ALEXANDER PARKER: Labour Party’s ministerial excess offers lessons for SA’s new government

If attaining power is a long swim through shark-infested waters, being in power is even harder. There are striking similarities between our “government of national unity” (rainbow branding for a fractious coalition government) and the new administration in the UK. Specifically, do the new ministers have their eyes on the ball or not?

There, MP Rosie Duffield this weekend fired off an incendiary resignation letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In it she said: “Since the change of government in July the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”

A technocrat parachuted into senior politics, Starmer was elected in a landslide that flatters his appeal, with a split conservative vote combining with the vagaries of the UK’s first-past-the-post system delivering him a stonking majority.

It’s not going well. Starmer is in the eye of a storm the UK press describes as “sleaze”. In this country we call it patronage. Reports have revealed that Starmer, the UK’s finance minister and others have accepted gifts such as nice frocks, luxurious holidays, expensive eyewear, and tickets to football matches and Taylor Swift concerts valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds from a wealthy Labour peer, Lord Alli. His only price for such largesse is a permanent pass to Number 10 (the equivalent of the presidency).

“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party,” Duffield said. Her resignation is not only a sign of restive Labour backbenchers, the majority of whom were elected on slim constituency majorities by voters tired of Tory incompetence and buffoonery. It also reflects how quickly electoral fortunes can change. In three months, according to polling done by Opinium, Starmer’s ratings have plunged 45 points to a low even worse than that of Rishi Sunak just three months ago.

There are important lessons in all of this for SA political parties that are also not accustomed to power, and have historically decried ministerial excess. In February last year the DA flayed the ANC government because it “can today reveal that the mansions occupied by ANC ministers and deputy ministers in Cape Town and Pretoria are collectively worth a staggering R967m.

“While it is accepted global practice for top government leaders such as the president, deputy president and premiers to occupy official residences ... it is difficult to justify why each and every ANC minister and deputy minister who presided over the collapse of every public service and government department in this country should continue to live like rock stars,” the party concluded.

“Are they delivering services to the people of the country that justify this?” asked Leon Schreiber, now home affairs minister but then shadow public service & administration minister.

Minsters living in comfortable and safe state-funded accommodation is not necessarily a bad idea, but I would be keen to know, now that opposition parties are in government, whether its ministers have decided to keep their promises on lean government. Are the coalition ministers living up to their parties’ statements on ministerial excess?

Coalition ministers should disclose whether they have moved into state-funded luxury houses, whether they use the blue-light convoys they have historically railed against, whether taxpayers have bought them new cars, whether they interrogate the real value for every overseas trip they take, and whether they fly first class or business. This is a matter of integrity that will loom large in voters’ minds not just in 2029 but also in 2026.

This really matters, because in the absence of the DA, the person we are left to rely on to hold government to account is leader of the opposition John Hlophe. While I can accept that Hlophe’s career has demonstrated pioneering achievements in jurisprudence, he’s probably not the person we really want in this critical role.

As with Labour in the UK, so in the DA there are rumblings that the party’s purpose has drifted, that its involvement in the coalition is muzzling its critical approach, and that the party's leaders are too comfortable in Pretoria to worry about party matters. There is a sense that its mission and parliamentary rigour are ebbing, and that it is pulling its punches. If it is true that there are those in the DA who are enjoying the executive a little too much, not only is SA on a road to nowhere but so is the DA.

Let us consider the justice minister. She is entirely absent, recently attending an investment conference in London for reasons I cannot discern. Before that she was at a Brics justice ministers meeting, discussing “justice” with Iran and Russia. She stands accused of taking a dodgy loan that originated from the looting of VBS Mutual Bank and has shown little interest in clearing her name.

The DA has criticised her via a press release, with its justice & constitutional development spokesperson, Glynnis Breytenbach, suggesting she “step aside”, even using the ANC’s language. The IFP has been very quiet. It was ActionSA’s Athol Trollip — not in the coalition — who opened a criminal complaint against the minister.

This is a worrying development because clearly the minister should resign. Why haven’t the DA and other coalition partners made more noise? This is a minister in a government of which they are a part and who holds the reins of the prosecution authority. Is this soft-soaping what opposition voters can expect?

To reassure voters the DA and other coalition ministers should urgently show how they are managing ministries differently, demonstrate a more Spartan approach to ministerial life, and show how it is possible to govern without burdening a state that cannot afford to hire teachers.

When it seems likely that the justice minister benefited from the looting of a bank and your party’s response is to issue a press release, voters will soon begin to ask what you are for. Last week, the Social Research Foundation released polling that suggests the coalition arrangement is working well for the ANC (up to 45%) and less well for the DA (marginally up at 25%) and appallingly for the EFF (6%).

Perhaps it’s already in play.

• Parker is Business Day editor-in-chief.