Adam Boulton: Westminster’s ‘nepo babies’ are here to stay – whether we like it or not
“It’s not who you are but who you know” is a saying often used to explain why those with family connections to successful people seem to have a head start doing well in the next generation.
In the US this phenomenon has led Gen Z to coin a new tag “nepo babies” as they list those in showbusiness deemed to have been given a big helping hand by family connections.
Regardless of the talent they have displayed in their own work, the inference is that they got there in part because of nepotism – those in positions of power and influence favouring their relatives, literally from the Greek Nepos, nephew.
It will always be noted that the actor Kate Hudson and film director Sophia Coppola, say, are the children, respectively, of the actor Goldie Hawn and the film director Francis Ford Coppola.
With emotions ranging from contempt and jealousy to admiration and awe, social media has extended the list of nepo babies to sport and politics.
Kate Hudson and Goldie Hawn at the premiere of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Pic: AP)
“In tennis the ‘nepo babies’ are everywhere” was the headline of an article in the New York Times this week. Nobody can deny that numerous members of the Roosevelts, Kennedys and Bush clans have made it to high office.
The phenomenon or, as many see it, the problem of nepotism extends to British politics.
Since 2010 the House of Commons library has been keeping a list of MPs related to other current or former members.
In the current parliament, elected in 2019, 49 MPs are listed. That amounts to one MP in 13, 7.5% of the total membership of 650.
It does not count those who may have close relatives in the House of Lords, or first cousins in either house.
Of those currently in the Commons related by blood to MPs past and present there are 17 grandchildren, great-grandchildren nephews, nieces, great-nephews and great-nieces; 13 sons; 4 daughters; 3 sisters; 2 brothers; and one uncle. Currently there are also seven wives and five husbands, though that is a matter of choice rather than genetics.
Some of these have multiple connections. The inclination to dynasticism is not confined to any party. The former Labour cabinet minister Hilary Benn has five links, including to his father Tony Benn, the staunch Republican, a grandfather, two great-grandfathers and a brother who has revived the family title, Viscount Stansgate, in the House of Lords.
Intricate nexus of family connections
The best-connected Conservative is the MP for the Cotswolds Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown who has forebears in the Commons sharing the same surname going back four generations.
The most intricate nexus of family connections centres on John Cryer, currently chair of the parliamentary Labour Party. He is the son of two Labour MPs – Bob and Ann Cryer – married to another one, Ellie Reeves, who in turn is the sister of the shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Three Conservative ministers – Victoria Prentis, Victoria Atkins and Andrew Mitchell – are the children of former Tory Ministers. “Red Princes” on the Labour side include frontbencher Stephen Kinnock, son of former leader Neil and Mr Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, son of Doug, now Lord, Hoyle.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle
The Father of the House, the longest serving MP, Sir Peter Bottomley is married to a former Tory MP, Virginia, and the uncle of a Labour one, Kitty Ussher. Sir Patrick Jenkin, the chair of the Liaison Committee, is the son of Patrick, a former cabinet minister now in the Lords, and married to another peer, Anne, who has had a leading role in selecting Conservative parliamentary candidates.
The political connections game is not limited to Labour and the Conservatives. Great Liberal families include the Asquiths, Bonham-Carters and Grimonds, some of whom are still active in the Lords.
For the DUP Ian Paisley Junior bears the name of his father, a former MP, MLA, MEP and husband of a peer. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is married to Peter Murrell CEO of the SNP.
Social media has exposed people’s backgrounds and made it increasingly likely that they will be pigeon-holed for them.
‘Magic circles’ of influence
Those who feel excluded from “magic circles” of influence are often resentful, especially when there is rivalry between circles – sometimes to comic effect.
The broadcaster Amol Rajan complained publicly about too many presenters at the BBC speaking with received-pronunciation accents, often picked up at private schools.
His Today programme colleague Justin Webb, who went to private school, countered that he thought there were too many people at the BBC with Oxbridge backgrounds. Rajan is a Cambridge graduate, Webb went to the LSE.
Charges of nepotism are taken more seriously than such narcissism of small differences. Ian Wooldridge, the author of The Aristocracy Of Talent: How Meritocracy Made The Modern World, argues that “the march of progress can be measured by the abolition of nepotism”.
Amol Rajan is a Cambridge graduate
Few would challenge his contention that “it can’t be good for democracy if representative positions are hogged by people who belong to a narrow, privileged caste”.
Yet anyone who becomes an MP must pass successfully thorough democratic selection processes.
First by getting on a party candidates list, then by being selected, and finally by winning an election. The factionalism of politics can mean that it is not always an asset to have well-known antecedents.
For a high-profile position such as an MP, which is heavily dependent on personality, it would be almost impossible to go “CV blind” – unless unnamed candidates were interviewed unseen behind a screen like on the old TV show Blind Date and at some orchestral auditions.
In many walks of life families want to pass a particular occupation or business down the generations. Children may get to know the ropes early. Speaker Hoyle says he first attended a Labour Conference as a babe in arms.
Long successions of nepo babies
In history the hereditary principle has frequently been the basis of social and political organisation. Monarchies, including the British Crown, are long successions of nepo babies, as are the aristocracies which often grow up under their patronage. Even the king-killer Oliver Cromwell made his son his heir as Lord Protector.
In the 18th and 19th Centuries British prime ministers came more often than not from the hereditary House of Lords rather than the elected Commons. Many prominent families also had control in constituencies effectively appointing family members as MPs.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the third Marquess of Salisbury, was the last prime minister to govern from the Lords, finally ending his third term in 1902. The keen meritocrat Ian Woolridge points out that the phrase “Bob’s your uncle” dates from Salisbury’s efforts ensuring that his nephew, Arthur Balfour MP was the next PM.
The Cecil family have rendered political services and held high offices at least since Queen Elizabeth I. The current Lord Salisbury, also named Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, was an MP and then a minister in John Major’s government.
He subsequently brokered the deal with New Labour, which kept seats in the House of Lords for a rump of hereditary peers, while drastically reducing their number. Viscount Cranbourn, the courtesy title by which he was then known, recused himself from standing to be one of the peers remaining in parliament.
It has not been, and nor will be, so easy to remove Westminster’s other nepo babies from their positions of power and influence, assuming that is what Meritocrats would like to do.
UK
Prisoners being sent back to jail because it’s the ‘easiest thing to do’, chief inspector of probation says
Prisoners are being sent back to jail by the probation service because it’s the “easiest thing to do”, rather than solely for public protection, the chief inspector of probation has told Sky News.
Martin Jones cited caseload “pressure” in the service meaning officers are recalling people to jail to get them out of their “worry zone”, even if it has “relatively little impact on the protection of the public”, causing “overcrowded prisons” for “limited benefit.
“I think it’s a symptom of a system under huge pressure,” said Mr Jones.
“I’m not sure that the checks and balances are in place to ensure that it’s really about significant risk to the public. There is of course a difference between somebody, for example, committing a very serious sexual or violent offence and perhaps somebody who is released from custody on licence, they don’t have anywhere to live and they shoplift. They might face further charges. Is it really necessary for the protection of the public that person be recalled to custody?.”
The recall population in England and Wales – the number of prisoners sent back to jail after release – has more than doubled in the last decade. It now accounts for 15% of the total number of people behind bars.
Data published by the Ministry of Justice covering July-September 2024 showed there were 9,975 recalls, up 42% on the same period the previous year, and the highest quarterly recall statistics on record. It means that for every 100 people being released between July and September, 67 people were recalled.
It comes after the government introduced a new early release scheme in September, which saw thousands of offenders freed after serving 40% of their sentence, rather than 50%.
In the three months to September, nearly a quarter (24%) of recall cases involved a charge of further offending, with almost three-quarters (73%) of people recalled for “non-compliance” with license conditions.
That can include missing or turning up late to probation appointments, missing curfews, or poor behaviour. Homelessness, meaning offenders aren’t reporting to stable accommodation, is another significant recall factor.
In the past three years, the annual number of recalls for people who have faced no further charges while on license almost doubled, from 13,192 to 25,775 per year. Meanwhile the number recalled who have been charged with a new crime is almost exactly the same as it was then.
Less than a quarter of those recalled to prison in the year to September were charged with a new crime – the first time on record that figure has been that low.
There are a number of factors as to why the recall population has grown so much. These include longer sentences meaning lengthier license supervision periods on release, higher caseloads, and structural changes to the service meaning probation monitoring is required for all offenders.
Before 2014, it wasn’t required for those sentenced to less than a year in jail.
Early release schemes under the previous government and new measures introduced by Labour in September have contributed.
Changes to the recall process in April also mean that less serious offenders serving sentences of under 12 months will go back to prison for a fixed short period. It’s therefore possible for an offender who might have previously been back in prison for months, now to be released and recalled multiple times.
The number of recalls to releases has been growing. In 2013 prisons were recalling one prisoner for every five people released. That ratio is now 3:5.
Sky News spent an afternoon with ex-offenders in Burnley as they turned up to a charity service called Church on the Street, which offers support to help former criminals turn their lives around.
All of them had experiences and stories of recall, some more than once.
One man said he’d been “recalled for missing three appointments, for being drunk and under the influence”.
“Every time I’ve been recalled, it’s always been for 18 months, two years. It goes on for that long,” he said.
He accepts “responsibility” for breaking the rules but doesn’t feel it “warrants” lengthy terms back in jail for “no crime committed”.
Read more:
Prisoners moved to less secure jails to tackle overcrowding
Under-strain prison system to shut down thousands of unfit cells
Prisoners in hospital after taking ‘drone-delivered drugs’
Long sentences, sometimes for serious crimes, mean that when released at the halfway point prisoners are monitored by the probation service with lengthy license periods. If recalled, whether that be for a breach of a license condition or a further crime – they can end up serving the remainder of that sentence in prison.
Another ex-offender we met told us of a man who was released homeless, with a GPS tracking tag. He couldn’t charge his tag as had no electricity, without a home, and hence couldn’t be monitored by the probation service, and so was recalled to jail.
Bishop Mick Fleming says the recall situation is ‘ridiculous’
Bishop Mick Fleming runs Church On The Street and calls the situation with recall “ridiculous”, saying that the community has noticed a “massive” increase, suggesting that both the prison and probation system is “failing”.
What’s being noticed outside jail in the community, is also being felt inside a pressured and crowded prison system.
When Sky News visited HMP Elmley in Kent in October, almost everyone we spoke to referenced issues with recall.
“It’s like a revolving door”, one serving offender told us. Another said, “cut the recalls down, and the prisons will be empty”.
“Cut the recalls down, and the prisons will be empty”
“We release a lot of people, they’re homeless, they come back within three days,” said a prison officer.
In a statement a Ministry of Justice spokesperson told Sky News that the number of recalled offenders in prison has “doubled” which they say has “contributed to the capacity crisis the new government inherited, with prisons days away from overflowing”.
They said it can take “months before a Parole Board decision on whether a recalled prisoner should be re-released and so we are looking at ways to reform the recall and re-release process, while retaining important safeguards to keep the public safe”.
Police investigating the deaths of a British couple at their home in rural France have released details from a post-mortem examination.
Prosecutors say Dawn Searle, 56, was found at their property in Les Pesquies with “several” injuries to her head, while her husband, Andrew Searle, 62, was found hanged with no visible defensive injuries.
They are investigating whether the deaths are the result of a murder-suicide or if a third party was involved.
The pair are said to have been found dead by a German friend, who lives nearby, on Thursday after Mr Searle didn’t arrive for one of their regular dog walks.
The couple moved to the hamlet of Les Pesquies around a decade ago and married in the nearby town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, in the south of France, in 2023.
Andrew and Dawn Searle’s home
A statement from the office of public prosecutor Nicolas Rigot-Muller said Ms Searle was found partially dressed with a major wound to her skull next to a box with jewellery inside.
But no object or weapon was found that could’ve caused the wounds, which an autopsy carried out in Montpellier on Monday found were caused by a blunt and sharp object. There were no signs of sexual assault.
The house appeared to have been quickly searched, while some cash was found in the couple’s room.
Investigators are conducting further examinations, including toxicology and pathology tests, to help determine the precise circumstances of their deaths.
A police officer outside Andrew and Dawn Searle’s home in France
The village of Villefranche-de-Rouergue Aveyron
They each have two children from previous relationships and Ms Searle’s son, the country musician and former Hollyoaks star Callum Kerr, said they were in mourning in a statement posted on Saturday.
Family members are understood to have travelled to France, where they have spoken with investigators.
Read more from Sky News:
Identities of bodies recovered from Scottish rivers confirmed
Chelsea footballer Sam Kerr not guilty of racial harassment
The mayor of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Jean-Sebastien Orcibal, who was also a neighbour of the Searles, said villagers and the British expat community were going to be getting “psychological help” following the incident, which has left locals in shock.
Speaking to Sky News from the town hall in which he conducted the couple’s wedding ceremony, he said: “It doesn’t seem like the problem comes from here because when we knew them and saw them living here they were very happy, very friendly and didn’t seem to have any problems.
“The problem seems to come from the past or somewhere far away.
“It’s an isolated act, it’s very independent. It doesn’t say that it’s a very dangerous territory, in fact, it’s very peaceful and that’s why probably Andy and Dawn chose to live here, because it’s very peaceful.
“Now, did their past come back and get them? That’s another story. That’s totally different from where we are. It could’ve happened anywhere.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson previously said: “We are supporting the family of a British couple who died in France and are liaising with the local authorities.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
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