Crap MPs. Dr. Grosvenor Bendor

      Crap MPs*

      Bendor Grosvenor & Geoffrey Hicks

      * In our opinion

      Dedication

      This book was written on an impulse in August, and published just two months later. My special thanks are therefore due to The Friday Project and HarperCollins for their enthusiasm and support, in particular Victoria Barnsley and Scott Pack. I am also grateful to Corinna Harrod, Robin Harvie, Caitlin Doyle, Leo Nickolls, Chris Gurney and the various lawyers we have consulted for working so hard to turn an idea into reality. I would like to thank my co-author Geoffrey Hicks for the prompt delivery of his excellent text, and for letting me interrupt his summer. Finally, although it must be deeply unromantic to dedicate a book called ‘crap’ to someone, this is for Edite.

      Bendor Grosvenor

      Contents

       Cover

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Introduction

      Symbols

      40. Sir Peter Viggers

      39. Robert Carteret

      38. Lord Randolph Churchill

      37. Tom Driberg, 1st Baron Bradwell

      36. George Galloway

      35. James Alexander

      34. William Beresford

      33. Derek Conway

      32. Peter Baker

      31. Christopher Perne

      30. Nicholas Ridley

      29. Hazel Blears

      28. Anthony Steen

      27. Sir John Trevor

      26. Sir Samuel Hoare, Viscount Templewood

      25. Horatio Bottomley

      24. Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley

      23. John Fuller

      22. Sir William Blackett, 2nd Baronet

      21. Antony, Lord Lambton

      20. Terry Dicks

      19. Michael Martin

      18. John Story

      17. Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, ‘Lord North’

      16. Thomas Harrison

      15. Ron Brown

      14. Rt Hon John Aislabie

      13. Tim Smith

      12. William Parry

      11. Jabez Spencer Balfour

      10. Margaret Moran

      9. Edmund Hope Verney

      8. The Rt Hon Andrew Mackay & Julie Kirkbride

      7. Rt Hon John Thomson Stonehouse

      6. The Rt Hon John Prescott

      5. Jonathan Aitken

      4. John Profumo

      3. Rt Hon George Brown, Lord George-Brown

      2. Sir Oswald Mosley

      1. Sir Edward Grey, Viscount Grey of Fallodon

      Credits

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Introduction

      Some people say that the expenses scandal of 2009 has done more damage to our political system than any other single episode in modern British history. Actually, the reverse is true. Thanks to the recent revelations of fraud, arrogance and incompetence, we are now more aware of the shortcomings of our leaders than ever before. We are governed by a uniquely crap generation of politicians. And now that we know, we can begin to do something about it.

      But just how bad are today’s MPs, compared with their predecessors? This book attempts to answer that question by looking at MPs from the sixteenth century to the present day. It includes the murderous, the corrupt, the perverted and the merely useless. We have chosen forty – about one-quarter of whom are made up of current MPs. Only three of the forty are women. Strangely, there are eight Johns. The criteria for crapness are not scientific, and are based (libel lawyers, please note) purely on our own opinion. Some may wonder at the absence of those who ended up mired in political manure, such as John Major, James Callaghan, or even our own Gordon Brown, but political failure does not qualify anyone for this list. Individual failings do.

      Symbols

      A guide to the symbols used throughout this book. They are not to be taken entirely seriously.

      40. Sir Peter Viggers

      (b.1938) Conservative, Gosport, 1974–

      After thirty-five years as an MP, during which he held ministerial office only once (as junior minister for Northern Ireland from 1986–9), Viggers found perhaps his greatest fame by submitting a claim for a five-foot-high ‘duck island’ costing £1,645 to be paid out of Parliamentary expenses. He was then ordered to stand down as an MP by his party leader at the next general election. There is no more to be said. Duck off.

      39. Robert Carteret

      (1721–76) Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, 1744–7

      Before the Parliamentary Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 abolished corrupt electoral practices, many seats in the House of Commons were controlled by aristocrats simply for the benefit of their sons. Sometimes a peer’s son was made an MP to give him something to do, with the Commons seen as a political nursery before assuming the responsibilities of a seat in the House of Lords. In the case of Robert Carteret, however, the Commons was his nursery in the fullest possible sense of the word, for he was completely mad.

      His insanity was well known even before he was elected MP at the age of just twenty-three. Once, while a guest at Woburn Abbey, he suddenly woke his hosts, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, at five in the morning, covered in blood. He held up his coat, and presented them with a great mass of horses’ ears. A guest wrote: