BRITAIN’S public standards watchdog has launched a devastating attack on Tony Blair, claiming that his legacy will be “as closely associated with the loss of public trust” as John Major’s was with sleaze.

In his first interview since being sidelined by Blair last week, Sir Alistair Graham said that Britain was now facing as big a crisis over standards in public life as it did 13 years ago with the cash for questions scandal.

His committee was set up in the wake of the scandal to clean up politics but Graham accused Blair of being personally responsible for a “very significant loss of trust” between politicians and the public.

He is now fearful that the government is planning to scrap the committee on standards in public life. This weekend he said: “I suspect Blair and his government are going to be as strongly identified with the loss of public trust as Major’s was with sleaze. The public certainly feel let down over the period.”

He added: “The most fundamental thing is that Blair has betrayed himself. He set such a high bar for people to judge him and he has fallen well below the standards he set for himself.”

Despite Blair’s claim that Labour would be “purer than pure”, Graham accused the prime minister of “seven mortal sins” that had degraded politics. These included:

The cash for honours scandal which was the result of a “personal decision” by Blair to take secret loans, ignoring his own legislation to be transparent about sources of funding.

“It’s an absolutely key issue for the democratic system that people know where political parties are getting their funds — to see who might possibly have some influence on their future policy making,” Graham said. nThe Iraq war, where “the way the arguments were presented to the public undermined trust on a key issue where the lives of British soldiers were at risk”.

Graham said that Blair had disregarded century-old conventions of cabinet government with his so-called “sofa style” decision making: “Key democratic safeguards for openness and accountability in terms of how government operates broke down. And Blair has to take personal responsibility for that.”

“Shocking political interference” in a fraud investigation by ending the inquiry into alleged corruption over BAE’s arms deal with Saudi Arabia. This has now put Britain under international scrutiny for potential breaches of international anticorruption codes.

Appointing an independent Whitehall figure to investigate improper behaviour by ministers but failing to refer a single case to it. Only when one potential conflict of interest came to light in the media was it discovered that the minister had been granted an exemption.

“The prime minister has caused difficulties for himself and has helped to undermine trust in politicians through the way he has handled alleged breaches of the ministerial code,” said Graham.

Sweeping aside serious concerns about the risks of postal voting on demand, and then making it a “central plank of the electoral system and so leaving our system open to fraud”.

“Undue reliance on spin” where the same story or achievement has been recycled over a period of time: “[This] has had a very deleterious effect on people accepting what the government says.” nPoliticising the civil service and blocking an act that would guarantee its impartiality. Instead, the Blair years had seen a boom in special advisers who acted for their political masters.

Graham said: “These are seven serious accusations that can be personally made against the prime minister where he’s failed on ethical standards and he has to take responsibility for that.”

He added that Blair was a “brilliant showman” who cared more about “political control” than upholding standards. As a result, public trust in the honesty of politicians had been eroded — the most important attribute that the public was seeking. “People want politicians to tell it like it is, to tell them when something goes wrong,” he said.

Graham, chairman of the committee since 2004, revealed his constant struggles with Blair to reform the ministerial code. He believes that this is the most pressing and persistent threat to standards in Whitehall following a series of ministerial scandals.

The code sets standards of conduct in a minister’s professional life and seeks to ensure there is no conflict between ministers’ personal affairs and professional decisions. Graham believes that the way scandals involving David Blunkett, Tessa Jowell and John Prescott were handled undermined the code.

Graham has been the subject of a whispering campaign among Labour figures since criticising ministerial conduct. They now talk of Graham’s sacking as one of Blair’s final acts of revenge.

However, the former trade union leader, who has chaired bodies ranging from the Northern Ireland parades commission to the Police Complaints Authority, said: “I can’t believe Blair operates on that sort of personal level. It is one of my failures. I failed to convince the prime minister that taking a lead on standards issues should be a central part of his government programme.”

By contrast, Graham believes that Gordon Brown, who is expected to take over as prime minister later this year, is preparing reforms to clean up politics. He has met Brown four times in recent months and believes he is paying close attention to standards issues.

Graham, who was speaking to The Sunday Times in a personal capacity, said: “My overriding priority is to safeguard the role of the committee on standards in public life. One of the central political issues which is going to dominate political life up to the next election is this loss of trust between people and politicians.”

He is also critical of the behav-iour of MPs from all parties in awarding themselves generous perks and benefits. “They seem to be able to apply a differing standard than most ordinary people expect to achieve,” he said.

“They are able to put a claim in for expenses up to a figure of £250 without having to provide a detailed receipt. Whereas everybody else will be expected to provide some form of receipt.

“MPs also awarded themselves pensions which nobody could expect to replicate. These are the people taking decisions affecting the lives of many people and you really can’t have this disconnect with what they’re doing for themselves, and what decisions they are taking on behalf of the rest of the population.”

He also attacked the way in which the political parties had run the last election campaign: “The issues they knew they were going to be dealing with shortly after the election — like pension issues, like climate change, like whether we should build nuclear power stations... were not thoroughly debated.

“There has been a failure by the whole political class to understand how to present and deal with issues in an adult way with the British people... They’re going to have to change their approach for the future.”

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