Principle or Partisanship?

It is curious how quickly the principle of responsibility becomes selective.

When Jacob Rees-Mogg advised the late Queen to prorogue Parliament, and the Supreme Court later ruled it unlawful, nobody serious suggested Her late Majesty should have abdicated. The monarch acts on ministerial advice. Responsibility lay with those who gave it. The liar, if liar there was, owned the lie.

Fast forward. Mandelson gives assurances. Vetting is sought. On current public information there were no ignored warnings, no suppressed intelligence, no red flags knowingly overridden. Later, those assurances unravel. Suddenly we are told the Prime Minister must fall because he trusted them.

So which principle are we applying?

Either we accept that responsibility for deception lies with the person who deceives, or we invent a doctrine in which anyone who relies in good faith on formal vetting must resign the moment that trust proves misplaced.

Political accountability still sits at the top. Of course it does. But accountability is not the same as culpability. The liar owns the lie. The appointer owns the decision made on the basis of it.

If further evidence were to show that Starmer ignored clear warnings or knowingly brushed aside serious concerns, then yes, he should go. That would cross the line from misjudgement into negligence.

But deciding that he must resign now, absent such evidence, is not constitutional principle. It is tribal politics dressed up as moral outrage.

Standards either apply consistently, or they are just tribal weapons swung at whoever happens to be in office.