House of Comments - Episode 120 - The Sting and Other Stories

The latest House of Comments podcast is now out.

This week I am joined by former House of Comments co-host and contributing editor of Labour List Emma Burnell to discuss the sting that brought Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind low on outside interests, Labour's new tuition fees policy and the government's decision to devolve healthcare to the Manchester region.

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Why does our politics always reform itself the hard way?

We see it time and again.

In 2009 it was parliament's expenses system. MPs had been abusing it for years and it was clearly unfit for purpose and yet they kept on with it until suddenly The Telegraph had the goods and then all hell broke loose. It was the biggest political crisis we have seen this century. And it was largely avoidable if only parliament had cleaned house itself beforehand. Instead they waited, and waited, and hoped they could keep getting away with it until suddenly they couldn't. And massively, massively damaged their own reputations as a result of having been forced to fix it.

We are seeing a similar pattern play out again with outside interests for MPs. They have been carrying on for years and years, some MPs with two, three, four or more outside interests/jobs. At first there needed to be a register of interests. Then Cameron before the last election made a speech where he declared outside interests for MPs to be "the next scandal waiting to happen". Various of their number have been caught out over the years (e.g. Geoff Hoon, Stephen Byers) and more recently Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw. We are seeing a slow attritional effect here but at some point this will all blow up. And MPs will be forced, probably to have no outside interests at all. The fact that this is likely the wrong solution and will discourage e.g. doctors and others who need to maintain professional skills whilst serving in parliament will be by the by. Because again MPs would have had the chance to clean house and will have refused until they were forced to so something. And instead of measured reform we will instead see a knee-jerk panicked response as MPs will then be hugely on the back foot.

It doesn't take a psephological genius to see where the next likely crisis of legitimacy for our ruling class will come from after this. We are about to head into a general election where it is fairly likely that UKIP could come third in the share of the vote (e.g. around 15%) and come sixth in number of seats (e.g. 0.5%). At the same time the SNP could come sixth in the vote but third in number of seats (get 3% of the vote and perhaps 7% of the seats). Not to mention how swathes of Green and other voters across the country will be disenfranchised. We may also see Labour winning most seats even though they have had fewer votes than the Tories*. Our First Past the Post system simply cannot cope with a 5 or 6 party system. But yet again we see a political class with its head in the sand. There is simply no appetite or momentum amongst MPs as a whole for any change to the electoral system in Westminster. Most MPs think it does a good (or at least good enough) job. They are wholly unprepared for the sort of convulsion and the potential constitutional crisis that it could provoke if the sort of grossly unfair results mentioned above in any way come to pass. Indeed only a few years ago the old school MPs in both the Conservative and Labour parties closed ranks to prevent a pretty minor change to the electoral system. This could have been an opportunity for a proper national debate about how we elect our representatives. Instead it descended into utter garbage about how soldiers would not get bullet-proof vests, babies would not get the life support machines they needed and how THE BNP WILL GET TO CHOOSE YOUR VOTE IF AV WINS.

It seems that our body politic is incapable of seeing what is just over the horizon. Maybe it's a function of the way so many of their number refuse to engage with "hypothetical questions" at least in public only eventually dealing with problems when they become critical. But this is a terrible way to deal with constitutional and electoral change. It's enforcing a sort of punctuated equilibrium** on our politics when what would be so much better is a more measured approach where problems are identified before they get too bad and are remedied in advance in a sensible, consensual way.

Instead we could well end up with a government elected with fewer votes than another party who is then in opposition (where the make up of the parliament is in some seats almost random where there were 4 or 5 contenders) with barely any legitimacy trying to resolve the crisis both of its own mandate and that of politics in general.

We are constantly told we have a mature democratic system.

Not from where I'm sitting we don't.


