Why do we not allow police and the judiciary to accept gifts?
Because they're inherently less trustworthy than politicians?
Or because the practice carries inherent moral hazard?
I would say that if the police cannot be trusted to accept gifts then neither can politicians.
Yes, it may very well be within the "rules" as they stand now but those rules were made a very long time ago for people who viewed public service as a vocation (Churchill, Eden, Heath, Wilson) not a path to personal wealth.
While many MPs still may view public service as a vocation, we have seen numerous egregious examples in the very recent past of MPs for whom public service was a route to riches.
Therefore I would suggest, going forward, MPs should be held to the same standard as the police & judiciary.
Or at the *very* least, the same as the civil service.
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I'm Armed Forces. I understand explicitly why the Public Sector are not permitted to accept gifts.
And it isn't anything to do with "trustworthiness". Nothing at all, and in fact the Police and the Judiciary are, if anything "more trustworthy" than Joe Bloggs.. And I can substantiate that with hard evidence.
Persons within those roles and with those responsibilities have undergone wide reaching Security Checks. For instance - I have what is known as a "Developed Vetting". My background, personal life, family, finances, associations with foreigners and organisations, etc, have been scrutinised in detail to substantiate whether I am actually trustworthy enough to hold a high level Security Clearance to be able to be given "frequent and unsupervised access to Top Secret material"... I undergo yearly Security Appraisals as well as the 7-to-10 year full and detailed scrutinisation. I am also required to inform the Service if any of my material circumstances change - such details as any significant money received from any source, or associations with foreign nationals.
So I can substantiate that a professional agency has scrutinised me closely and have taken the active judgement that I am trustworthy.
So to completely refute your words, with conviction, this is nothing to do with "trustworthiness", nothing at all. You are categorically wrong to imply this.
The real reason is that it is a matter of "optics".
Although I have been actively stamped up as trustworthy, it is a matter of whether something might "appear" to be an inducement to provide more favourable behaviour. It's silly, really, but I guess this is where we are when the general public swallow the "silliness" of the bent biased press. The silly and sometimes stupid and gullible general public who are incapable of thinking or of analysis.
In the end you just have to ask yourself one single and simple question - why is it that Starmer is taking a huge string of criticism, when this "gift" subject has not been raised once in the previous 10 years, (despite his gifts being dwarfed in value by most of the cabinet members of the previous government)?
People with a propensity to use their own brain and powers of analysis, with complete dispassion, instead of being guided by bias or led by biased (bad) actors, would conclude the only credible answer to that question:
Deliberate fabricated bad press.
That said, I'm out - I can no longer bear to engage with the gibberish and biased hogwash that people are precipitating on this story, because it is nothing short of absurd.
