Have you heard about Katie?” my wife asked as she came home from the school run. Katie is the mum of my little boy’s friends so I assumed the news was about an upcoming children’s birthday party. I assumed wrong. “She wants to be an MP,” my wife continued. “She is hoping to be a candidate at the next general election.” My wife was expecting me to say “That’s so great” — what I actually said was, “She wants to be an MP? Is she mad?”
If you are an MP today you have to deal with abuse, threats of blackmail and violence — and that’s just from Gavin Williamson. Williamson — who looks like Frank Spencer but thinks he’s Al Capone — resigned this week after it was revealed that he told a senior civil servant to “slit your throat” and “jump out of the window”. A BBC investigation this week revealed that more than 3,000 offensive tweets are sent to MPs every day and a box of faeces was left outside a Conservative MP’s office on Monday. It really is crap being an MP these days.
Politicians may never have been universally loved but I remember a time when they were respected. Whatever you thought of their principles you could at least be confident they had them. It was possible to believe that alongside ambition, politicians were motivated by public service — a desire to change society for the better. Who thinks that now? A study last year suggested 63 per cent of us believe politicians are “out for themselves” and this disillusionment is corrosive for democracy and dangerous for politicians.
And so we come, as we must, to Matt Hancock, who is being paid a rumoured £400,000 for taking part in this year’s I’m A Celebrity... Close your eyes and try to imagine past health secretaries — Barbara Castle, Enoch Powell or William Waldegrave — agreeing to humiliate themselves by eating kangaroo anus in exchange for money. It is almost as hard to imagine as the fact that Hancock was health secretary. He will be profiting but the price will be paid by anyone who aspires to go into politics because theybelieve in public service.
There was a time when I could have imagined entering politics, when the prospect of taking a seat in the Commons would have filled me with awe. Now it fills me with horror. Politics is an honourable profession that now seems to attract the dishonourable, the incompetent and the grotesque.
Daniel Greenberg, the new parliamentary commissioner for standards, said recently he believed the “vast majority (of MPs) have a strong commitment to high standards in public life”. Maybe, but when the public no longer agrees, it is a problem. Being an MP must feel like being the parent of a small child: having to deal with endless s***, face constant demands for attention but with no gratitude or respect. Maybe that is why Katie felt she had the experience to enter Parliament. When I see her at drop-off I will say “congratulations!” but what I will really be thinking is that I would rather eat a wallaby’s willy than be an MP.
How I became a Swiftie
Bruce Springsteen is in London promoting his new album, Only The Strong Survive, which is out tomorrow. My children have grown up with me listening to and, occasionally, singing Springsteen. My daughter Laila has a number of his albums and until recently I would hear Born to Run and Letter to You coming from her bedroom. Then she discovered Taylor Swift. Springsteen was dispatched and she is obsessed with Midnights, which she plays endlessly.
When I was young my Springsteen obsession confirmed the generation gap between my parents and me. My father was baffled and enraged by my music tastes. By contrast, I also really like the new Taylor Swift record and have been listening to it a lot since its release.
I tell myself this is progress, that I am doing parenthood smarter than my parents, but I suspect what I call progress Laila would define as excruciating.
