MPs are what we make them

John Hall found this article when sorting out his files last month in the snow, so to speak. He thinks that although he wrote it in the 80's it is still relevant today despite the recent excesses of some MPs. The article had not been changed other than the last sentence.

Tuning in to the BBC programme "Today in Parliament" can be a little like a visit to the zoo. Yarboos, cat-calls and abuse appear to be the normal House of Commons behaviour, leavened occasionally by such un-Parliamentary language as accusing a Member on the other side of lying.

But don't despair of your elected representatives. The actually do a marvellous job for you.

The trouble with working in the press gallery at the House as I do, is the ever-present necessity to catch the interest of the casual reader or listener who has much more exciting things to do.

Hence Question Time shenanigans and suspensions of the more outspoken MPs are the colourful tit-bits extracted from the brown-paper package which is the day-to-day Parliament as served up to the public daily. Between-times such mundane stuff as the Generic Substances (NHS) Bill, or the Ginns and Gutteridge Leicester (Crematorium) Bill, or the Epsom and Walton Downs Regulations are a challenge to the most diligent student of law-making.

So what's all this got to do with St Michael's [my former church in St Albans], and you, in particular? It's just that as a Christian and a journalist it concerns me that greater public awareness of Parliament via the media has been paralleled by a greater public cynicism which is dangerously corrosive to democracy.

Cynicism has no part in the Christian ethic and in order that you should not be tempted down that path where Parliament is concerned, you should know that most MPs work hard and long either on the floor of the House, or in many of the many committee rooms hidden from public gaze in the recesses of the Palace of Westminster.

You may not agree with their views, but that is not the point. What motivates them and what they indulge in in their private lives is not really the point either. They are hard at work, often into the small hours, boring and nagging away on behalf of a constituent or a cause.

They're taking a break now, and so am I - in the less-hallowed environment of Fleet Street where at least one's shift ends at a fixed time!

It is a pleasure to have a break from the Order papers which include the ominous Notice of Motion: "At this day's sitting, the consideration of the Report Stage of the Such and Such Bill may be proceeded with until any hour".

At least these days there are no more all-night sittings.

Debate

Picture from Liberal Democrates at Flickr, Creative Commons licence.

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