I'd like to thank our MPs, and I'd like you to join me

Picture the scene. There you lie on your hospital bed, oxygen mask on, drugged up to the eyeballs, with a team of people fussing around you and saying all manner of things you don’t understand. All you know is that it’s serious, and the sense of imminent disaster is palpable. Why? Because you are in Accident and Emergency at St Thomas’ in London, and you are having a heart attack.
As you try to distract yourself with nostalgic thoughts about the good innings you’ve had, you are suddenly shaken violently from such calming thoughts by a fresh commotion around your bed. Some-one is attempting to get past security and get to you, shouting all manner of abuse about you. You are unsurprised, and wonder what has triggered this. Was it that misleading story about your expenses? Was it the fact that you’re getting a pay rise on the say-so of some-one else completely independent of you? Do they hold you responsible for the deaths of 2,300 disabled people? Are they simply angry at undefined ‘cuts?’ Whatever it is, you know how predictable this was, because you are no ordinary patient: you are a Tory MP.

This story isn’t a real one, but it could be. IT’s not just Tories either, though I think they come off worst. The reality is that our MPs have experienced a sustained campaign of vilification, bordering on persecution, for years, and it’s totally unjust. When The Sun revealed today that VIP protocols are applied by St Thomas’ Hospital to MPs, meaning that they go to private areas or get single rooms, I’m simply flummoxed as to why that’s even a story. A recognisable MP is a VIP, surely? An MP is a VIP with enhanced security needs like any other minor celebrity whose care might otherwise be compromised by angry mobs or screaming fans, surely? But then, MPs are different. The Daily Mail’s headline claims that this is all to do with allowing them to avoid them having to “mix with ordinary patients.” O get real! I’ve sat in A&E, mercifully each time with relatively minor complaints. But, minor though they were, I was in pain, fed up, and keen to get patched up and shipped out as quickly as possible. So was everybody else: no-one wanted to mix with anybody because nobody wanted to be there. Do the critics seriously think that these MPs regard the other patients as peasants with whom they don’t want to sit? Do they really believe that MPs think so little of the people they campaigned and busted a gut to earn the chance to represent? Or are they simply so convinced (or believe their readers to be so convinced) by the idea that MPs are the lowest of the low, that they would actually rather that a hospitals duty to provide every patient with a safe experience characterised by the best possible care, should apply less if at all in the case of a politician?

Politicians have always been the subject of intense scrutiny, and it is nothing new for journalists and the public to revel in their scandals. Nothing is more entertaining than a high and mighty public figure being caught with his pants down. But part of the reason for that culture of shaming was that we actually respected them for what they did, recognising it as an underpaid job that involved long hours, much stress and a great deal of pressure. We actually admired them as public servants, until they gave us a reason not to. I don’t know that they were ever necessarily on our Christmas card lists, but there was a degree of respect. Not anymore! Together, media and public have built up the perception that politics is rife with corruption and arrogance. The MPs’ expenses scandal was a story that actually highlighted a dreadful bookkeeping system in which it wasn’t known who was paid what, and the fact that, like the wider public sector, political sensitivities were satisfied by finding other ways to compensate a workforce severely underpaid for what it did. That sensible and important debate, was substituted for easy stories about duck houses, in which truthfulness and accuracy mattered very little. The public proclivity to declare that politicians are “all the same” grew even stronger, presumably by more and more people looking for easy scapegoats believing that this uniform self-serving character of arrogance trumps any policy differences that politicians of different persuasions claimed to hold.

