List of political scandals in the United Kingdom

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This is a list of political scandals in the United Kingdom in chronological order. Scandals implicating political figures or governments of the UK, often reported in the mass media, have long had repercussions for their popularity. Issues in political scandals have included alleged or proven financial and sexual matters,[1] or various other allegations or actions taken by politicians that led to controversy.[2][3][4] In British media and political discourse, such scandals have sometimes been referred to as political sleaze since the 1990s.[4] Notable scandals include the Marconi scandal, Profumo affair and the 2009 expenses scandal.

1890s

  • Liberator Building Society scandal,[5] in which the Liberal Party MP Jabez Balfour was exposed as running several fraudulent companies to conceal financial losses. Balfour fled to Argentina, but was eventually arrested and imprisoned.

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

  • Vassall affair (1963): civil servant John Vassall, working for Minister Tam Galbraith, was revealed to be a spy for the Soviet Union and was arrested. The affair was investigated in the Vassall tribunal.
  • Profumo affair (1963): Secretary of State for War John Profumo (Conservative) had an affair with Christine Keeler (to whom he had been introduced by artist Stephen Ward), who was having an affair with a Soviet spy at the same time.[11]
  • The Robert Boothby (Conservative), Tom Driberg (Labour), Kray twins affair and consequent cover-up involving senior politicians of both parties. The rumour was that the politicians "had been importuning males at a dog track and were involved with gangs of thugs who dispose of their money at the tracks".[12] The Daily Mirror published some details of the matter and was falsely sued for libel.[13][14][15]
  • Britain's Nuclear Bomb Tests Scandal (1950s and 1960s): the catastrophic effects of nuclear testing in Australia and the South Pacific. Very serious environmental damage and health conditions emerged. Many communities and nationalities such as the Aborigine, South Pacific islanders, Australian and British were affected. Health conditions such as cancers, deformities, birth defects, premature deaths, nervous conditions and mental illnesses were reported. Genetic damage from ionising radiation, affecting many generations has also been reported. Campaigns to release MOD documents on blood tests and receive compensation have been continuing.[16][17]

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

  • Jeffrey Archer's (Conservative) perjury trial and imprisonment (2000)
  • Officegate (2001). Henry McLeish, Labour First Minister of Scotland, failed to refund the House of Commons for income he had received from the sub-let of his constituency office in Glenrothes while still a Westminster MP.
  • Keith Vaz (Labour), Peter Mandelson (Labour) and the Hinduja brothers. Mandelson was forced to resign for a second time due to misleading statements. (2001)
  • Labour government special adviser Jo Moore, within an hour of the September 11 attacks, sent an email to the press office of her department suggesting: "It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury. Councillors' expenses?"[23][24] Although prior to the catastrophic collapse of the towers, the phrase "a good day to bury bad news" (not actually used by Moore[25]) has since been used to refer to other instances of attempting to hide one item of news behind a more publicised issue.
  • Betsygate (2002), which revolved around the level of pay that Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith's wife Elisabeth received as his diary secretary.
  • In 2002, Edwina Currie (Conservative) revealed that she had had an affair, beginning in 1984, with John Major (Conservative) before he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Major had frequently pushed his Back To Basics agenda (see above), which was taken by the media as a form of moral absolutism.
  • Ron Davies (Labour) stood down from the Welsh assembly following accusations of illicit gay sex. Davies had claimed he had been badger-watching in the area. (2003)[26]
  • The apparent suicide of Dr. David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry. On 17 July 2003, Kelly, an employee of the Ministry of Defence, apparently committed suicide after being misquoted by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan as saying that Tony Blair's Labour government had knowingly "sexed up" the "September Dossier", a report into Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. The government was cleared of wrongdoing, while the BBC was strongly criticised by the subsequent inquiry, leading to the resignation of the BBC's chairman and director-general.
  • In April 2004, Beverly Hughes (Labour) was forced to resign as minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Counter Terrorism when it was shown that she had been informed of procedural improprieties concerning the granting of visas to certain categories of workers from Eastern Europe. She had earlier told the House of Commons that if she had been aware of such facts she would have done something about it.[27]
  • In 2005, David McLetchie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, was forced to resign after claiming the highest taxi expenses of any MSP.[28] These included personal journeys, journeys related solely with his second job as a solicitor, and Conservative Party business, for example travel to Conservative conferences. Conservative backbench MSP Brian Monteith had the whip withdrawn for briefing against his leader to the Scotland on Sunday newspaper.
  • Liberal Democrats Home Affairs spokesman Mark Oaten resigned after it was revealed by the News of the World that he paid rentboys to perform sexual acts on him.[29]
  • David Mills financial allegations (2006). Tessa Jowell, Labour cabinet minister, was embroiled in a scandal about a property remortgage allegedly arranged to enable her husband, David Mills, to realise £350,000 from an off-shore hedge fund, money he allegedly received as a gift following testimony he had provided for Silvio Berlusconi in the 1990s.[30] Nicknamed by the press as "Jowellgate".[31]
  • Cash for Honours (2006). In March 2006 it emerged that the Labour Party had borrowed millions of pounds in 2005 to help fund their general election campaign. While not illegal, on 15 March the Treasurer of the party, Jack Dromey, stated publicly that he had neither knowledge of nor involvement in these loans and had only become aware when he read about it in the newspapers. A story was running at the time that Dr Chai Patel and others had been recommended for life peerages after lending the Labour party money. He called on the Electoral Commission to investigate the issue of political parties taking out loans from non-commercial sources.[32]
  • News of the World royal phone hacking scandal (2006). This scandal involved the secret intercepting of voicemails from the royal family by private investigators hired by the tabloid News of the World.[33]
  • Angus MacNeil (2007). The married SNP MP who made the initial police complaint over the cash for honours scandal was forced to make an apology after it was revealed that in 2005 he had a "heavy petting" session with two teenage girls aged 17 and 18[34][35] in a hotel room at the same time his wife was pregnant with their third child.
  • In November 2007, it emerged that more than £400,000 had been accepted by the Labour Party from one person through a series of third parties, causing the Electoral Commission to seek an explanation.[36] Peter Watt resigned as the General Secretary of the party the day after the story broke and was quoted as saying that he knew about the arrangement but had not appreciated that he had failed to comply with the reporting requirements.[37]
  • On 24 January 2008, Peter Hain (Labour) resigned his two cabinet posts (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales) after the Electoral Commission referred donations to his Deputy Leadership campaign to the police.[38]
  • Derek Conway (2008): The Conservative Party MP was found to have reclaimed salaries he had paid to his two sons who had in fact not carried out the work to the extent claimed. He was ordered to repay £16,918, suspended from the House of Commons for 10 days and removed from the party whip.[39]
  • Cash for influence (2009): Details of covertly recorded discussions with four Labour Party peers which covered their ability to influence legislation and the consultancy fees that they charged (including retainer payments of up to £120,000) were published by The Sunday Times.
  • United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal (2009): Widespread actual and alleged misuse of the permitted allowances and expenses claimed by Members of Parliament and attempts by MPs and peers to exempt themselves from Freedom of Information legislation.

