The very first thing to notice in regards to the messages from key Starmer aide Paul Ovenden making sexual and derogatory feedback about Diane Abbott is that they’re sexist, repugnant, unprofessional and extremely offensive.
The second factor to notice is that Ovenden’s rapid resignation as Director of Technique in Downing Avenue is precisely what the Prime Minister didn’t want, days after the departures of Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson, when his place as Labour chief is trying extra precarious than anybody imagined attainable 14 months after a historic election victory. Whereas hardly a family identify, Ovenden was one of many longest-serving members of Keir Starmer’s workforce, and he leaves the PM much more remoted with the Labour Get together Convention – at which Starmer will probably be combating for his political life – on the horizon.
The messages from eight years in the past are the most recent chapter in a disaster inside Downing Avenue that’s widening, elevating questions on Starmer’s judgement, authority and future. This may be the case regardless of the nature of the scandal that has resulted in one more resignation.
However with out both underplaying the inappropriateness of the messages or the headache it creates for an already beleaguered No 10, it’s price taking a second to consider what has occurred right here – and what it means for the federal government. Not Starmer’s authorities – any authorities.
Ovenden despatched the messages to a feminine Labour staffer in a non-public dialog by way of the Labour Get together’s inside immediate message system in 2017, when he was a junior press officer and Jeremy Corbyn was Labour chief. Eight years later, their emergence – leaked to journalists at a essential second for this authorities – damages not simply Ovenden’s repute however Starmer’s. The mere existence of messages Starmer is unlikely to have identified existed is sufficient to tarnish him. Apparently, nobody is suggestion they need to tarnish Corbyn, who was in spite of everything accountable for the Labour Get together when these terrible issues about Diane Abbott have been really being stated. It didn’t occur on Starmer’s watch, nevertheless it has now very a lot grow to be Starmer’s drawback.
Take into consideration that for a second. Take into consideration the implication that each political chief is answerable for each remark ever made – not simply on social media however in personal messages or WhatsApps – at any time by any individual they rent or affiliate with. Take into consideration the sheer variety of digital communications despatched in private and non-private areas each day. Take into consideration your individual message historical past, and the way assured you might be that there’s nothing you’ve gotten stated previously decade or so that might horrify your employer, or your accomplice, or the general public have been it to be splashed throughout the newspapers.
We will argue, in fact, that larger requirements ought to apply to these in excessive workplace. However no matter whether or not we take into account Downing Avenue Director of Technique to fulfill that threshold (advisers will not be elected politicians), Ovenden was a junior staffer in his twenties when he recounted the ill-fated model of “snog, marry, keep away from”. Are we denying any job in politics to anybody who has ever stated one thing questionable – even horrendously offensive or sexually specific – in a dialog they thought was personal?
If that’s the bar, it’s a brand new one. Politics nonetheless hasn’t labored out learn how to take care of messages despatched whereas persons are really in authorities jobs, not to mention earlier than they begin. Again in 2023, Westminster reeled on the WhatsApps revealed as a part of the Covid inquiry that exposed key figures – Dominic Cummings amongst them – utilizing despicable language (“ineffective fuckpigs” involves thoughts), threatening civil servants, or making mild of hundreds of pandemic deaths. Was this a case of officers underneath unimaginable stress blowing off steam in what they thought was a secure area, or proof of their callous and chaotic strategy to dealing with a nationwide disaster? We by no means determined – however MPs learnt an necessary lesson: set your WhatsApp messages to auto-delete so nothing can come again to chunk you sooner or later.
In the event that they did not get the image then, they acquired a refresher course at first of the 2025, when as soon as once more previous WhatsApp messages (this time from 2019-2022) led to the suspension of two Labour MPs. (One among them – sacked well being minister Andrew Gwynne – might by the way be Andy Burnham’s route again into parliament – however that’s one other story.) Auto-delete is now the default setting for the overwhelming majority of MPs.
This has implications for transparency, to not point out the sensible challenges it raises when there’s by no means a file of something. The unintended penalties of each accepting that the enterprise of politics and even authorities is now routinely carried out by way of WhatsApp or different platforms, and incentivising publics officers to make sure what they are saying on these channels disappears into the ether, is that FOI requests rapidly lose their worth – and it turns into that a lot more durable to carry politicians to account.
Whereas we’re grappling with the query of learn how to steadiness the necessity for accountability with the fact that folks in nerve-racking jobs are prone to decompress with colleagues, made near-impossible by WhatsApp’s twin perform as each the medium of official communications and a digital chat down the pub, we now have one other ethical quandary concerning messages and posts uncovered years after they have been despatched.
WhatsApp was launched in 2009, Fb in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. The norms of communications have modified an enormous quantity in that point. Digital skeletons will not be a danger however an inevitability. Clearly there’s a scale, from misguided to abhorrent to downright legal, nevertheless it’s a subjective one that’s impacted as a lot by the political context of the day because the feedback themselves. Ovenden’s try and recategorise the Diane Abbott messages as a “foolish dialog” might need held extra water had Starmer not made integrity such a key a part of his platform, or if the Prime Minister wasn’t on the identical time fielding questions and accusations about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Regardless, we’re unlikely to see a world by which everybody making use of for any job in politics has to offer not simply their full social media historical past however each personal communication they’ve ever despatched on-line – communication that previously would have been performed on the cellphone or in individual, with no written hint – for pre-emptive vetting. What which means is that any minister, of any get together, is barely ever one leak away from spoil. Digital ghosts will come to hang-out all of them. Their survival will rely upon how successfully they will brazen out a degree of scrutiny that’s inconsistently utilized and goes past something their pre-internet predecessors ever needed to face. The precise work of governing will probably be derailed every time a political opponent will get maintain of ammunition everybody is aware of is on the market. And we – the general public – could have infinite possibilities to really feel self-righteous, whereas questioning why none of our representatives appear in a position to repair the nation.