to act ethically, we have not produced the more intrusive and perhaps more legalistic regulation that I think is appropriate now. This has left space for bad acting to take place.

Will Barber-Taylor: Absolutely. We are coming towards the end of the podcast. John, thank you for taking the time to speak to me. I do have one final question. For anyone who has read the book, what is the one thing that you hope they take away from reading the book?

John Bowers: Firstly, we cannot rely on people being good chaps: we have to look at the system. Secondly, ethical regulations are too diffuse at the moment, with too little investigative power. I do not think that a single ethical regulator is appropriate because I think that would be a single point of failure. But ethical regulators should work more closely together, and in recent scandals, several different bodies have examined the same thing. For Greensill, four bodies were involved, and they all came to a similar conclusion. That was just extra work. In the case of the refurbishment of Number 10, the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests effectively acquitted Johnson. The Electoral Commission, which has an investigative role and is statutory, came to a much tougher verdict. I think they need to work together and be placed on a statutory basis so that they cannot be abolished. Those are the two main messages, but the book has a few more, so I hope people read it.

Will Barber-Taylor: It has many more, and I am sure people will read it after listening to the podcast. Thank you once again for coming on, John. If people want to buy a copy of the book, where should they go to purchase it?

John Bowers: Any good bookshop. It is published by Manchester University Press.

Will Barber-Taylor: Fantastic. Thank you once again.

Note: This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and flow. The original recording is the final and definitive version.