2010s

2010

2011

2012

  • In February 2012, Liberal Democrat MP Chris Huhne resigned from the Cabinet when he was charged with perverting the course of justice over a 2003 speeding case. His wife Vicky Pryce had claimed that she was driving the car, and accepted the licence penalty points on his behalf so that he could avoid being banned from driving. Huhne pleaded guilty at his trial, resigned as a member of parliament, and he and Pryce were sentenced to eight months in prison for perverting the course of justice.[41]
  • In March 2012, Conservative Party co-treasurer Peter Cruddas resigned after it was revealed he had offered exclusive access to prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne in exchange for yearly payments of £250,000. These offers, pronounced by Cruddas and Conservative lobbyist Sarah Southern, were secretly recorded by Sunday Times undercover reporters posing as potential donors.[42][43]
  • In October 2012, Andrew Mitchell resigned from his post as Chief Whip following allegations made about his conduct during an altercation with police at Downing Street on 19 September, the incident becoming known as "plebgate".[44]

2013

2014

2015

  • In February 2015, Jack Straw told undercover reporters that he operated "under the radar" and had used his influence to change EU rules on behalf of a firm which paid him £60,000 a year. Malcolm Rifkind#Conflict of interest controversy was also implicated in the cash for access scandal.
  • In September 2015, Lord Ashcroft published a biography of David Cameron, which suggested that the then Prime Minister took drugs regularly and performed an "outrageous initiation ceremony" which involved inserting "a private part of his anatomy" into the mouth of a dead pig during his time in university. This became known as "piggate".[52] The Independent reported that Cameron had told friends the claim was "utter nonsense".[53] The biography also led to questions about the Prime Minister's honesty with party donors' known tax statuses as Lord Ashcroft suggested he had openly discussed his non-domiciled status with him in 2009, earlier than previously thought.[54]

2017

2018

2020s

2020

2021

2022

  • Neil Parish, Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, resigned in April after it was discovered that he had watched pornography in the House of Commons on at least two occasions.[73]
  • Chris Pincher scandal: The deputy chief whip of the Conservative Party, Chris Pincher, resigned on 30 June following allegations about him groping two men.[74] Further allegations of harassment emerged against Pincher, along with claims that prime minister Boris Johnson had already been informed of his behaviour.[75] The incremental effect of this and other recent controversies led to the resignation of 59 Conservative politicians, including Rishi Sunak as chancellor and Sajid Javid as health secretary. This in turn led to Boris Johnson committing to resign as leader of the Conservative Party, and thus as prime minister when his replacement as leader had been chosen by his party.

