{"id":348,"date":"2021-08-26T17:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/the-citizens.com\/?p=348"},"modified":"2023-12-19T17:16:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T17:16:04","slug":"qa-with-my-little-crony-creator-sophie-hill-norms-can-break-down-more-easily-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-citizens.com\/2021\/08\/qa-with-my-little-crony-creator-sophie-hill-norms-can-break-down-more-easily-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with My Little Crony creator Sophie Hill: ‘Norms can break down more easily than you think’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earlier this month the New York Times<\/a> ran a story on cronyism in the UK and how the established system of \u2018gentleman\u2019s agreements\u2019 which exists in place of hard and fast legislation is being exploited by Boris Johnson\u2019s government for the benefit of Tory party allies and donors. Hannah White, deputy director of the Institute for Government, is quoted in the article as saying that Britain is at \u201ca dangerous moment\u201d and the current system is \u201cnot terribly fit for purpose\u201d. Just how unfit has been exposed repeatedly since the start of the pandemic and it\u2019s something that we at the Citizens have been attempting to keep tabs on with our Keeping the Receipts project. Since May we\u2019ve been logging instances where rules have been broken, ministerial codes breached and norms flouted in a public spreadsheet <\/a>devoted to the topic of cronyism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a work in progress, much like My Little Crony<\/a>, the extraordinary data visualisation created by Harvard political science PhD student Sophie Hill to show the intricate web of connections between Tory politicians and firms winning government contracts. Initially conceived as a \u201cfun little interactive thing\u201d to share with a few friends last November, the interactive map quickly went viral on social media and has been cited twice in the Houses of Parliament<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spoke to Sophie about the inspiration behind the project, why cronyism poses a serious threat to our democracy, and what we need to do to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What was the inspiration for My Little Crony<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I launched My Little Crony in November last year. As a Brit living in the US, I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the presidential election results to come in, which is a scary time. And I thought, I need a side project that’s going to keep me occupied, something useful, that’s nothing to do with Trump. I’d been reading these news stories about allegations of cronyism and I just couldn’t keep track of all the names or see how they added up. To me, words are not a very efficient way to describe that data. This is really a network. And when you see it all laid out, you start to see that this adds up to a systemic issue. It wasn’t just one bad decision made during a crisis. It is a system of political favouritism, which is the definition of cronyism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does cronyism matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea that we created a \u2018VIP lane\u2019 for politically-connected firms goes against every set of anti-corruption best practices that’s ever been written. By creating that system, the government incentivised all kinds of opportunistic behaviour. There\u2019s a sense that government officials, our representatives, are behaving with impunity. They really don’t even care how bad it looks. It’s offensive to us as citizens, but it’s also a really big problem because a lot of our mechanisms for holding officials accountable depend on them ultimately being forced to resign through public pressure and media scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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