And another thing…

A NIGHTMARE! The evil Baron Cameronstein in hellish communion with four of his predecessors.

At the risk of sounding like an American, happy Hallowe’en…

BEING a Member of Parliament is, or ought to be, a full-time job.

Constituents should be able to expect their MP’s full and undivided attention, which could not be guaranteed if the MP in question is also a director of a company or a barrister.

The Prime Minister is obviously aware of concerns in this area, which is why he has asked the Committee for Standards in Public Life to include the issue of MPs’ second jobs in its more specific inquiry into MPs’ expenses.

But I’m not at all sure it’s a good idea to conflate the two issues, and even less sure that we should place any formal restrictions on second jobs. Yes, MPs should restrict themselves to being an MP. But I have a problem with any authority, whether the House itself or some committee of the great and the good, seeking to define the duties or the job description of MPs. Once it’s decided that no MP can take a second job, will the next step be an obligation to hold a minimum number of constituency surgeries per month? Or to undertake visits to a minimum per centage of schools and old folks’ homes in the constituency every year?

These things are important, of course. But surely it’s up to an MP’s constituents to decide whether or not they’re happy with their MP’s performance? Our electorates are, after all, our employers, and their judgment should never be superceded by the judgment of another authority.

Moreover, who is to decide the definition of a “second job”? For two years I was a transport minister and a Member of Parliament. Obviously MPs have to take up ministerial posts, but does that mean that only MPs taking up private sector jobs are to face restrictions? I know from experience that even a junior minister’s duties take up a huge amount of time during the week, more time, I suspect, than is taken up by those MPs with second jobs as directors or lawyers.

And does occasional, or even regular, writing for newspapers count as a second job? Or writing a blog? What about TV appearances for which an MP is paid (something I’ve yet to experience, incidentally)?

William Hague’s outside earnings are usually cited as justification for restricting MPs’ activities. Hague combines his duties as constituency representative for Richmond in Yorkshire with a high-profile job as Shadow Foreign Secretary, on top of which he earns a ton of cash for public speaking and other activities.

And?

If his constituents are happy with their MP, and if David Cameron is satisfied with his performance in the Shadow Cabinet, then what’s the problem? Apart from envy, of course.

MPs’ expenses and allowances need sorting out once and for all, so that we can raise politicians’ reputations to the traditional level of public esteem (contempt) from the current level (hatred bordering on violence).

But I fear that by seeking to include members’ outside interests in the inquiry, we’re just muddying the waters, not to mention reigniting that futile, pointless and (for Labour) self-defeating activity known as class war. Yes, it would be fun to watch Cameron trying to wriggle his and his Shadow Cabinet colleagues’ way out of an impossible dilemma: should they support the populist position of banning themselves from extra-parliamentary work and risk the consequent resignations and division, or should they stand their (unpopular) ground and be seen as self-serving and aloof by the wider electorate in the crucial run-up to a general election?

But I think the country, and parliament, would quickly come to regret a move motivated by such sectarian interests.

PERSONALLY, I think such displays of gleeful triumphalism from opposition politicians are unwise, whatever the polls may say. Still…

And a happy St Patrick’s Day from me, too.

Memo

CLEAR blue water, it may be, but the bottom line is that the Tories have returned to the election-winning* policies of Hague and Howard.

However you dress it up, spending less than what the current spending plans allow for is a cut. It means a future Tory government will impose cuts in the health service, cuts on transport plans, cuts in education and local government budgets.

And for what reason? That’s right, to deliver a “long-term” tax cut.

But I think ‘Dave’ should be congratulated. He’s had enough of this “New Conservatives” rubbish, all this mealy-mouthed “reaching out” to the plebs sort of nonsense. His back benchers were getting sick and tired of it and who, anyway, believed that the man who devised the infamous “patient’s passport” for the 2005 manifesto – designed to drain billions of pounds out of the NHS and funnel it into the private health sector – could now pass himself off as a supporter of the NHS?

Far better that he’s honest about what the Tory party is actually about. It may not make him popular, but he may gain people’s respect for saying (somewhat belatedly) what he actually thinks.

The Tory party should feel much more comfortable now that they can embrace the rhetoric of Thatcher without having to apologise for it. Good for them!

* not

I joined the Labour Party in 1984, and for the next decade, the experience was not a happy one. I approached every electoral test unjustifiably optimistic, only to feel a sickening emptiness in the pit of my stomach as the results started to filter through. In by-elections, regional, district and general elections, I prayed – literally prayed – that this time Labour would make the breakthrough. And time after time I had to pick myself up, dust myself down and start all over again.

There are very many Labour Party members today who don’t share that experience, who joined the party after Tony became leader, and who have never really had to experience the awful desperation of defeat at the hands of the Tory Party.

Which is why so many in the party have been, until recently, complacent. They believed the myth that the Tory party could never recover after the rout of 1997. Now, when it’s clear that that’s exactly what’s happened, they may be tempted towards the opposite extreme: panic.

Don’t let that happen. What we’re seeing s not the end of the world, but a return to business as usual, where Labour is once again the underdog of British politics, and where, for the first time in 15 years (but certainly not the first time in our history), we have to make the case for our party instead of sitting back and reaping the electoral benefits of a fractured and divided Tory Party.

Real politics is difficult. It’s hard work and it can be discouraging. Those whose first experience of national politics was 1997 could be forgiven for forgetting that.

The results of May 1 were a wake-up call, not a death certificate. The electoral arithmetic in Britain still makes it incredibly difficult for the Tories to win a general election outright. They still aren’t well represented outside of their heartlands.

What would win it for Cameron would be if party members started swallowing the media myth of Tory inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. The prize of a fourth term for Labour is something that’s worth fighting for. The media are bored with us, and they won’t do us any favours. And we will have to work harder than we have ever worked before to achieve victory. But it will be worth it.

And if we succeed, if we can bounce back after the last few months, David Cameron will become just another footnote in the political history of our nation, filed alongside William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard.

And that would be worth fighting for.