“Why We Get The Wrong Politicians” by Isabel Hardman (2022)
This analysis of British politicians was first published in 2018 (when it was a winner at the Parliamentary Book Awards) and then revised and updated in 2022. I was given it as a present for Christmas 2023 and therefore read it in a year (2024) when we will have a General Election which is almost certain to return several hundred new Members of Parliament. Hardman is Assistant Editor of “The Spectator” and knows a great deal about Parliament and Parliamentarians. Her book is well-researched and well-written, but ultimately it is dispiriting and – in my view – too critical of individuals and not sufficiently radical in proposing institutional change.
So what does she mean by the wrong politicians? She is right to draw attention to the under-representation, compared to the population as whole, of women and ethnic minorities. In recent years, significant progress – especially by Labour in respect of female MPs – has been achieved, but more needs to be done. I am not sure that it is realistic – or even desirable – to press for more working-class MPs, but certainly it is wrong that such a large proportion of MPS went to a private school (largely a problem for the Conservatives). In a section headed ‘Are they normal?’ Hardman points out that many MPs have had dysfunctional upbringings and exhibit addictive behaviours, but I think that this is true of top achievers in many professions and, in any event, I am not sure how and why selection committees should ‘screen out’ such characteristics.
She explains the incredible pressures of the job: the need to have two homes, the challenges to relationships and parenting, the crazy hours of working, the appalling physical conditions of the Palace of Westminster, the inadequate IT systems, the suffocating control of the whips, the ever-growing volume of constituents’ cases, the vitriol on social media, and even the security risks (MPs were murdered 2016 and 2021). But all of this has nothing to do with MPs being the wrong type of person. We should be thankful that some talented individuals want to endure such hardships.
She is especially critical of MPs behaving ‘wrongly’, notably in their inability adequately to scrutinise legislation and ensure that Bills are likely to achieve what Ministers say they intend. She is right that MPs from the governing party do not challenge Ministers and amendments to Bills proposed by Opposition parties almost never succeed. But this is not the fault of individual MPs; it is a feature of our legislative system. There should be much more scrutiny of draft legislation before it is tabled in the House and much more post-scrutiny of legislation to see whether it has actually worked.
This would require a closer alignment of Bill Committees and Select Committees and more power for the latter. It would also require not just a stronger role for backbench MPs but more involvement of subject experts, think tanks, civil society and – dare one say it – the media (why does the media show more interest in an MP’s sex life than whether a Bill will make poor people even poorer?). And, unpopular as it may be, we need to recognise that MPs need better resources including larger staff in both Parliament and the constituency.
Like so many books on current affairs, Hardman spends much more time describing the problem (which is actually not the wrong politicians but the wrong political processes) and very little time addressing possible remedies. In an informative and enjoyable work of around 340 pages, Hardman devotes just 17 pages to the chapter entitled ‘Can We Get The Right Politicians?’ In particular she avoids the need for constitutional change. On the one hand, she notes “at any one time, over a hundred MPs aren’t actually doing their job as members of the legislature because they are in fact members of the executive” and spends three pages debating the merits of ‘separation of the powers’ before concluding “It isn’t going to happen”. On the other hand, she dismisses much-needed electoral reform in a single sentence.