Another lordly politician gives up

Yet another non-MP elevated to to the House of Lords so that he could join Gordons Brown’s ‘government of all the talents’ - hence the nickname, ‘goats’ - has announced he’s quitting politics and disappearing off into the sunset with his peerage.

Lord Malloch Brown, who the prime minister brought in from a senior post at the UN, is leaving his job as minister for Africa, Asia and the UN because of “strong personal and family reasons”.
 
When first appointed, Malloch Brown admitted that he was unprepared for the cut and thrust of government, saying he was “a bit like the bewildered Dr Who figure who stepped out of the Tardis. Press and political relations have been made into a contact sport.”
 
But he retained the prime minister’s loyalty, especially after he organised the G20 summit in London, and leaves after two years, as he had said he would, on good terms with Brown - their two families went on a joint excursion to London Zoo last weekend.
 
His resignation highlights the number of ‘goats’ who have been given fast-track peerages and then promptly left the government. Now only Lord Darzi, a health minister, and Lord West, the former admiral who was appointed security minister, remain.
 
One of the ‘goats’ on the way out is Lord Carter of Barnes, who is leaving the government this summer after the publication of his ‘Digital Britain’ report, which proposes broadband access for every home in the country.

He used to be plain Stephen Carter, a London PR man who swapped a number of lucrative roles in the private sector to become Brown’s strategy advisor in January 2008. When that didn’t work out - he quickly fell out with Number Ten spin doctor Damian McBride, who thought him naïve - Brown promoted him to the government, making him communications minister and giving him a seat in the Lords to enable him to do the job.

But Lord Carter lasted only seven months as a minister before deciding he’d prefer to return to the private sector.
 
Then there’s Lord Digby Jones, the former CBI director-general who was created a peer in 2007 so he could become both a trade minister and a foreign minister, allowing him to travel to promote British trade overseas. Less than a year after he joined the government he told colleagues he would leave before the next election because he did not want to be put on the spot over his political sympathies.

He finally went last October, having proved himself an uncompromising politician. In an interview with the Financial Times he questioned the wisdom of the government's decision to tax "non-doms" more heavily and before he left he said half the civil servants he had worked with should be sacked.

There have been calls for ministers who serve for such a short period of time and then head swiftly back to the private sector to have there peerages revoked.

But there’s another suggestion, which John Major and Douglas Hurd made in a recent Times article, which would remove the need for hasty peerages altogether - by allowing non-parliamentarians to hold Cabinet posts. This would risk compromising the link between Britain’s legislature and its executive, but it would be no different from what the Americans and the French already allow. ·