The deceit that the private conduct of a public figure does not affect their public roles.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. Schizophrenic patients can struggle to distinguish between what is real and imagined. Schizophrenia, more generally, is taken to be behaviour in which a person appears to have two different personalities.
Many politicians with colourful private lives are increasingly trying to assert that their private life has no consequences for their public roles. They claim that they have a private life that is sealed off from their public life. Conservativehome.com calls this deceit 'schizophrenic politics'.
The idea of separate personal and public lives is not accepted when it comes to non-sexual matters. MPs who may be financially affected by legislation are required to declare their interest if they discuss it in parliament. Judges with personal interests in cases recuse themselves.
It is human nature that personal experiences will inform public views. It was notable that a large proportion of gay MPs took leading parts in Parliament’s November 2004 debate on same-sex civil partnerships. It is likely that Boris Johnson MP – whose mistress allegedly terminated a pregnancy – will be reluctant to vote to restrict other people’s abortion rights.
Consequences of private behaviours
During the ‘back to basics’ period of John Major’s government, even the smallest of foibles led to ministerial resignations. Tony Blair – who once promised a ‘whiter than white’ government – has said that his minister’s private lives are completely irrelevant to his appointments process. Mr Blair declared that his Home Secretary, David Blunkett, had done nothing wrong – even though he had fathered at least one child with an already married woman. Do we really want to grow up in a society where such an adulterous relationship is presented to children as acceptable?
Just as governments have a spectrum of policy options available to them so there should be a sliding scale of responses to unethical – if legal – private behaviour. Shouldn’t an apology of some kind be attached to an adulterous relationship? And in extreme cases, such as the infamous Ron Davies’ episode on Clapham Common, resignation should still be appropriate.
Matthew Parris also opposes schizophrenia politics
Times columnist, Matthew Parris, appears to support an even stricter doctrine. Mr Parris' comments sometimes verge on the totalitolerant and he wants politicians to declare they think as well as what they have done. He made his case with these words:
"If an MP makes an impassioned speech on the ease with which medical research can proceed without using fertilised human eggs, I think we deserve to know whether he or she is a Catholic. A conviction that stem-cell research is wicked in the eyes of God may have influenced his or her judgment. It may not have done so, of course, just as share ownership may not prejudice an MP’s view of legislation touching the value of the shares. The point about declaration is that is allows us to weigh for ourselves the MP’s judgment, in light of what we know about his interests."
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