2023

  • In April 2023, Scott Benton had the Conservative whip removed after suggesting to undercover reporters that he would break parliamentary lobbying rules for money. The parliament Standards Committee found he had committed a "very serious breach" of the rules.[76]
  • Operation Branchform: A Police Scotland investigation into possible fundraising fraud in the Scottish National Party begun in 2021 came to a head in 2023 with the arrests of SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell, Party Treasurer Colin Beattie, and former Party Leader and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon over a three-month period. Both Peter Murrell and Colin Beattie resigned their party roles immediately after their arrests. The highly publicised arrests and perceived delays in bringing the investigation (which continued for nearly two more years) to a conclusion led both the SNP's supporters and its opponents to claim that the investigation had been politicised.[77][78][79][80][81] Murrell was ultimately charged with embezzlement in 2024 and appeared in court for the first time in March 2025.[82][83]
  • Michael Matheson iPad scandal: Scottish Health Secretary Michael Matheson incurred nearly £11,000 in roaming charges after taking a Scottish Parliamentary iPad on a family holiday to Morocco. When this was publicised, Matheson initially attempted to claim the charges as a parliamentary expense, but later admitted that the iPad had been used by his sons to stream football matches and agreed to personally pay back the full cost of the data roaming bill. Following an investigation by the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body, Matheson resigned as Health Secretary in February 2024. Matheson was subsequently banned from Holyrood for 27 days and had his salary withdrawn for 54 days, the heaviest sanction ever given to an MSP.[84]

2024

  • Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, was accused of rape and other sexual offences against two victims dating back to 1985.[85] He resigned with immediate effect, stating that he would be strenuously contesting the charges and was suspended from the party.[86][87]
  • In March 2024, The Guardian reported that Frank Hester, the largest ever donor to the Conservative Party, had made comments in a 2019 company meeting about the MP Diane Abbott. The paper reported that he said that looking at Abbott makes you "want to hate all black women" and that she "should be shot", as well as making comments about a female executive from another organisation, saying "it would be much better if she died", and about his own Asian female employees, saying "we take the piss out of the fact that all our Chinese girls sit together in Asian corner".[88] The Labour Party said the Conservatives should return the money to Hester. Rishi Sunak, then-prime minister, said Hester's comments were racist but that the money would not be returned.[89][90] The Conservatives received another £5m donation from Hester later in the year which, despite further calls for it to be returned, the Conservative Party kept.[91]
  • In April, MP William Wragg resigned from the Public Accounts and 1922 committees and the Conservative Party after admitting to The Times he'd been blackmailed into giving a scammer phone numbers of MPs, political aides and a journalist. The scammer held naked photos of the MP after honey trapping him on the gay dating app Grindr.[92][93]
  • Mark Menzies had the Conservative whip removed in April while investigations were underway into allegations the MP had misused campaign donations. The funds were alleged to have been used to pay for his medical treatment and to people he claimed had locked him in a London flat. According to the BBC, some of the money had been used to pay sex workers.[94]
  • Election betting scandal: Following the scheduling of the 2024 general election for 4 July, it was discovered that Craig Williams, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, had placed a £100 bet on the election being in July. Further investigation uncovered multiple similar bets made by Conservative Party members and MPs, including cabinet minister Alister Jack, as well as police officers on Sunak's protection detail.[95] The Gambling Commission ultimately charged Williams and fourteen other people with criminal offences under the Gambling Act 2005.[96]
  • 2024 Labour Party freebies controversy
  • In November, the BBC revealed that Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves's CV and public statements about her past jobs contained inaccurate information, such as saying she'd worked at the Bank of England for a decade when it had actually been six, including a year of study at London School of Economics; and that she'd worked as an economist at Halifax Bank of Scotland when she'd worked in the customer relations department dealing with complaints and mortgage retention.[97][98][99][100]
  • In November, Louise Haigh resigned as Secretary of State for Transport after it emerged she had pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation in 2014 after falsely reporting in 2013 to police that her work phone had been stolen.[101]
  • In December, Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission named Tulip Siddiq in an investigation alleging embezzlement of up to £3,900,000,000 from infrastructure projects.[102] She resigned her ministerial position on 14 January 2025, maintaining her innocence but acknowledging that the ongoing situation could distract from the government's work. Prime Minister Keir Starmer accepted her resignation, noting that no evidence of financial misconduct had been found. The UK Anti-Corruption Coalition had called for Siddiq to relinquish her economic crime responsibilities due to a potential conflict of interest, given her family ties to the deposed regime in Bangladesh.[103][104]

2025

2026

References

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