Reva Gudi: When principle meets power we must surely always hold the line?
The headline tells the story.
Dr Reva Gudi is GP and healthcare leader in Hayes, Middlesex, she is also a former Conservative parliamentary candidate, and serves as a local school governor and charity trustee.
Of late, following on from more scandals, standards rows and ministerial controversy, I asked myself whether the Nolan Principles of public life are still fit for purpose. Perhaps outdated? Too idealistic? Impossible to live up to in modern politics?
And yet, as expected, UK political parties either implicitly or explicitly ask candidates to sign up to the Nolan principles, as the ethical standards of public life.
As a GP working in the NHS, I’m held to the same standards, if not higher.
In 1995, Committee on Standards in Public Life articulated seven principles intended to underpin public office in the United Kingdom: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
3 decades on trust in politicians is fragile, arguably, the lowest it’s ever been.
After giving this a great deal of thought, I’ve concluded that the problem is not the principles themselves, but us.
Putting myself forward as a parliamentary candidate at the 2024 General Election, on the doorstep, I noticed something telling. When I introduced myself as a GP, there was an immediate assumption of integrity with trust extended almost instinctively. The title itself carried expectations of candour, duty and care. When I then added that I was a political candidate something shifted. The warmth cooled ever so slightly. The scrutiny sharpened, as I expected, and the exchanges were a touch more sceptical.
Doctors consistently rank among the most trusted professionals in the country. Politicians do not. And yet both are bound, at least in theory, by the same ethical framework: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Not radical aspirations but rather the minimum moral standards of public life.
It then struck me that asking whether we should rethink the Nolan Principles in politics, was asking the wrong question.
The real question, I believe, is whether political culture has drifted so far from ethical expectation that the principles now feel aspirational rather than operational.
Because politics today plays out in a relentless media cycle, where statements make headlines and conspiracy theories do the rounds. Social media rewards outrage more than nuance, with AI backed content that is getting more sophisticated by the minute. Tribal loyalty can crowd out independent judgment. In such an environment, compromise can be seen as betrayal, or dithering, all error is framed as incompetence, (understandably, though), and political disagreement is often conflated with moral failure. Add to this the constant pressure to win, to …
The headline tells the story.
Dr Reva Gudi is GP and healthcare leader in Hayes, Middlesex, she is also a former Conservative parliamentary candidate, and serves as a local school governor and charity trustee.
Of late, following on from more scandals, standards rows and ministerial controversy, I asked myself whether the Nolan Principles of public life are still fit for purpose. Perhaps outdated? Too idealistic? Impossible to live up to in modern politics?
And yet, as expected, UK political parties either implicitly or explicitly ask candidates to sign up to the Nolan principles, as the ethical standards of public life.
As a GP working in the NHS, I’m held to the same standards, if not higher.
In 1995, Committee on Standards in Public Life articulated seven principles intended to underpin public office in the United Kingdom: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
3 decades on trust in politicians is fragile, arguably, the lowest it’s ever been.
After giving this a great deal of thought, I’ve concluded that the problem is not the principles themselves, but us.
Putting myself forward as a parliamentary candidate at the 2024 General Election, on the doorstep, I noticed something telling. When I introduced myself as a GP, there was an immediate assumption of integrity with trust extended almost instinctively. The title itself carried expectations of candour, duty and care. When I then added that I was a political candidate something shifted. The warmth cooled ever so slightly. The scrutiny sharpened, as I expected, and the exchanges were a touch more sceptical.
Doctors consistently rank among the most trusted professionals in the country. Politicians do not. And yet both are bound, at least in theory, by the same ethical framework: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Not radical aspirations but rather the minimum moral standards of public life.
It then struck me that asking whether we should rethink the Nolan Principles in politics, was asking the wrong question.
The real question, I believe, is whether political culture has drifted so far from ethical expectation that the principles now feel aspirational rather than operational.
Because politics today plays out in a relentless media cycle, where statements make headlines and conspiracy theories do the rounds. Social media rewards outrage more than nuance, with AI backed content that is getting more sophisticated by the minute. Tribal loyalty can crowd out independent judgment. In such an environment, compromise can be seen as betrayal, or dithering, all error is framed as incompetence, (understandably, though), and political disagreement is often conflated with moral failure. Add to this the constant pressure to win, to …
Reva Gudi: When principle meets power we must surely always hold the line?
The headline tells the story.
Dr Reva Gudi is GP and healthcare leader in Hayes, Middlesex, she is also a former Conservative parliamentary candidate, and serves as a local school governor and charity trustee.
Of late, following on from more scandals, standards rows and ministerial controversy, I asked myself whether the Nolan Principles of public life are still fit for purpose. Perhaps outdated? Too idealistic? Impossible to live up to in modern politics?
And yet, as expected, UK political parties either implicitly or explicitly ask candidates to sign up to the Nolan principles, as the ethical standards of public life.
As a GP working in the NHS, I’m held to the same standards, if not higher.
In 1995, Committee on Standards in Public Life articulated seven principles intended to underpin public office in the United Kingdom: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
3 decades on trust in politicians is fragile, arguably, the lowest it’s ever been.
After giving this a great deal of thought, I’ve concluded that the problem is not the principles themselves, but us.
Putting myself forward as a parliamentary candidate at the 2024 General Election, on the doorstep, I noticed something telling. When I introduced myself as a GP, there was an immediate assumption of integrity with trust extended almost instinctively. The title itself carried expectations of candour, duty and care. When I then added that I was a political candidate something shifted. The warmth cooled ever so slightly. The scrutiny sharpened, as I expected, and the exchanges were a touch more sceptical.
Doctors consistently rank among the most trusted professionals in the country. Politicians do not. And yet both are bound, at least in theory, by the same ethical framework: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Not radical aspirations but rather the minimum moral standards of public life.
It then struck me that asking whether we should rethink the Nolan Principles in politics, was asking the wrong question.
The real question, I believe, is whether political culture has drifted so far from ethical expectation that the principles now feel aspirational rather than operational.
Because politics today plays out in a relentless media cycle, where statements make headlines and conspiracy theories do the rounds. Social media rewards outrage more than nuance, with AI backed content that is getting more sophisticated by the minute. Tribal loyalty can crowd out independent judgment. In such an environment, compromise can be seen as betrayal, or dithering, all error is framed as incompetence, (understandably, though), and political disagreement is often conflated with moral failure. Add to this the constant pressure to win, to …