The political interview is now a lost art. Serious attempts to uncover and expose the truth and hold public figures to account, have been transformed in to political bullfights: big beast journalists trying at any cost to whip up a controversy, versus big beast politicians trying not to trap themselves. When deciding the agenda, topics are chosen that might catch the politician out, not that reflect policy priorities. Examples are numerous: remember Eddy Mair’s interview with Boris Johnson about a documentary the poor man hadn’t even seen? Boris asserted that Londoners would rather talk about issues like housing, but Mair persisted, determined to make a name for himself against today’s standards for high-quality political journalism. Or remember how Tim Farron was immediately asked about gay marriage, despite leading a party that collectively decided a view on the subject? It doesn’t matter that gay marriage is a done deal, or that government and opposition work by taking collective responsibility for the decisions reached at cabinet and shadow cabinet level. Neither example reflected anything more than the vindictive attempt to spoil a reputation; they didn’t even try to scrutinise any of the politicians’ arguments.

The 2015 election and events since, have finally convinced me utterly that politicians are completely bought in to this new culture and have decided, tragically, that those whom they can’t beat, they will join. Ed Miliband was more ridiculed for his aversion to bacon sandwiches than any of his policies, whilst for David Cameron it seemed inconceivable to admit that he didn’t have a football team because he didn’t like it all that much, so he made it up and contradicted what he’d said before. Both times we jeered, both times we mocked, and both times no-one asked whether this really mattered. Politicians now seem convinced that they have to appear as normal as possible. Mock the beer-swilling Nigel Farage all you want, but if you choose a wine bar instead, you’re too toff for the mediocrity-seeking British voter. If Ed Miliband, in a national debate, gives a non-committal response when asked by Paxman whether he would have a pint in the pub with Dave, commentators seize on it.
Maybe Miliband simply thought it a question unworthy of a proper answer, and who could blame him? Anyone moulded by the British system of low participation outside of elections, may gasp in horror at the vulgarity of American politics, but in truth that vulgarity simply demonstrates its infinite capacity to capture and air views across the spectrum and even off the scale. Yet when I watch the debates and occasionally wish they were more sedate like Question Time, I never hear questions as stupid as those asked of British politicians at elections.
Shortly after the election, MPs were awarded their 10% pay rise – an evidently sensible gesture to simplify the rewards system and increase transparency. Rather than welcome it, MPs fell over themselves to condemn the independently-made decision, either declining like martyrs to take the rise, or promising to give it to charity. Charity is meant to be a private matter, done with altruistic motives, but here were these clowns telling the world. And the more they try to show us that they’re just like us, the more they are sneered at, laughed at, and dismissed as profoundly abnormal, out of touch idiots.

There are, believe it or not, still those of us who want to be an MP. With no exaggeration, I can honestly say that even as a child, it has been my dream to do it one day. I think how much I’d enjoy elections: campaigning, standing up for what I believe, meeting people of all walks of life and being able to serve them faithfully and diligently. I honestly think I’m more qualified for the job of journalist or politician than anything else, and I would want a political career over life-long promotion in any other sector in which I’ve worked. But even I think as much about whether I’ve written or said anything that might be used against me, or what episodes of my life I’d hate to be dragged up, as how I would conduct myself and how I would try to be a good parliamentarian. Am I preparing my defence before the public trial? More importantly, if I’m some-one who wants to be a professional politician rather than some-one who enters the field already with a wealth of experience from another life, am I the only kind of person who’d still be willing to withstand the barrage of abuse? Why would a doctor, a lawyer, a social worker, a teacher, reduce themselves to this: valued for nothing and reviled for everything? And boy o boy, for all your professional politicians, we need those people too. All we will get, if we don’t treat our MPs better than this, will be hardened professionals, at best aggressively hostile to the public, and at worst, MPs who really do reciprocate the contempt. So I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work of MPs. I don’t just watch Prime Minister’s questions, I watch the Commons regularly and hear empassioned, well-researched speeches. I see the enormous amount of work that goes on in select committees. I know that MPs have huge caseloads to juggle, staff to manage, constituency engagements and all this on top of being elected to a house that sits ‘til very late in the day, every day. All this is done on pay that no other sector would ever accept, and with the possibility of being sacked every 5 years. It is done because of a service ethic, a sense of duty and a desire to make a difference. Across the spectrum, I sincerely thank them all. If you feel they deserve better than this, leave your own comments.