Confessions of a Recovering MP by Nick DeBois

Author:Nick DeBois [Nick de Bois]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785903410
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2018-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

17

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW BUT WHO YOU KNOW

It’s all very well enjoying the privilege of access to the great and the good but, truthfully, a visit to Buckingham Palace for a few minutes with royalty, or a glass of warm white wine with the Prime Minister in a packed and stuffy No. 10, is unlikely to be in the interests of your constituents or the country. What is being served up on these occasions is simply vanity and ego, albeit this is quite enjoyable at the time and I shamelessly indulged whenever possible.

Access to the great and the good, however, is arguably the most important tool at the disposal of an MP when trying to act on a constituent’s behalf. To be fair, though, that does not mean I ever brought up Mrs Jennings’s missing meat from her Fray Bentos pie with HRH the Prince of Wales.

The point is that it’s very unlikely that many people in positions of authority will ignore a call from their local MP. So, when a constituent is understandably enraged at the lack of response from the police to a burglary, or a council taxpayer is tearing his or her hair out because some faceless bureaucrat is passing them from department to department in a mind-numbing exercise in stonewalling, an MP can circumvent the whole system by effectively picking up the phone and kicking arse. The outcome may or may not eventually satisfy the constituent, but at least there is an outcome, and the constituent is somewhat mollified by the fact that someone has tried on his or her behalf. Giving voice to the little things often matters to people as much as giving voice to the bigger issues of the day. This is the day-to-day fare of the job and, frankly, it was quite enjoyable listening to very well-paid executives squirm on the phone as they were presented with a catalogue of system failure.

My constituency office team were masters at this, and quite often I did not even have to get involved unless they too found themselves being stonewalled or, as Helen and Leanne would describe it, they ‘sniffed the noxious odour of bullshit’.

Access to the powerful, on the other hand, is another thing altogether.

It is assumed by most constituents that, as their MP, I am on regular speaking terms with all the Cabinet and, of course, the Prime Minister. It is accepted that if I work some magic, these close colleagues of mine will crack the whip and sort out whatever it is that is troubling them.

This, in the main, is utter claptrap.

I barely exchanged more than a dozen impromptu conversations with the Prime Minister in five years apart from, of course, always trying to ask him questions in the formal setting of the House of Commons. The longest casual conversation I ever had with him was at a No. 10 reception (without Mrs dB), and it lasted six minutes. I know because he uncharacteristically looked at his watch twice. I did

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