‘Truth and Integrity in Public Life’: the 2022 Salter Lecture

Lecture by Ruth Cadbury. Report by Elinor Smallman

The Quaker Socialist Society’s annual Salter Lecture, named after Ada and Alfred Salter, was delivered this year by Ruth Cadbury MP.

Despite some technical hiccups, over 350 Friends gathered to listen as Ruth spoke about the importance of these values to Friends, described her journey into politics, and examined truth and integrity in British politics over time.

Ruth Cadbury grew up with Quakerism and ‘steeped in the values of social justice’. Having gotten involved with student politics during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, she stood for her local council in the 1980s. She was fifty-three before considering the possibility of becoming an MP, and in 2015 she was elected as Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth.

She rooted her lecture in the importance of truth and integrity to Friends. Though involvement in public life has taken different forms over the years, Friends have served as MPs. Between them the two current Quaker MPs, Ruth Cadbury and Catherine West, represent 0.3 percent of the House of Commons membership, ‘ten times more than the proportion of Quaker members and attenders in Britain’s population’.

When turning her attention to British politics, Ruth described how, before political parties emerged, it was the norm that ministers lied, cheated and accepted bribes, until the Victorian era, when change came about due to a ‘strong moral code’. That system, ‘based on the rule of law with the pillars of parliament, judiciary, impartial civil service and a free press’, was still ‘doing a pretty good job’. But she acknowledged there are ‘significant examples’ of MPs and prime ministers lacking integrity over the years.

She highlighted that the UK government developed and promotes the ‘Nolan Principles’, which all public office-holders sign up to: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership. ‘I would say as a core statement of integrity they have served our public sector well over the last thirty years.’

Speaking of her experience of fellow politicians, Ruth said: ‘Almost everyone who goes into the politics in the UK does so to make their community, this country, and the world a better place.’ She reflected: ‘I would say that the foundations of our democracy are still there and at many levels still operating largely effectively, however they are being seriously undermined.’

She highlighted the ways in which parliamentary structures seek to hold MPs to account, but acknowledged that they are ‘complex and, when it comes to ministers in particular, inherently weak’.

In addressing the popular concern about politicians ‘not answering a straight question with a straight answer’, she spoke of the challenges they face: ‘In politics there is no space for nuance, or to recognise there are not easy solutions to every problem.’

Elinor is the production manager at the Friend. The text of the lecture will be made available in the next edition of the Quaker Socialist Society newsletter.

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