Very shortly now, we shall be told in detail all the “second jobs” MPs do, how much they earn, and how many hours a week they spend on them. Harriet Harman wants to go further and ban “second jobs”. Gordon Brown suggests a set of minimum requirements for MPs in how they respond to constituent queries and so on, with the possibility mooted of removing MPs that do not meet these minimum requirements.
The assumptions underlying this train of thought are so misconceived that one barely knows where to begin. Being an MP is not a “job” at all, let alone a “main job”. And if voters want to elect an MP that never responds to their queries, what business is it of Gordon Brown or anyone else to prevent them from doing so?
But attacking all these points directly would probably clash with so many things that so many of you reading this blog would think obvious that I would test your patience going down that road. So I shall come at the matter from the other side, as it were. Instead of telling you what an MP should be, I shall describe for you the creature you are asking for, and ask: Is this really what you want?
You MP leaves her home in the London suburbs (this particular one has just one home – she happens not to be amongst the one third or more of MPs that will in the future be millionaires, and hence cannot afford to maintain a home in her constituency). She arrives at her office promptly at 9am – rarely quarter to and never quarter past – makes sure she logs on promptly so that the system notes her arrival time (very important since the publication of MP attendance hours – fifteen MPs had been forced to resign over that) and begins to read her constituency mail and email. Some of it comes direct to her at Parliament or on her email; the rest, once the freedom of information staff and the security teams have inspected it, is brought to her by her assistant (whom she dislikes intensely but had no freedom to hire and hence cannot fire; she thinks rather wistfully of how much better her ex-husband used to understand how to manage her affairs before the hiring of family members was banned).
Her assistant confirms some additions to the itinerary for the visit to the constituency this weekend: a shopping centre to open and a tour of a new hospital. The morning passes... Someone’s housing benefit has been stopped – a letter to the relevant local decision-maker should do. Someone objects to the closure of a local swimming pool – pass on the note to the council. Someone has a crazy scheme for building a rail tunnel to Ireland – a polite reply saying the idea has been noted should suffice.
Look at that! Nearly noon. Pretty good progress. She thinks just for once she might have a chance to make it into the chamber for Prime Minister’s Questions. Rather fun. Then a nice baguette back at her desk and a fruit crush to drink whilst she gets back to the correspondence for another 45 mins. That leaves 15 minutes to prepare for her 2pm meeting with those representatives of local manufacturers, wanting to express their concerns about some upcoming health and safety legislation. Her brief from Party HQ tells her that “the economic impact will be minimal” and that “manufacturers are being widely consulted”. She manages to memorize these two phrases before the meeting starts, so she sails through unruffled.
The meeting needs to finish at 2.50pm, because she needs to leave for a vote on the new Education Bill. She read various parts of it going home on the tube last night and coming in again this morning. She felt a bit doubtful about certain of the clauses, but she wasn’t sure she’d totally understood, and of course she didn’t get much chance these days to chat through these issues with other MPs. (Since MPs' hours spent chatting in the tea-room was made public knowledge, and the associated furore over how much time MPs “wasted socialising during working hours” (twenty MPs had to resign over that) the tea-rooms tended to be used only for meeting constituents. And of course if email debates became public, as occasionally had happened, deselection would follow for those not securely with the Party line.) Still...no matter. She had her instructions from the whips, and the research staff at Party HQ were very professional and bound to know what they were doing.
Quick vote, then back to the constituency mail and email. Three boring ones about Europe – easy enough to field with a form letter. Some poor chap who has been delayed on his waiting list for his cancer treatment – may have to forward that one to a health minister and also to Party HQ in case the Press team needs to know. Someone complaining about immigration – may have to invite him to come to surgery at the weekend. Ah. 5.30pm. A good day’s work.
Now a bit of prep time for her appearance this evening on BBC World television, discussing “advances in the role of women in politics”. Not on until 8pm, and they’re sending a car to her house, so she has time to get home and get some dinner. Perhaps read a bit of one of the bills she’s voting on tomorrow on the tube as she goes home.
Home to an empty, but pleasingly tidy, house. Quick call to the kids to see how they’re doing. Might get to see them on Sunday afternoon if nothing comes up. Ex-husband answers ‘phone. Still a pang when hearing his voice. Maybe if we’d carried on working together – we made such a good team - instead of having to spend so much time apart... Anyway. Onwards and upwards.
Interview. Home. Bed. Sleep.
Is that what you want your MPs to be like – days as mundane as that? You don’t want them debating great issues of state? You don’t want them chatting through their differing philosophies? You don’t want them manoeuvring and plotting to test which nuanced positions have stronger support? You don’t want them reading around and thinking through the issues on which they vote? You don’t want them to be people of substance that do important jobs and act as representatives of what they see as the interests of their constituents, even if the constituents themselves disagree? You don’t want them to be exciting and sometimes eccentric individuals whose personal oddities and strange habits are easily caricatured if exposed too brutally to the light of day? You don’t want them to be drawn from specialised cliques of the great and the good, rather than chosen at random from the great mass of the People? You don’t want them to be self-confident, arrogant individuals who enjoy adulation and the sense of influencing events, believe in things, believe that they are right, believe that they are worth compromising for in order to deliver effective team play and occasionally sacrificing one’s career for when a moment of melodrama seems attractive? You really want them to be just like you? You really want them to work for you... as a job??