Our Future MPs

I was reading over the week-end that perhaps 200 MPs of all parties will not seek re-election at the next general election. Apparently many are sick to death of the universal denigration poured on them since the stories of expenses fiddling broke some months ago. Now, it seems that every MP, irrespective of whether they had been careful with their expenses or not are considered to be just in Parliament for the money. It was thought that when the summer recess came the expenses story would die away and things would get back to normal. It has not and MPs are finding themselves subject to continuous abuse, even when they go to carry out such mundane activities as opening the local bazaars.

I am not one to defend MPs because I believe that at the present time they are not doing a good job in defending our democracy by insisting on the application of their powers in the House of Commons. But now I think that some of the attacks made on them by individuals and, more seriously, by the media, need to be justified. Frequently I read stories about how much this or that MP spent on travel or staying in hotels or on food, etc. In most cases these expenses are quite legitimate and reasonable. Why are we wasting time on trivialities. I think the media should be doing more to concentrate the minds of MPs on scrutinizing the executive. Far too often MPs are treated as rubber stampers and no more, while the government chucks our money around financing many a madcap scheme. This government has transferred more and more power to non-elected party hacks without the House of Commons objecting. We have a Prime Minister elected by no one who has appointed Lord Mandelson [of Everywhere] as Lord High Everything Else; Glenys Kinnock is shoved into the House of Lords so that she can become Minister for Europe; and various media personalities are employed to do jobs that ought to be done by the hoards of civil servants and existing ministers.

There are many independent minded experienced MPs who are going to disappear at the election and these are the men and women that we can least afford to lose. They will be replaced by mainly political nonentities who will toe the party line and that will be bad for all of us. There are many MPs who have been in the House of Commons for years and have never been given ministerial office because they were too independent and strong willed. Where are they to come from in the future? Am I being too pessimistic?

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