Let’s have MPS with attitude

Seeing politicians playing Mr or Mrs Average should make us cringe – we need leaders we can look up to

As a young reporter, I was occasionally dispatched to cover the aftermath of some grisly crime – a murder, perhaps, with bodies dug up from beneath a suburban patio. It would fall to me to question the neighbours about the creepy man next door. Again and again the reply would be the same: “He was quiet, kept himself to himself.” Then the kicker: “He was normal.”

It was strange how often this declaration of normality would be made about people who were clearly anything but. Yet it was the most frequent response. Which makes me think being normal is pretty overrated.

In the run-up to a general election, however, normality seems to be the quality to which all politicians aspire. Spin doctors and strategists are at pains to “humanise” their party leaders by detailing every dreary titbit of their domestic routine. They line up soft-focus media interviews in which potential prime ministers will be asked whether they prefer Hobnobs to Jaffa Cakes or watch Britain’s Got Talent.

So it was that we were treated to Theresa and Philip May on the BBC’S The One Show, talking about taking the bins out and Philip’s lack of wardrobe space. We were meant to wonder at their capacity for wholehearted middlebrow averageness. He’s a relatable bloke who thinks his wife has too many shoes! They have to deal with rubbish just like the rest of us! Who cares about making policy when you can make small talk?

Jeremy Corbyn has tried to get in on the act, too. Last week, he led an “impromptu” sing-along with a street busker; but his interactions with the public always seem stilted and cringe-worthy, like that jarring moment when you see your teacher in home clothes for the first time.

Still, he keeps trying. “I lead a very normal life,” Corbyn said in a 2016 interview, as if this would win us all round. “I ride a bicycle and I don’t have a car.” At the last election two years ago we were forced to endure the endless saga of kitchen interviews: David Cameron whipping up a ham salad in a casual open-necked shirt; Ed Miliband sipping a mug of tea while reclining on a Formica worktop and so on. Fragrant spouses were wheeled out for a bit of simpering agreement, and so the whole charade went on.

Why are we so obsessed with our politicians being “normal” anyway? For one thing, these spoon-fed glimpses of domestic normality are anything but. Miliband’s modest kitchenette turned out to be the one used by the live-in nanny, rather than any proof of his man-of-the-people credentials. These interactions are always stage-managed, tightly controlled and mildly embarrassing to watch. We know that. They know that. So why bother pretending otherwise?

I’m not convinced there’s any such thing as normal in any case, as evidenced by those neighbours insisting the killer next door was Mr Average. Do you think your upbringing was normal? Were your family wholly unexceptional? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could honestly claim to be normal. We are all the products of our different, unique experiences.

Besides, wouldn’t it be better to focus on wanting our MPS to be exceptional? To have talents and skills that set them above the ordinary? To think in new, innovative ways that challenge the status quo? Obviously we don’t want them to be out of touch with what life is like for the people who vote for them, but I worry that our fixation with normality is leading to a homogenisation of Parliament.

The people who make our laws are still overwhelmingly white, male and middle-class. There are currently 191 female MPS out of 650 – 29 per cent, which is a lower ratio than in Sudan, El Salvador or Zimbabwe. And there are just 41 MPS from an ethnic minority background. That’s 6 per cent, against 14 per cent for the country as a whole.

If that disparity is to be tackled, we have to move away from our obsession with “normal”. I’d rather vote for someone who has shown the strength to overcome a difficult background, who isn’t like everyone else, who has courage and chutzpah and has achieved despite circumstances rather than because of them. Isn’t that the more inspiring narrative? Isn’t that more appealing than our politicians all merging into one soupy median of averageness?

I think so. Because I don’t want my politicians to be like me. I want them to be better.