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.
World
Channel migrant dinghy in which five people died packed with people carrying weapons and fighting – survivor
The migrant dinghy in which five people died was chaotic, overloaded and packed with people carrying weapons and fighting, according to one of the passengers who was on board, speaking exclusively to Sky News.
Heivin, 18, confirmed the boat was stormed by a rival group of migrants, armed with sticks and knives, as it was preparing to set off.
She said: “People were fighting, people were getting stepped on, they were dying and being thrown off.”
She said she fell into the water but was pulled out by another person on the boat. Two other passengers who fell into the water, including a young girl, drowned. Three other people died on the boat.
Heivin said she “really hated” the group of people who hijacked their boat, insisting they should take the blame for what happened.
“They caused a huge tragedy,” she said.
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Five die after migrant boat ‘hijacked’
“It was because of them that people died.
“If they hadn’t come and started fighting, none of this would have happened.”
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The tragedy happened in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the waters off the French coastal town of Wimereux.
The boat, which launched with 112 people on board, stopped on a sandbar only a few hundred metres from the shore.
By the time emergency services arrived, it was clear people had died, both on the boat and in the water.
Two men have been charged with immigration offences in connection with the investigation into the deaths of the five migrants.
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French authorities struggle to intercept all small boats carrying migrants across the Channel.
“I fell into the water but a man helped me up,” Heivin said.
“Everyone was climbing aboard and there were too many people – over 110 of us.
“I had tried to be at the front, but after I fell in the water I sat on the edge of the boat and didn’t go towards the other end – that’s where people were fighting.
“I thank God that I didn’t get into the top part of the dinghy. I would have suffocated. I thank God for that every day.”
These men rushed on to the boat
She said her group, comprising between 50 and 60 people, had arrived at the beach in Wimereux after following the instructions of the people smugglers who had taken their money in exchange for arranging a passage to Britain.
Hidden away, they had waited for the smugglers to prepare the dinghy. She then saw police officers and was told simply to run towards the water.
At that point, the rival group emerged as well, clambering into the boat along with the people who had paid the smugglers.
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Heivin said she saw migrants from this group carrying sticks and knives, squaring up to both the police and the original passengers.
When the boat set off, exceptionally overladen, it meandered towards the Channel, but there was still fighting and it is clear that some people were being crushed.
“I was aware there was a fight,” Heivin said.
“They were shouting that people were stuck underneath other people, that they couldn’t get out, that some were falling under people’s feet.”
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Heivin has spent seven months travelling across Europe since leaving Iraq. She said she wanted to get to Britain because “it is a better country for me, definitely in terms of the language but also, in many other other ways, it is better than the rest of Europe”.
She’s made 30 attempts to cross the Channel, but has failed each time. Sometimes it has been the French police who have destroyed boats while other times the boat on which she was travelling broke down. One time, the boat failed only an hour from British waters.
She is undeterred by the trauma that she underwent, however, and she intends to try again to reach Britain as soon as possible. “Perhaps this weekend,” she said.
There’s a trade war brewing between China and the West, at stake is who will dominate the global market for electric vehicles.
Outside the port city of Ningbo, Chinese car company Zeekr is rolling out luxury EVs and growing fast. The factory has only been up and running for three years, but this year it’s more than doubling production.
Chinese car company Zeekr is rolling out luxury EVs at its factory near the port city of Ningbo. Pic: Lex Ramsay
Zeekr is a new player in the EV market, but it has unbridled ambition to sell its high-end, high-tech cars abroad. It’s a subsidiary of a state-backed company, Geely.
However, US and EU critics say the financial backing and vast resources of China’s government gives companies like Zeekr an unfair advantage.
In a recent trip to Beijing US treasury secretary Janet Yellen accused China of “overproduction” and “dumping” its EVs on overseas markets. The European Commission has started an investigation into whether to impose punitive tariffs on China’s industry.
But at Zeekr the threat of tariffs is being talked down. The company insists the global market is big enough for everyone.
Zeekr is a new player in the EV market. Pic: Lex Ramsay
Speaking to Sky News at a massive auto show on the outskirts of Beijing, Zeekr vice president Chen Yu explained that when foreign car companies first started setting up EV plants in China, local car companies watched on and learned fast.
“Definitely,” Mr Chen said. “We learned about the performance, the design, the culture, everything.”
Now companies like Zeekr, and BYD which is a giant in the Chinese EV manufacturing market, are taking on traditional car companies.
“I would not say (Chinese EVs) are dominating the market. I would say just they bring more diversity to the local customer, that is the nature of competition as you know,” Mr Chen said.
