ast week I spoke to university students who have felt forgotten throughout the pandemic, neglected by a government that has failed to control the spread of the virus, putting their student lives on hold and future opportunities at risk. Against this backdrop, many will have been dismayed to learn that the new chair of the Office for Students (OfS) – the independent regulator of higher education in England – is the former Conservative MP, Boris Johnson’s campaign manager, current Conservative peer and longstanding friend of the failing education secretary, Gavin Williamson: James Wharton. This appointment is staggering, not least because of blatant disregard for the clear statutory criteria designed to guide appointments to the OfS. Indeed, in his pre-appointment hearing at the education select committee, Wharton admitted that he failed to meet the top criterion, having no experience of the higher education sector. Wharton went on to tell the committee that running Boris Johnson’s 2017 leadership campaign was not a conflict of interest, nor his longstanding links with Policy Exchange, the rightwing think tank established by Michael Gove, which he described as merely “advisory”. Perhaps most concerning, he confirmed that despite being appointed to chair an independent regulator, he will continue to take the Conservative whip in the House of Lords, voting with the government on regulations that govern the very organisation he will represent (Wharton claims he will have “more latitude” to sometimes vote against the government). With the government’s recent response to the 2019 Augar review of higher education likely to keep universities and the reform of further education in the spotlight, it is simply unrealistic to think Wharton’s links into the government will in no way influence his decision-making as chair of the OfS. Sadly, this appointment is symptomatic of Johnson’s government, which puts its interests first and the public’s last. We have heard many tales of the rise of the “chumocracy” in the Tory establishment. Dido Harding, Conservative peer and wife of the government’s anti-corruption champion, was appointed to run the outsourced test-and-trace system despite having no experience of public health. Contracts worth £198m to supply laptops to children struggling to learn in lockdown have been awarded to a firm founded by a Conservative donor. It is entirely clear that it’s who you know that counts with this administration. This speaks to a bigger problem, a fundamental crisis that has seen the government spend vast sums of taxpayers’ money on contracts that companies were ill-equipped to deliver and have hampered our response to this pandemic. It’s not just the public who suffer from this “one rule for them, another for us” attitude but the companies that could have delivered this work with experience and professionalism, which have lost out to those with better connections in government. While the government has continued to refuse to extend free school meals over February half-term next week, the value of Covid contracts handed out to Conservative friends and donors has risen to nearly £2bn, according to Labour calculations. This speaks to the values that define our country and our government. Since the beginning of the pandemic the government has made incredible asks of the British people. The need for public trust and confidence in the government has never been more important, yet this trust has been exploited and squandered. Equally, it’s vital that public concerns surrounding senior appointments are urgently addressed. That is why Labour is calling for an investigation into Wharton’s appointment, to understand how someone so manifestly unqualified has been appointed to this role. However, the change that is really needed is far more fundamental. After a decade of Conservative funding cuts that weakened Britain’s ability to respond to the Covid crisis, Labour would lead a drive to strengthen public services rather than seek to outsource them to connected bidders. Cronyism needs to be cleaned up by delivering greater accountability, transparency and involving the people using public services in decision-making. To deliver this, Labour would expand the Freedom of Information Act to cover private companies when delivering public contracts, create a truly independent anti-corruption commissioner and restore transparency at the heart of government by establishing an Integrity and Ethics commission. Covid has dramatically changed our lives over the last year, but we cannot forget that many of problems that have exacerbated this crisis existed before. In rebuilding after this pandemic, we cannot simply return to the problems of the past. To re-establish trust we must begin by ending the cronyism in Westminster that has plagued our pandemic response. Kate Green is the Labour MP for Stretford & Urmston and shadow education secretary