As Parliament prepares to debate whether MPs should have second jobs, Julian Huppert has written on the controversy surrounding Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind for the Guardian.
He attacks what he calls an “abhorrent” and “unacceptable” aspect of our political culture and sets out why he thinks there should be more regulation of MPs’ outside interests.
Many of us work night and day to get through our work. We find it is the equivalent of having two full-time jobs – one in Westminster and one in the constituency.
But there are just far too many who don’t behave that way. They’ve been here so long a sense of duty morphs into one of entitlement. They get caught up with the pomp and ceremony, allowing the link between the public and their parliamentary role to unravel.
At the crux of this failure is our electoral system. Safe seats generate complacency. They give many MPs the opportunity to sit back, knowing they’ll get re-elected again and again. And it is often in safe seats where some MPs find they have enough time to take on two jobs. Suddenly they believe they don’t need to respond to casework or do the work in parliament. They are above all that – and why shouldn’t they earn £5,000 a day at the end of their careers?
Mick Taylor Totally agree as well. This is a chance to test out our anti Labour messages and try out new techniques to see if we can wrest votes from both Labour and the Gr...
Nonconformistradical As far as I can see from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holborn_and_St_Pancras
https://tinyurl.com/mtym5knx
and https://tinyurl.com/4vwct8wh
The c...
Tristan Ward Totally agree.
A campaign that emphasises closeness to Europe, strong defence now the US is unreliable, growth and actually doing something about climate c...
David Allen There is a global crisis of democracy, selfish denialism, runaway capitalism and borrowing.
The liberal - left believe in tackling real-world issues like cli...
David Evans Whoops, my personal proof reader has pointed out that my final sentence was badly structured and should have said
Having been canvassing for nearly fifty ye...
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Mick Taylor 
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David Evans 