The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
MP? Only sociopaths need apply
Yes, our politicians are pretty hopeless – but they’d be a lot better if we made a few, easy reforms, finds Asa Bennett
336pp, Atlantic, £18.99, ebook £12.98
Estate agents and lawyers may not be popular with the public, but they are nowhere near as despised as Members of Parliament. Svengali-like mavericks, from Nigel Farage to Russell Brand, have had no trouble whipping up fury against the political class, encouraging the idea that all MPs do in Westminster is fiddle their expenses, get drunk in subsidised bars and wave through laws with nary a thought to their consequences.
So why do we love to hate our elected representatives? Isabel Hardman, who has dealt with plenty of them as a seasoned political journalist, reminds us how tough it is for aspiring public servants to enter Parliament. The deck is stacked to make it as hard as possible for anyone without tons of money, spare time and contacts in Westminster to exploit.
The criteria one must meet to be selected as a candidate can be so arcane that many parliamentary hopefuls end up paying for professional help to work out what they are. The system also encourages carpetbaggers, since candidates who can’t represent their actual home end up taking their ambition elsewhere.
Hardman reveals that one current MP tried to convince an association to pick him as their candidate on the grounds that his beloved horse was “stabled locally”.
After selection, the fun has only just begun. Candidates then have to throw themselves into campaigning. Hardman’s humanity shines brightest here, making even cynical hacks, like me, feel sorry for what those vying for
Without tons of money, spare time and Westminster contacts, it’s hard to be elected
public office endure. Candidates can’t expect a salary for their time, which is a strain on those who don’t have thousands of pounds saved up, but they can expect plenty of reprimands from HQ if they are seen to shirk. Families are forsaken, marriages are ruined and small businesses are left to wither. And that’s not to mention the abuse that they can expect both online and offline.
Some will think MPs should suck it all up, but Hardman makes a compelling point: do we really want politicians “too thick-skinned” for empathy, or sociopaths unafraid to risk their personal lives to win?
Once in Parliament, there is no official guide on how to do the job. The closest thing to a performance review is the next general election – but there is no shortage of people ready to tell them what to do, namely the party whips. Any MP who wants to knuckle down and scrutinise a bill risks their wrath, since the whips see it as their duty to ensure no awkward questions can inconvenience ministers and hold up government business. This means that the job of scrutinising legislation ends up being done better by the House of Lords.
While Hardman sets out how tough it can be to get into Parliament, she certainly does not gloss over their failings once they get there. Ministers like to boast of taking tough decisions, but she damningly sets out how they fail to do so, whether on the airports debate or something as simple as stopping the Palace of Westminster from crumbling. What they call “taking the politics out” of an issue, she warns, is an excuse to wash their hands of it.
And when they decide to do something, she points out how prone they are to not thinking it through. This was manifestly the case when many Tory MPs, up in arms about their constituents in social housing being asked to pay more rent, were told by landlords that it was a consequence of the housing benefit cuts they had voted through.
As someone who has spent years writing about Westminster, Hardman knows better than most what is going wrong there. And so her ideas to put it right – like a national bursary scheme for parties to help their candidates afford “the most expensive and time-consuming job interview on earth” – deserve serious attention. The job of scrutinising legislation should fall, she suggests, to select committees. That already happens in Scotland and Germany, and would be a marked improvement on the current system, in which MPs are too often under orders by the whips to not make a fuss, and so use their time to do things like sign Christmas cards instead.
Hardman could so easily have just given the political class a kicking, but the solutions she offers make this book a mustread for anyone who wants a better Parliament. Crammed with insight and gossip, it will hopefully provoke the Westminster bubble to clean itself up. If it listens, MPs can look forward to the day when they are no longer in Britain’s least trusted profession.
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