What would you give up to be Prime Minister?

There’s a cost to public service.

James Sampson-Foster

James is a priest in the Church of England.

A smartly dressed politician talks while being interviewed

Prime Minister Keir Starmer responds to the gifts story.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Government recently celebrated 100 days in office.

I say celebrated – I expect there hasn’t been much celebrating.

For one, it’s not much of a milestone - though admittedly it is one that hasn’t been cleared by all of the Prime Minister’s recent predecessors.

But in truth, in those 100 days, there hasn’t been much cause to celebrate.

Sure, there was the biggest Labour majority since 1997, with the keys to Downing Street falling into Starmer’s lap wrapped up in a bow.

But the shine wore off fast, and the honeymoon period is well and truly over.

If the keys to Number 10 arrived for Labour like a gift, it’s perhaps some poetry that it is the recent scandal about gifts which has contributed to the rapid tarnishing of Labour’s 2024 election winner’s crown.

Clothes worth thousands of pounds. Concert tickets. VIP boxes for football games.

The gifts of wealthy donors to a party whose election narrative was to make a reset in the standards of integrity in public life.

What has been remarkable in the middle of this scandal has been the absence of any apology.

Some gifts may have been handed back – but not all. At the time of writing, out of the £100,000 worth of gifts and free tickets he has received, the Prime Minister has generously agreed to hand back £6,000.

Instead of a fulsome apology, some gifts, like those VIP tickets to football games, have been defended.

Why?

Well, the line has been that it makes good sense for the Prime Minister to accept them.

The Prime Minister has said that ‘As a result of security, I can’t go in the stand anymore’ going on to say that the tickets mean that ‘I can continue to do something which is really special to me’.

With the risk of upsetting all the Arsenal season ticket holders in the room – I’m going to say something unpopular.

Maybe going to see the football is just something you have to give up when you become Prime Minister.

At the heart of leadership is sacrifice.

Perhaps we, and the Labour party, have lost sight of that.

To serve others, leaders are called to give up their comforts, their self-interests and their control over their own lives.

As public servants, our leaders should remember the example of the Public Servant who laid down all he had to give his life as a ransom for all.

It is in the example of the Public Servant that our ‘reset’ in the standards of public life must begin.

It is a high standard, but it’s the only standard worth following.

Snippet

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

Death & life

29 November 2024

2 min read

Assisted dying: truly a black Friday

The UK takes a step into the bleak unknown.

Graham Tomlin

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

Four MPs stand at a table with heads bowed.

Assisted dying vote tellers acknowledge the result.

Parliament TV.

So, the House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted suicide. When the result was announced there was an audible gasp in the House. There were no cries of victory or whoops of delight. Maybe it was a sense of the gravity of what the MPs had just done. Presumably there was some relief for those who had advocated a change to the law but for those who were against it, a deep, deep sadness.

The arguments have been rehearsed many times over the past few weeks, although to be honest it feels like this debate has been extraordinarily rushed, given the gravity of the step we have just taken. Of course, the bill now needs to be scrutinised and voted on further, and it may yet fail.

Of course, not every Christian is against a change to the law. And I do feel the strength of the argument for individuals in extreme pain as death approaches. Yet the more I have thought about it, the more convinced I have become that this is a grave error. I worry that as we all grow towards old age, this decision will open the gates to an intolerable choice. Numerous people, especially the elderly and confused, those who go through depressive episodes or whose lives are in a mess and need encouragement and support not the suggestion of an easy way out, will be tempted to take a drastic step that before, would not have been possible.

Surely one of the best defences against suicide is simply to make it unthinkable, so it's not really an option, however bad things get. Once it becomes not only an option but even in some cases recommended, we have opened a door that should have remained closed. As someone said about the progress of MAID in Canada, what started as occasional permission gradually became a viable option, and now risks turning into an obligation.

Whatever happens, there is need for further vigilance - to protect the vulnerable, to hold those who advocated for change to the safeguards they put in place, to keep pushing for investment in palliative care. And as far as possible, to keep this as an option for the very few.

Yet those things seem much harder to do now. If life is the gift of God; if the attempt to control everything, even our last moments in the mystery of death is a pathological mistake of modernity; if exalting personal autonomy over all other considerations is a denial of our interdependence; if being cared for by others in our last moments is more important than the assertion of personal choice, then this seems to be a moment when as a society we have embraced death, not life. It does feel truly a black Friday.