Labour must root out venality and start afresh

Tessa Jowell's decision to separate from her husband, David Mills, follows a hideous and embarrassing fortnight. The spectacle of human lives unravelling is always dreadful. To that degree, Ms Jowell's critics as well as her friends should sympathise with her today. But any closure the couple has achieved is for them alone. The Labour party's ideological and political inquest into what happened, and why, has only just begun. The allegations swirling round the Culture Secretary and her husband suggest an awesome gap between the personal ethics of New Labour's political leadership and ordinary voters.

Nor does the separation of Ms Jowell and her husband leave her in the clear. What happens to her career now, however, is less important than the shadow over a government whose frequent proximity to financial scandal now looks more than careless. The future of the government depends on how it deals with the amoralities and temptations of contemporary capitalism.

First, though, we should recognise that the separation of a prominent politician from her husband, in the full media glare, is a sad and seismic moment. For a marriage break-up to be conducted amid such publicity must make it doubly difficult for all involved, children in particular. Tessa Jowell could not have foreseen, when she entered public life and married a corporate lawyer, how great a price she would have to pay. In general, high-profile couples suspected of colluding in shadowy practices - from the Macbeths to the Clintons - stay together. Ms Jowell's split reflects her abhorrence of the allegations that have stained her husband's name. Ministers' spouses, however, are no longer spared accountability. Leading politicians can be in no doubt that they have a responsibility to be transparent on their own behalf, as well as to assure themselves of the integrity of their partners.

Mr Mill's affairs, in particular his opaque but close involvement with Silvio Berlusconi, together with his blatant willingness to exploit his connections, have forced New Labour to accept that they can no longer plead they knew nothing, as Ms Jowell has tried to do. Her account may be totally honest, but public doubts remain. If she knew as little as she claims she did, she either did not ask or she was not told. Ignorance, though, is a hollow defence.

By separating from her husband, she is telegraphing to the world a massive betrayal of trust on his part. Separation gives new force to her account of events. Even so, the political cloud enveloping her has not gone away. It may be that that resignation will still be her only honourable course. The Observer today poses some of the questions she must answer. Why, for example, did she wait for almost a year before declaring her husband's controversial business dealings with Iran? Did she know that a second mortgage on their home was paid off by money her husband had made from Berlusconi?

And what are we to make of her joint mortgage applications, details of which remain obscure, even after the investigation by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell?

But the small print should not be allowed to eclipse the wider issues. Whatever the truth, and however innocent Ms Jowell may be, this saga is frankly baffling to the general public, less for its complexity than for the fact that a leading minister could find herself so close to such grubby allegations. Financial probity is the most basic and non-negotiable duty of any minister, and his or her spouse.

Voters who believe in the stated values of New Labour are right to be appalled. Other related failures of government must be faced. If every scandal is not to end in the sometimes rough justice of resignation or, in this case, marital breakdown, a better tribunal process must be set up. It is not robust enough to ask the Cabinet Secretary to undertake an 'investigation' in a few days and for the Prime Minister of the day to add his ruling. Implementing the ministerial code needs further review.

Britain's free press, though much maligned, helps keep British political and public life clean. It has done so in the Mills case, by highlighting the murky world of offshore tax havens, hedge funds, private equity and the extravagantly large fortunes of the super-rich. The media, however, cannot be the only watchdogs in such matters. It is up to politicians, and specifically Mr Blair, to set the tone for a culture in which spivvery and making a fast buck, not to mention graver allegations, are seen as loathsome.

In the last lap of the Blair era, this story taints the government and all that it should stand for. Mr Blair can, and should, refresh his cabinet, retire the compromised and bring on a younger generation. He must forge a new connection to principles of integrity in public life and revive Old Labour's more puritan traditions about wealth and business. Such codes were more in tune with honesty, decency and the popular mood than New Labour has ever accepted. As for Ms Jowell, her misfortunes have, at least, forced her party to confront, and hopefully weed out, its venal instincts.