скачать книгу бесплатно
How one copes with waiting defines a parliamentary life. Some people manage to fill all those waiting hours with activity – signing piles of letters to constituents, replying to emails or (for London MPs) rushing to and from constituency engagements. Others, perhaps those whose constituents are not very demanding or who have organised their offices so efficiently that they have completed all their correspondence, engage in a parliamentary form of dolce far niente: hanging around the Tea Room (the best refuge in Parliament because the media are not allowed in), or, for the more distressed, the Strangers’ Bar, or arranging some form of escape – in the past, before the scandals, a foreign trip with a select committee, or latterly an early return home on a Wednesday evening. Some even take an interest in legislation, and spend their time writing amendments to Bills, although that is very much a minority interest.s
There is even an activity that manages to combine all three – giving the appearance of constituency activity and of taking an interest in parliamentary business but, in reality, doing nothing – namely signing early day motions. Members can be seen in every part of the building flicking through an important-looking blue document occasionally scribbling their signature on it. They are adding their names to EDMs. Technically, EDMs are motions the sponsors of which would like the House to debate some time soon, but on no specific day.
In reality, no one sponsoring an EDM expects, or even wants, the House to debate it. EDMs are merely a form of petition that only MPs can sign, a petition aimed at no one in particular that achieves precisely nothing. Even if every single MP signed an EDM, nothing would happen or change. They are, as someone once remarked, parliamentary graffiti.
Most EDMs are cobbled together by pressure groups with some simple-minded campaign message to promote, who have found some sympathetic, or fearful, MPs to act as proposers. The pressure groups’ main purpose, however, is not to create pressure for change but to give their supporters something to do, or merely to build the group’s database. Supporters are given pre-printed postcards to send to their MPs (or, increasingly, preprepared emails) urging the MP to ‘sign EDM no XXX’. The pressure group always gives the impression that signing the EDM is a matter of vast importance, a deception many MPs are happy to go along with if it impresses constituents or a gullible local newspaper.
But the attraction of signing EDMs is that it takes far less energy than the other method of making sure that one’s name appears in the local media, namely the intervention game. The intervention game consists of saying the name of one’s constituency – or, better still, the name of one’s local newspaper – on the record in the chamber or in Westminster Hall as many times as possible.
To achieve this end, MPs scan the agenda to look for opportunities to intervene in questions or debates and then rush from place to place so that they can pop up, utter the name of their constituency and disappear to the next opportunity as soon as is decent (or even sooner). The verb for this activity is ‘to ketter’, in honour of one of its greatest devotees in the 2005 Parliament, Philip Hollobone, the MP for Kettering, who managed to work the name of his constituency into almost every debate.
A determined ketterer will put down questions containing the name of his or her constituency to every department, including the Foreign Office and the House of Commons catering committee. If the question does not come out of the hat, the ketterer will turn up and ‘bob’ (stand up to try to catch the Speaker’s eye) in the hope of being able to ask it anyway. The ketterer will also turn up at the start of every debate to intervene on the minister to ask a question of astounding irrelevance to the debate, but that, naturally, contains the name of the ketterer’s constituency. Ketterers are, of course, a menace for those interested in parliamentary debate, but their party organisations love them, because, from the point of view of the party, the only point of an MP is to achieve re-election, and the only function of Parliament is to assist the MP in that task.
In days past, MPs would deal with all the waiting in another way, namely in other jobs. But second jobs have become very much frowned upon, to the extent that after the expenses crisis the House passed a motion that has been interpreted as meaning that MPs have to report every hour they spend not just in other paid work but even in volunteering.
This is the infamous 168-hour rule, the rule that MPs are MPs for every hour of the week, with no time off at all for anything else. Even writing a book or an article on politics, paid or not, is seen as a shameful activity to be reported to the authorities. One suspects that in the future those MPs who sleep more hours a night than Margaret Thatcher managed with will have to obtain permission from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. But the effect of the 168-hour rule is that MPs will have to spend even more time just waiting.
