Are Tories right when they accuse Labour of cronyism?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been reported to the independent adviser on ministerial conduct by the Conservatives.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Laura Trott, a Tory frontbencher and former Treasury minister best known for not understanding the national debt, claims Reeves’s appointment of Ian Corfield to be director of investment at the Treasury is cronyism. Corfield has given £20,000 to Labour over the past five years, and £5,000 to Reeves. Trott says this represents a “clear conflict” between the donation and Reeves using an established exception procedure to civil service recruitment rules to give Corfield the post. His role has now been made unpaid. It is the most high-profile of a series of “cronyism” allegations levelled at ministers in recent weeks.

Is there any merit in the Tory complaint about Corfield?

Some, as perhaps evidenced by the way his role has been redefined since his initial appointment to become an unpaid adviser rather than a salaried civil servant, though still seemingly in charge of arranging the new government’s first international investment summit in October.

The problem is that, when the Civil Service Commission (CSC) watchdog was asked to facilitate and approve the hurried appointment of Corfield without the usual competitive recruitment procedure, the commissioners were not told about his party donations, which is a breach of the spirit if not the letter of the civil service code.