*I am well aware that both Labour and Tories have on occasion in previous post war elections got the most seats on fewer votes then their rivals and it did not cause the sort of convulsion I am talking about here. But there are so many more parties vying for seats now and with the 24 hour news cycle and social media a crisis of legitimacy narrative could and probably would take hold quite quickly if some of the more extreme possible scenarios were to happen. Farage for example would never be off the box or the wireless (rightly) complaining that he got around a sixth of the votes and barely any seats. And aside from that it's incredibly complacent and dangerous to just assume that the public will happily accept such an obviously broken system reflected in such a result.


**When of course we all know what would be better for our politics is a form of phyletic graduation.

MPs should not have outside jobs Mr Parris

Matthew Parris' article in the Times from Saturday this week suggests that MPs should be allowed to have outside jobs, it's just that too many of them have the wrong sort of outside job (by his definition that is things like Company Director, Barrister - i.e. the sort of job that is likely to give them experience of a rarified world that most do not inhabit). On the other hand he claims that MPs doing outside jobs like being a Doctor or participating in charity work are fine.

I am afraid I have to take issue with the redoubtable Mr Parris on this one. As I have mentioned before, I do not think MPs should have any significant outside job. I understand the argument that MPs need to have rounded experience of the outside world of work but I think that should come before they get into parliament, not whilst they are there. I accept that in order to have a decent cross-section in the house there will be younger members who will naturally have less experience but there will be plenty who will have had 10, 20 or even more years of experience in the outside world and doing "proper" jobs. For me, that is the key.

Also, as part of their standard duties MPs are kept in constant contact with their constituents and members of the public and should therefore be in touch with the issues of the day in this way.

MPs are (or should be) busy enough as it is without devoting some of their precious time to outside interests even if they would be worthy pursuits. Representing tens of thousands of people and holding the government to account is more than a full time job and I do not accept that MPs can be giving maximum attention to this if they are off doing other things part of the time.

I should just clarify what I meant above by "significant outside jobs". I understand that some MPs will be directors or owners of companies that they may have started before they became an MP and I would not expect them to completely abandon these. However input should be kept to a minimum and certainly any day-to-day operations stuff should not be their responsibility. But I do not think MPs should take on new directorships after they enter the house.

UPDATE: I thought this post might prove a little controversial and already a couple of other Lib Dem bloggers have voiced their opposition to my comments here. Lady Mark has done so here and Bernard Salmon here.

Outside jobs for MPs

There has been talk in the last few days about outside jobs for MPs and how there is likely to be a clamp-down on them. I knew this would come; after the MPs expenses scandal it was a natural follow up.

Some Tories seem to be complaining that any restrictions in this area would disproportionately affect them and that Labour is politicking on this issue. They are probably right but I have little sympathy with them. Being an MP should be more than a full time job. There is so much to do that my mind boggles when I hear that some MPs have second, third, fourth, fifth and so on jobs. I simply do not believe that they are doing their job as an MP to their fullest capability if they have outside commitments like this.

The argument that MPs should have outside jobs in order to allow them to keep in touch with the outside world does not really wash with me either. I fully agree that MPs should have outside experience but that should come before they enter parliament. It is one of the reasons that I think it is a good idea for people to wait a while and live in the real world for say 10 or 15 years before they try to get into parliament. There are lots of other ways for MPs to keep in touch with the outside world once they are there.

It looks like this sort of activity is going to be curtailed now. However I have a suggestion for the MPs who try to defend their outside interests on the grounds of "keeping them engaged with the outside world". If that is truly the reason why they feel the need to do it then they should give all the money that they earn in this way to the exchequer or charity. If they did this, I would still consider it an unneccessary distraction but I would be more inclined to believe their claims.

Andrew Lansley can prove his second job is for the greater good

On BBC Question Time last night, during the inevitable question about MPs expenses, the subject of MPs doing other jobs came up. Andrew Lansley, Shadow Health Secretary admitted he has a second job as a non-executive director of a company and rather commendably also said how much he gets paid for it and how much work he actually does for them (£24,000 per year and 11 or 12 days - nice work if you can get it).

