A political row in England erupted when a sacked Minister accused her Prime Minister of breaching a secret deal between them.  She says that to secure her support in his bid for the top job, she extracted promises from him about government policy – relating, say, to the government of Northern Ireland. 

Neither would or could allege that any such agreement could be binding in law.  But it is said be binding in honour – that is, morally binding.

But how could this be so?  A Minister of the Crown is in a position of trust.  He or she must act in good faith, and avoid assuming obligations to others that might conflict with the obligations of their office.  And they must account candidly to the public for the way they discharge their duty.

They cannot do that if they have subjected themselves to an obligation to another as to how they will conduct their office which they cannot divulge to the public.

And that is before you get to the question: Why did the deal have to be secret?

Ministers of the Crown must have the confidence of Parliament and the King.  They are obliged by their office to give true counsel to the King – that is, they are obliged to give such advice as they consider best suited to the nature of the case.  And they must candidly account for the way they discharge such obligations. 

Ministers fail in discharging those obligations if they undertake obligations with third parties about the way they will perform them in a way that precludes them from revealing such undertakings to other people.

Of course compromises and deals are the stuff of politics – but not when they have the consequences referred to above.

The deal referred to in the press was said to have been made between one Minister and another.  Imagine the uproar if the other was not a Minister, but Rupert Murdoch, Arthur Scargill, or Vladimir Putin.

That these considerations go unremarked shows how far we have fallen.