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3 hours ago
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In theory, Tulip Siddiq’s resignation as a junior Treasury minister ought to be a political bump in the road for Keir Starmer, not a pothole crash. Siddiq is a moderately interesting politician, but not a major one. She is not a household name. She is therefore expendable. The government’s direction is unaffected by her departure.
Naturally it is a grim personal moment for Siddiq. But it is mostly a matter of indifference to the British public. This is as it should be. Few ministers ever cut through widely. Even fewer resignations stand out – Geoffrey Howe, Robin Cook and Sajid Javid are among the exceptions, perhaps. Most ministers who resign, though, are simply washed away with the political tide. This is likely to be Siddiq’s fate.
Yet her departure is full of lessons. The first is that she was the principal author of her own downfall. She should have known, much more clearly than she appears to have done, that her London housing and property circumstances raised questions, about which the fullest transparency would be required if she were to become a minister – especially the minister in charge of combating City corruption.
All this was enhanced by her relationship to the ruling family of Bangladesh at the time she became a Treasury minister. Siddiq’s grandfather had been the founding president of Bangladesh. Her aunt Sheikh Hasina had been the country’s increasingly repressive prime minister for the past 15 years before she was overthrown in August, a month after Labour won in Britain. Siddiq should have been much more bold and proactive, before and after Hasina’s fall, about ensuring that all her affairs were steel-plated against challenge or insinuation.
The responsibility was not, however, hers alone. Labour campaigned relentlessly in 2024 to restore trust in politics. Its manifesto made promises of a political clean-up a central pitch to voters. Starmer appointed Sue Gray well in advance to prepare the party for government. One of her tasks was surely to put all prospective ministers through the wringer about their financial affairs and any links to questionable companies or regimes. If politics and government were to be extricated from the pit into which they had fallen – something this country desperately needs – this was a supreme Labour priority.
Yet it did not happen. Indeed, when Labour was challenged about Siddiq’s property arrangements in 2022, the party circled the wagons around her. This became a pattern. Starmer’s and Gray’s Labour was too complacent about its leaders’ circumstances. Starmer and senior colleagues, including Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, accepted gifts of accommodation, clothing and entertainment. When challenged, they tried to brush the facts aside rather than apologising or tightening the rules.
Siddiq’s case echoes these episodes. As the independent adviser on ministerial standards, Laurie Magnus, concluded on Tuesday, Siddiq’s closeness to Sheikh Hasina was no fault of her own, but inescapably exposed her to the possibility of allegations of misconduct by association. “It is regrettable that she was not more alert to the potential reputational risks – both to her and the government,” Magnus wrote. That puts it mildly.
Starmer himself must take some blame. Having made such an issue of trust and probity in opposition, the prime minister failed to make them a priority as soon as he came into office. It was not until November that Starmer issued his own update of the ministerial code, the document that sets out the rules of conduct for government ministers. He should have published it on day one. Labour seems to have thought that merely electing a Labour government was transformation enough. It was not.
As it turns out, the code may now have been exposed as too weak and too generalised, and may need strengthening. Siddiq has pointed out that Magnus concluded she had not breached the code. This is true. But, as his words quoted above show, Magnus did not give her a full exoneration. The code says ministers have a duty to “ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise”. But maybe “ministers’ duty” is too vague a test as well as an inadequate one.
That is especially true because of the nature of the political world today. Lack of trust in government and lack of confidence in politics are the products of many causes. Politicians and ministers are not the only ones to blame. Media – mainstream and social – have also helped to drive trust and confidence downwards. Media focus on political fault-finding has helped to form a generation of politicians who are terrified of saying anything difficult, complex or memorable.
One result of this media ascendancy is a tendency to exaggerate small events into big ones. This can cut both ways for government. Today’s announcement that the inflation rate had fallen from 2.6% to 2.5% was a classic piece of narcissism of small differences. It was widely depicted as a significant, if unexpected, piece of good news, rather than as the kind of minor variation that is likely to be revised up or down slightly in a few weeks.
Siddiq’s resignation exemplifies a personal failing that illustrates what is almost a systemic crisis. Her sins seem more foolish and sloppy than venal – and there was never a bygone age in which ministers could rely on surviving an embarrassment. Siddiq’s resignation shows how modern politics has become exceptionally unforgiving about relatively small matters. But it also shows how ill-equipped so many modern politicians are to change it.
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Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
