Sir Nicholas Winterton has been widely criticized for his contention that MPs should be able to claim for first-class travel. Almost every senior journalist I know travels first class when on business and travelling any significant distance. I travel first class on business and standard class when I travel with my family. Why? In first class, I get a seat, I have food and drinks brought to me (so I don't have to interrupt my work), there are usually not children running around or crying, and I am usually not jammed in to a level that is uncomfortable and interferes with my ability to work. Sir Nicholas is obviously correct to say that the sort of people in standard class (students with large ruck-sacks, friends chatting, people listening to music loudly on their headphones, parents battling to keep their children amused) are quite different sorts of people from those in first class (business people, those seeking quiet, those who prefer their own company).
Sir Nicholas is right in this. And furthermore he is obviously and uncontestably right. Yet almost no-one has supported him. He has only said this himself because (a) he is a long-time maverick, given to eccentric (and occasionally unacceptable) statements; and (b) he is retiring at the next election, so feels especially able to say it like he sees it.
One of the results of the expenses scandal is that, although most MPs believe they have been treated very badly by the press, with exaggeration, misrepresentation, unfairness and misunderstanding everywhere (how many do you suppose actually believe all this guff about "We are all equally guilty"?), only the long-term mavericks have spoken out. And by speaking out they have committed themselves to oblivion.
No-one has listened to them, even when they were right, because of course it is much easier and intellectually cheaper to dismiss all come-back with a wave of the hand as self-serving, easier to sneer, to mock, to condemn without seeking to grasp any detail. And by lumping all together in the one pot, we can then loudly proclaim them all corrupt and thereby feel that little bit better about our own weaknesses and indiscretions.
And because MPs now matter so little in our system - because their role is so enfeebled and their quality and aspiration-to-quality so low - we will actually see little material difference from the further damage our over-reactions and grossly unfair generalisations and distortions have created. Paul Goodman suggests that it may only be a matter of the best and brightest getting in and out of Parliament a bit quicker and our losing some of the intangible-but-important benefits of experience.
Perhaps he's right. But if that's it, I wonder why we bother with permanently-sitting MPs at all. If MPs really are just supposed to spend their days dealing with mundane constituency business and to be ordinary people like the rest of us - if we really don't want them thinking big thoughts, having eccentric out-of-the-box ideas, plotting and scheming to test the robustness of the current coalition supporting the government, debating where the country should go, what we should do, what we are for, how we want other nations to regard us - if being an MP really is just a matter of being glorified county councillor, then why do we need professional politicians at all?
