Your Correspondent Thank you Jeeves…

“If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.”

These were words of wise advice I took from a seasoned accountant whose international standing was such that he was described by a leading London broadsheet as the ‘financial Jeeves’ and ‘butler to the rich’.

There is something to this when you contemplate the challenges of as to where one draws the line in any situation. Especially politics.

I am thinking of the recent eruption between Government and Opposition over the question of Public Service Standards and Conflict of Interests legislation which has been drawn up in the wake of the Mc Grail Inquiry. Indeed, I was interested to see Sir Joe Bossano reinforced my own view, the inquiry was a waste of money.

As a starting point, codes of practice, such as The Ministerial Code from 2023, are really rules set out by politicians themselves, to require themselves, not to do things unbecoming of their position. Which is all very well, but - and this is a leitmotif - these things are merely signposts without roads unless someone with resources and authority imposes them.

The issue is not unique to Gibraltar. Think Angela Rayner and her tax challenge, or closer to the point Nigel Farage and his £5m gift challenge now being looked into by no less than Daniel Greenberg.

He is the Parliamentary Standards guru whose engagement subject to the Leader of the Opposition’s challenge after the Gibraltar Government hired him to draft the post McGrail standards.

Under the legal principle ‘Quod bonum est anseri, bonum est mas anseri’ (OK that’s a nonsense translation by AI for ‘what’s good for the goose is good for the gander’) one wonders what narrows the Leader of the Opposition’s range when he complains that appointing Greenberg doesn’t look good through the Openshaw spectacles.

PIE BATTLES
One can deduce from the Chief Minister’s response which sets out an array of conflicts that flow from Azopardi’s charge, and where everyone seems to have a finger in someone else’s pie, that the real issue is that, in a place the size of Gibraltar, nothing would ever get done if we ruled out people from tasks because of their relatives, close address or where they went to school.

Our independence or neutrality has to be more based on trust and integrity than most places because we are small.

And the reality is that the big firms create conflict work for each other, and the smaller firms, in a machine that has generally worked for the profession and the economy.

What’s more staggering is that, in raising this issue of conflict, neither party leader then followed through by pointing out that the former GSD leader, Sir Peter Caruana, has been hired by government to review the Inquiry rules as an implementation of a recommendation in the McGrail Inquiry report.

Sir Peter acted for the Chief Minister and Government in the Inquiry. You might feel he was too close to the Inquiry to now be one of its doctors, or, arguably and alternately, he is fresh from that experience and well equipped to see what changes are needed.

Perhaps Azopardi doesn’t want to criticise the GSD’s longest standing leader, perhaps the Chief Minister doesn’t want to dispel the aroma of political comfort that arises indirectly from that appointment of a former CM as counsel. Who knows?

Both Greenberg and Caruana deserve the professional respect they have and have earned.

Having interacted personally with both, I am sure they will produce the most suitable legislation to meet their brief.

RED TAPE
But lawyers in politics should be aware that the public instinctively does not afford them the same ‘special status’ that attaches to lawyers acting wholly in a professional capacity. This is why some of the X Tweets and comments emerging from Adam Wagner in relation to Gibraltar and the McGrail case had something about them that breaks that deference that his profession clings to and still expects from the public and paying punters.

If lawyers have agendas that are not confined to their client and the law, well, that begins to erode past practice and standing. It opens new arenas (especially on social media) and attitudes for everyone.

Of course, some might think (there’s a phrase to contemplate and ponder its provenance), that given the GSD’s manifesto promises on tackling bad governance, the Chief Minister, as the end of the primrose path of political life beckons him in the distance, loading future governments with more red tape is no burden now.

But I return to the point that, before anyone has to get into legal challenges or complaints to parliament, most people have a clear sense of what is and is not reasonable behaviour. Add to that Joe Public never has the resources to take on the public giants and A lister lawyers.

Lawfare, increasingly fashionable in a world of oligarchs and technocrats, isn’t only used to silence the press. The artful use of the Parliamentary process can also be used to send the message - challenge me if you dare. But the parliamentary privilege that is afforded to our MPs and those who report to Parliament such as the Principal Auditor, does not extend to the words others may utter. Nor do most have the financial resources or appetite for legal conflict.

PLATO DEL DIA
The question is not so much “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” ‘Who shall guard the guardians”, as Plato asks in his Republic but are the guardians asleep - as alleged at Windsor Castle - or, more likely, too few to make enforcement effective. (Sorry again, I know the Latin phrase thing is pompous but I actually know that one, also, I recently binge-watched Inspector Morse so this rubs off).

This situation of requiring resources is true in differing degrees across the board. At present Government is churning out a great deal of new rules on transport, environment, and initiatives many of which would undoubtedly improve our daily lives if implemented. But, unless I missed something, driving across red lights on a Pelican crossing, parking on pavements, scootering against the traffic, using loading and unloading bays as private parking and so on, have not been legalised. Yet these are practised on a daily basis with impunity and have a negative impact on citizens, especially those with disabilities. Who has stopped any of these?

We may have badges, socks and ties for every vulnerable group and special day but I am pretty sure that those who suffer from loud noises, from the noise of the weekend late night motor revving, inaccessibility for wheelchairs (not everyone can leap-frog the flower pots and tourist and shop/bar signs) will wonder who is going to be enforcing all of this.

THE PRINCIPLES AUDITOR
By the way, am I alone in thinking that the current flurry of upbeat press releases is buttering the way for opening a broad set of options for a General Election date?

But I stray again.

Joseph Garcia made a sound argument in the McGrail debate that the peculiarities of our size and culture need to be taken into account as we tailor legislation and rules that govern us. Azopardi too alights on the need to, in effect, practice what we preach and to heed the advice we have paid for. And certainly, we should always meet reputable international standards and norms. Our reputation counts on this.

The question is how and with what resources. We could have endless multi-million pound reports and inquiries to tell us how we should do things but, frankly, I think we already know.

It’s actually doing them. Case in point the Principal Auditor.

Though a lot can still be said about the last Principal Auditor’s report it is interesting to see that the incumbent has spelt out a case for more resources for a more meaningful function.

Deep inside the Gibraltar Audit Office website is a recent Strategy for Audit Reform Report that tells us what we might have expected after last year’s fireworks. In its current form the office cannot meaningfully cope with its duty to provide Parliament and the public with contemporary information.

Five years of backlog have to be cleared. Phil Sharman, the new principal auditor, calls for reform of the existing Public Finance (Control and Audit) act to “align with international standards and practices”, introduction of new standards and training, investment in staff and the establishment of an internal audit function within Government to complement external audit reforms. An 18-month plan to clear the backlog would need, the report says, outsourcing of audits (for pensions and statutory bodies) to professional firms.

“These arrears in audit reporting, aside from adverse impacts in operational efficiency and parliamentary accountability, now present a significant risk to the credibility of Government in managing its domestic public finances,” says the GAO.

And there we have it. Clearly, in many areas it is essential to match resources to the demands we have imposed on ourselves.

On these issues of how we run our affairs most of the public may be quiet, but its eyes and ears are open. Perhaps with some scepticism, we trust our political class - whichever makes the next government - to ensure that the fundamentals of our system run properly and with probity. That’s not just something that happens in another press release.

And yes, “If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.”

Podcast at https://substack.com/@dominiquesearle