Frank Skinner (who was very good and incisive all night I thought) was incredulous that any MP could afford the time to do any other jobs given how all consuming it seems that an MPs primary duties are. I agree with Frank on this.

Mr Lansley went on to justify his second job by claiming that it gives him outside experience which he feels is warranted. He also made what I thought was a bit of a gaffe at this point by using the phrase "I knew I was going to be in government" - I suspect David Cameron is not happy about this level of confidence being openly expressed by a Shadow Minister. Anyway, he has said that he will give up the position if/when he is in government.

Now, I feel that MPs should devote themselves completely to their primary job and not have any outside interests (indeed I have commented on this before extensively with respect to William Hague). However, if Mr Lansley really feels that he needs the outside experience in order to be able to help him be a better minister then I have a simple suggestion for him. Give up the salary associated with the second job. Pay it to the exchequer, or donate it to charity (I am sure there are many worth causes in his consituency who would be very grateful). If he does this then I, and I suspect many others will respect him much more and his claim of doing the job ultimately to produce better government will be on much more solid ground.

Incidentally, with the way things are going regarding the MPs expenses, the whole outside interests issue could potentially also go nuclear in the near future, especially when MPs have to start filling in timesheets. If Mr Lansley acts on my advice now, he will be able to avoid much of the fallout and would stand as an example to others.

William Hague's Outside Interests

I have been following the story about shadow cabinet "extra curricular activities" and in particular Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague's attempts to spin this fact in his favour.

He has claimed that pursuing outside interests makes him a better politician (see here). I have also heard others make the point that the end game of banning MPs from having outside interests is the sort of anodyne automatons you get such as David Milliband who have never done anything but politics. I do take this point to a certain extent. However I have to say that the way some of the shadow cabinet (including Hague) are behaving makes it look like they are not hungry for power. As an active campaigner myself, I know there are thousands of people in this country who would give their eye-teeth to be in a position where in 18 months time they have a reasonable chance of being in the cabinet and they would be doing everything in their power to prepare for that. Not swanning around giving after dinner speeches at £15K a pop.

Now I like William Hague, a lot. He is one of my favourite Tory politicians. I think he was dealt a terrible hand in acceding to the leadership when he did (although he was warned) and deserved a better result in 2001 than he got (although as he drifted to the right, forced by his rump of a party it was inevitable). He is a fantastic commons performer and seems naturally funny at the despatch box which you cannot say about most MPs. However he is damaging his party and politics in general by making it seem like it is not that important. Aspiring to the third greatest office in the country should not be trivialised in this way.

My view is that of course I want to see MPs with more rounded experience - indeed I have only just got involved at the age of 34 after many years in industry and having started and run my own business for several of them. However I feel this would be better achieved by encouraging local parties to ensure that having life experience was a more important part of the selection criteria for parliamentary candidates. Also, perhaps raising the age at which people can become MPs to ensure there will be more experience is an idea that I think warrants some debate. Overall I think the experience should come before the MP gets into parliament. Once he or she is there, they should be concentrating on the job. They still very much keep in touch with things on the ground through constituency work but a strong grounding through having had a non-political job for a number of years first (and by this I don't mean working as head of PR for Carlton TV!) will be a great foundation for most people aspiring to become MPs.

I am sorry to say that I do not buy Hague's "it makes us more rounded" argument. I think he is mainly doing it for the money and that saddens me. He will have plenty of opportunity to make money after he leaves office. Most senior politicians (especially of his calibre) can look forward to all kinds of non-executive directorships, speeches on the after-dinner circuit, money for memoirs etc. and a big fat parliamentary pension. They do not need loads of extra money earned whilst in office or parliament.

If Willaim Hague wants to prove me wrong, there is a simple way to do this whilst still maintaining what he claims is the necessary outside experience. I have not heard any commentator or interviewer suggest this but he could donate all the money he makes from these outside interests to charity.

I won't hold my breath though.