One wonders what sort of people will want to be MPs in the future. The combination of minor celebrity status, with its constant observation by the media, enforced inactivity and being cooped up in the same place for weeks on end is reminiscent of only one thing. Welcome, then, to the Big Ben Brother House.
MPs who stood down before the election (#ulink_28a26b13-c21f-570e-a46c-bb474251cfbd)
Conservative
Ainsworth, Peter Surrey East
Ancram, Michael Devizes
Atkinson, Peter Hexham
Boswell, Timothy Daventry
Browning, Angela Tiverton & Honiton
Butterfill, Sir John Bournemouth West
Cormack, Sir Patrick Staffordshire South
Curry, David Skipton & Ripon
Fraser, Christopher Norfolk South West
Goodman, Paul Wycombe
Greenway, John Ryedale
Gummer, John Suffolk Coastal
Hogg, Douglas Sleaford & North Hykeham
Horam, John Orpington
Howard, Michael Folkestone & Hythe
Jack, Michael Fylde
Key, Robert Salisbury
Kirkbride, Julie Bromsgrove
Lait, Jacqui Beckenham
Lord, Sir Michael Suffolk Central & Ipswich North
MacKay, Andrew Bracknell
Maclean, David Penrith & The Border
Malins, Humfrey Woking
Maples, John Stratford-on-Avon
Mates, Michael Hampshire East
Moss, Malcolm Cambridgeshire North East
Spicer, Sir Michael Worcestershire West
Spring, Richard Suffolk West
Steen, Anthony Totnes
Taylor, Ian Esher & Walton
Viggers, Sir Peter Gosport
Widdecombe, Ann Maidstone & The Weald
Wilshire, David Spelthorne
Winterton, Ann Congleton
Winterton, Sir Nicholas Macclesfield
Labour
Armstrong, Hilary Durham North West
Austin, John Erith & Thamesmead
Battle, John Leeds West
Blackman, Liz Erewash
Browne, Des Kilmarnock & Loudoun
Burgon, Colin Elmet
Byers, Stephen Tyneside North
Caborn, Richard Sheffield Central
Challen, Colin Morley & Rothwell
Chapman, Ben Wirral South
Chaytor, David Bury North
Clapham, Michael Barnsley West & Penistone
Clelland, David Tyne Bridge
Cohen, Harry Leyton & Wanstead
Cousins, Jim Newcastle upon Tyne Central
Cryer, Ann Keighley
Cummings, John Easington
Curtis-Thomas, Claire Crosby
Davies, Quentin Grantham & Stamford
Dean, Janet Burton
Devine, Jim Livingston
Ennis, Jeff Barnsley East & Mexborough
Etherington, Bill Sunderland North
Fisher, Mark Stoke-on-Trent Central
Follett, Barbara Stevenage
George, Bruce Walsall South
Gerrard, Neil Walthamstow
Griffiths, Nigel Edinburgh South
Grogan, John Selby
Hall, Mike Weaver Vale
Heal, Sylvia Halesowen & Rowley Regis
Henderson, Doug Newcastle upon Tyne North
Heppell, John Nottingham East
Hesford, Stephen Wirral West
Hewitt, Patricia Leicester West
Hill, Keith Streatham
Hoon, Geoff Ashfield
Howells, Dr Kim Pontypridd
Hughes, Beverley Stretford & Urmston
Humble, Joan Blackpool North & Fleetwood
Hutton, John Barrow & Furness
Iddon, Dr Brian Bolton South East
Ingram, Adam East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow
Jones, Martyn Clwyd South
Jones, Lynne Birmingham Selly Oak
Kelly, Ruth Bolton West
Kemp, Fraser Houghton & Washington East
Kennedy, Jane Liverpool Wavertree
Kilfoyle, Peter Liverpool Walton
Laxton, Bob Derby North
Lepper, David Brighton Pavilion
Levitt, Tom High Peak