However, the possibility of Europe slapping tariffs on Chinese EVs is a concern for the Zeekr executive: “Definitely, if the tariff goes up, no doubt we are worried about the potential challenge.”
Mr Zhang, EV owner Pic: Lex Ramsay
On the floor of the auto show, car dealers and importers were clearly impressed with China’s EVs and warned legacy car manufacturers that they are in trouble.
New Zealand car dealer Matthew Foot has been attending the annual show for five years, and said: “It’s going to be very hard to beat China. They get incredible resources from the government; from lithium mines, to the ships and everything in between.
“Obviously you can see why Europe is fearing them and taxing them as well.”
This week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in China. Trade tensions are on the agenda, alongside the world’s geo-political crises.
The US already imposes a 27.5% tariff on Chinese cars. But in Europe it’s only 10% and that makes companies like VW, Volvo and BMW increasingly nervous.
In Beijing last week German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said: “It’s clear that we have to talk about questions of overcapacity, and that we have to talk about subsidy competition.”
BYD car at Beijing Auto Show Pic: Lex Ramsay
Germany is in a difficult position. As Europe’s largest car manufacturer, it fears that if the EU slaps tariffs on Chinese cars, China could retaliate by restricting access to its vast market.
But the fact is, more than half of all new electric cars sold worldwide are from China and it can make them cheaper and faster than its competitors.
At the end of last year China’s EV giant, BYD, sold more electric cars than Tesla. Tesla was back on top last quarter, but the competition is fierce.
The scale of production is staggering. BYD owns its mines, battery factories and eight ships.
Even a comparatively smaller company like Zeekr is the model of efficiency, with 2,700 workers churning out around 500 cars a day.
The focus on EVs is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plan to overhaul the country’s debt-driven economy. He calls it “new production forces”. Investing in infrastructure is out, new technology is in.
In the industrial hub of Anhui Province, local officials are also brushing off the looming threat of tariffs. Provincial official Pan Feng said: “Some countries, thinking about their short-term self-interests, introduced some regulations, but I think they are only temporary.
“China is a big country, with a big market, it has huge power and confidence to counteract these conflicts.”
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Chinese buyers are also confident about their country’s electric cars, purchasing more than seven million of them domestically last year.
The country also has more charging stations than anywhere else on the planet.
While charging his BYD electric car in Zhejiang Province, Mr Zhang told us: “Chinese-made cars are good enough for us ordinary Chinese. If you’re thinking of buying an EV, there’s no need to go for a Mercedes or a German EV.”
The threat of deportation to Rwanda is causing migrants to head for Ireland instead of the UK, Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said.
The Rwanda Bill, which will see asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” sent to the central African nation – regardless of the outcome of their application – was passed on Tuesday, despite human rights concerns.
Micheal Martin told The Daily Telegraph that the policy was already affecting Ireland, as people were “fearful” of staying in the UK.
The former Taoiseach said: “Maybe that’s the impact it was designed to have.”
Mr Martin, who is also Ireland’s foreign secretary, said asylum seekers were seeking “to get sanctuary here and within the European Union as opposed to the potential of being deported to Rwanda”.
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His words follow those of justice minister Helen McEntee, who told a scrutiny committee in the Irish parliament earlier this week that migrants and refugees were crossing the border with Northern Ireland.
Ms McEntee said “higher than 80%” of people seeking asylum in Ireland entered the country through Northern Ireland, a border crossing that is open as guaranteed under a UK-EU Brexit treaty.
It comes amid increasing tension over immigration levels in Ireland, which is grappling with a housing crisis that has affected its own people as well as asylum seekers.
Overnight, six people were arrested during a protest at a site earmarked to house asylum seekers in Newtownmountkennedy in Co Wicklow.
Gardai said officers came under attack after workers were brought onto the site, suffering “verbal and physical abuse throughout the day, which escalated into rocks and other missiles being thrown this evening”.
Fires were lit, an axe was found and officers were “forced to defend themselves” with incapacitant spray, helmets and shields.
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Three patrol cars were also damaged.
Irish broadcaster RTE said protesters accused gardaà of using unnecessary force, and intimidating and aggressive tactics against a legitimate and peaceful protest.
According to RTE, there have been protests during the past six weeks at the site, known as Trudder House or River Lodge.
It is reportedly being considered as a site for 20 eight-person tents housing asylum seekers but some locals have said it is unsuitable and the village’s resources are already over-stretched.
Ms McEntee said there was “a lot of misinformation about migration at the moment”.
She tweeted late on Thursday to promote the EU Migration and Asylum Pact, which she described as “a real game changer” and “something we must opt into”.
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