The problem with British MPs is not that they are too rowdy, but that they are too tame
SPRING is here and the sap in British politicians appears to be rising. Last week a prominent Conservative MP, the former deputy-speaker of the House of Commons, Nigel Evans, was acquitted of raping a junior parliamentary researcher; he admitted getting drunk and having sex with a man less than half his age. Allegations of MPs boozing and cavorting on the public purse have since proliferated. A television news programme suggests a third of parliamentary staff have experienced sexual harassment; a tabloid newspaper claims gay orgies occurred at a recent Conservative Party conference. Anyone would think MPs had all the fun.
That is not Bagehot’s impression of “Sexminster”, as Parliament has been renamed by the media. Its once-sodden culture, a product of lots of cheap booze and idle men hanging around late to vote, is much drier. More women MPs, fewer late nights and the usual vicissitudes of modernity have put paid to the excesses; most MPs are hardworking, anxiously careerist and mildly health conscious. Their once-storied licentiousness—highlighted by the Labour giant Roy Jenkins’ habit of sleeping with Tory and Liberal wives—has been similarly pegged back. Investigations last year into an alleged Westminster sex pest, Lord Rennard, suggest there is no plague of sexual predation in Parliament. They found the portly Liberal Democrat peer had, at worst, “violated the personal space” of his accusers. In short, though Parliament is still too male and boozy for some people’s tastes, it is probably cleaner-living and more upstanding than it has ever been.
Exaggerated reports of political Bacchanalia are a proxy for a broader loathing of politicians. The long-running fury over MPs’ excessive expenses claims, which cost the Tory culture secretary, Maria Miller, her job last week, is similarly more a symptom of this than a cause. Unhappily for the Tory prime minister, David Cameron, who has promised new vigilance against his fellows’ alleged improprieties, it is also harder to mitigate—not least because it is a global phenomenon. Surveys by Edelman, a public-relations firm, suggest 20% of French and 18% of Spaniards trust their government; in Britain, 42% do. Yet that is a poor rating for a country spared the euro crisis and with a history, unlike America, of acquiescence to power. It is no reason not to try to improve British politicians’ standing—and polling by YouGov suggests how.
Asked to choose from a list of possible disqualifications for political office, few Britons picked closet homosexuality, extramarital affairs or, for that matter, posing naked for a magazine. That helps explain why two of Britain’s more scandal-prone politicians, the Tory mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage (in terms of sex, not so much naked photos) are also among the most popular. Far more objectionable to Britons is any symptom of belonging to a gilded elite—above all, never having worked outside politics. That is bad news for Mr Cameron, his right hand George Osborne and most of their rivals, including the Labour Party’s leader Ed Miliband and Lib Dems’ Nick Clegg. None has done much except politick.
The professionalisation of British politics is hardly unique. Most professions have undergone a similar formalisation in recent decades, in response to meritocracy, and because people who commit to a single trade tend to do it well. Jenkins, Denis Healey and Margaret Thatcher, to name three post-war political giants, all did little work before politics. Yet these were substantial people, steeled by the experience of war—Mr Healey gave his first big political speech in uniform—and defined by the great ideological battle, between left and right, of their time. Shorn of that epic context, never forced to fight and raked by a hostile press, today’s politicians are inevitably diminished. It is the political context, more than politicians, that has changed. Yet they are also agents of their diminution—as the current lot show.
Having grown up in politics, Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne seem incapable of thinking beyond it. Thus the tricksiness of their policies—the token cap on welfare spending, designed to embarrass Labour; the chimeric tax cuts, which leave few people better off. If this approach achieves short-term political hits, it does not tell sceptical voters they are led by high-minded people.
And this damaging fixation with tradecraft is self-perpetuating—because the Tory leaders, even more than their rivals, promote colleagues with a similar approach. Mr Osborne has built a network of such protégées—he calls them “the club”—including Matthew Hancock, Nicky Morgan and Sajid Javid, Ms Miller’s successor. Derided by jealous colleagues as lackeys, these rising stars are equally defined by their Osborne-ite view of politics as a game clever people play. More obviously talented, yet less biddable, Tories—including Rory Stewart, Margot James and Nadhim Zahawi—languish outside the club. That is self-defeating. To enthuse voters, party leaders need to promote engaging representatives. The fact that Britain’s few charismatic politicians—Mr Johnson, Mr Farage and the Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond—are outside Parliament is symptomatic of this failure.
Dare to embarrass yourself
Politicians also need to be bolder in what they say. Their response to 24-hour news, which is to minimise the risk of contravening party lines by say nothing interesting, has proved a reputational disaster. Witness the response to Mr Miliband giving an identical answer—“the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner”—to a sequence of five different questions. He was castigated as “Robo-Ed”. He looked idiotic. He did more damage to his image than he would have risked by straying off-grid.
The risks of promoting awkward talent and sacking the spin doctor are obvious; Mr Johnson and Mr Farage illustrate them with their mishaps and scandals, almost on a monthly basis. But the alternative to a looser, bolder and more outward-looking politics, as voter turnout falls and fringe groups rise, is worse. It is to become ever more ingenious, hated and irrelevant.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "The hated body politic"
