Neil Datson: We’d attract better MPs if they were able to regulate their own salaries, again
Why resist verification?
Neil Datson is a farmer and historian. He read Modern History at Oxford, and is the author of The British Air Power Delusion 1906-1941 and occasionally publishes historical essays on his website.
More or less everybody who follows politics sees the MPs of the modern age – of say, the last ten years – as being just about the most dismal bunch our country has ever been burdened with. Regardless of party.
Of course there’s nothing new about that.
Men and women have been saying as much since the invention of the franchise.
As people get older, they tend to see everything about the modern age as being worse than the days of their youth. Yet despite my distrust of everything that smacks of nostalgia it’s an opinion that I share. There’s scarcely a member of the house that I would vote for on a personal basis, who I could feel was really worth voting for, even if I didn’t agree with his or her politics.
So what makes a good MP?
The ideal to which all members, regardless of party, should aspire? It’s easily summarised. Somebody who speaks for the interests of his or her constituents, within the framework of an overriding concern for the Common Weal. In shorthand, one who puts the national interest first. We should have no time for MPs who appear to take their orders from the UN or the WEF, or who declare themselves to be ‘the member for Gaza’. Or for Israel, for that matter. Obviously, we might, and likely will, disagree over the detail of how to go about furthering the national interest but we have to agree that it comes first. Timeservers, whose loyalty is to party before country, or whose sole priority is to ensure their re-election next time round, need not apply.
While the merits and demerits of our MPs are important, they are also, crucially, the raw material from which government is crafted. Its recent failings have been plain for all to see. A seemingly endless churn of men and women has enjoyed the perks of ministerial office without noticeably advancing anybody’s interests but their own. The talent pool is disturbingly shallow.
Whether or not the general standard really has declined in recent years, that we should always seek to improve it must surely meet with universal agreement. How can that be done? In the first place better and more suitable men and women need to stand for election. To make the whole business more competitive, even in the ‘rotten boroughs’ where the joke is that one candidate’s vote might as well be weighed, it’s so much greater than any other’s.
There are several reforms that could be brought in but the first, the most essential, is to reverse the main change wrought by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, and restore to MPs the power to regulate their own salaries.
Before readers choke on their cornflakes they …
Why resist verification?
Neil Datson is a farmer and historian. He read Modern History at Oxford, and is the author of The British Air Power Delusion 1906-1941 and occasionally publishes historical essays on his website.
More or less everybody who follows politics sees the MPs of the modern age – of say, the last ten years – as being just about the most dismal bunch our country has ever been burdened with. Regardless of party.
Of course there’s nothing new about that.
Men and women have been saying as much since the invention of the franchise.
As people get older, they tend to see everything about the modern age as being worse than the days of their youth. Yet despite my distrust of everything that smacks of nostalgia it’s an opinion that I share. There’s scarcely a member of the house that I would vote for on a personal basis, who I could feel was really worth voting for, even if I didn’t agree with his or her politics.
So what makes a good MP?
The ideal to which all members, regardless of party, should aspire? It’s easily summarised. Somebody who speaks for the interests of his or her constituents, within the framework of an overriding concern for the Common Weal. In shorthand, one who puts the national interest first. We should have no time for MPs who appear to take their orders from the UN or the WEF, or who declare themselves to be ‘the member for Gaza’. Or for Israel, for that matter. Obviously, we might, and likely will, disagree over the detail of how to go about furthering the national interest but we have to agree that it comes first. Timeservers, whose loyalty is to party before country, or whose sole priority is to ensure their re-election next time round, need not apply.
While the merits and demerits of our MPs are important, they are also, crucially, the raw material from which government is crafted. Its recent failings have been plain for all to see. A seemingly endless churn of men and women has enjoyed the perks of ministerial office without noticeably advancing anybody’s interests but their own. The talent pool is disturbingly shallow.
Whether or not the general standard really has declined in recent years, that we should always seek to improve it must surely meet with universal agreement. How can that be done? In the first place better and more suitable men and women need to stand for election. To make the whole business more competitive, even in the ‘rotten boroughs’ where the joke is that one candidate’s vote might as well be weighed, it’s so much greater than any other’s.
There are several reforms that could be brought in but the first, the most essential, is to reverse the main change wrought by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, and restore to MPs the power to regulate their own salaries.
Before readers choke on their cornflakes they …
Neil Datson: We’d attract better MPs if they were able to regulate their own salaries, again
Why resist verification?
Neil Datson is a farmer and historian. He read Modern History at Oxford, and is the author of The British Air Power Delusion 1906-1941 and occasionally publishes historical essays on his website.
More or less everybody who follows politics sees the MPs of the modern age – of say, the last ten years – as being just about the most dismal bunch our country has ever been burdened with. Regardless of party.
Of course there’s nothing new about that.
Men and women have been saying as much since the invention of the franchise.
As people get older, they tend to see everything about the modern age as being worse than the days of their youth. Yet despite my distrust of everything that smacks of nostalgia it’s an opinion that I share. There’s scarcely a member of the house that I would vote for on a personal basis, who I could feel was really worth voting for, even if I didn’t agree with his or her politics.
So what makes a good MP?
The ideal to which all members, regardless of party, should aspire? It’s easily summarised. Somebody who speaks for the interests of his or her constituents, within the framework of an overriding concern for the Common Weal. In shorthand, one who puts the national interest first. We should have no time for MPs who appear to take their orders from the UN or the WEF, or who declare themselves to be ‘the member for Gaza’. Or for Israel, for that matter. Obviously, we might, and likely will, disagree over the detail of how to go about furthering the national interest but we have to agree that it comes first. Timeservers, whose loyalty is to party before country, or whose sole priority is to ensure their re-election next time round, need not apply.
While the merits and demerits of our MPs are important, they are also, crucially, the raw material from which government is crafted. Its recent failings have been plain for all to see. A seemingly endless churn of men and women has enjoyed the perks of ministerial office without noticeably advancing anybody’s interests but their own. The talent pool is disturbingly shallow.
Whether or not the general standard really has declined in recent years, that we should always seek to improve it must surely meet with universal agreement. How can that be done? In the first place better and more suitable men and women need to stand for election. To make the whole business more competitive, even in the ‘rotten boroughs’ where the joke is that one candidate’s vote might as well be weighed, it’s so much greater than any other’s.
There are several reforms that could be brought in but the first, the most essential, is to reverse the main change wrought by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, and restore to MPs the power to regulate their own salaries.
Before readers choke on their cornflakes they …
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