No second chances

Labour's new intake at the last election were exceptionally low-calibre, have failed the electorate and should not be given another chance, says Sheila Gunn

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By Sheila Gunn

As this Parliament draws to a close, you may care to note that there is something different about the composition of this House of Commons which you can't spot on your TV screens.

Sheila Gunn

A former political correspondent for the Times, Sheila Gunn was political press secretary to Prime Minister John Major from 1995 to 1997

She advised him for the run-up and duration of the last election campaign

She was awarded an MBE in Mr Major's resignation honours list

It struck me in May 1997 when I viewed the new intake and, so poignantly, the re-positioning of the parties from the press gallery.

I worked out totally unscientifically that, for the first time in history, the majority of the Commons would enjoy higher salaries as MPs than they did before they were elected.

Now this is not the stuff of headlines, but has slowly but surely damaged Parliament and should have a significant impact on the forthcoming election campaign.

Desperate lengths

The first noticeable effect is a rather pathetic one: the lengths to which desperate Labour MPs nursing fragile majorities go to in order to please their leader and, in the shape of the whips, their bosses.

Notching up Brownie points with the leadership could, they know, make the difference between support or lack of it come election time.

Being so lacking in principles does make Labour hard to attack on occasion

These former trade union and lowly party officials, and those who previously occupied low-grade professional and managerial posts, have lived for four years in dread of losing their seats.

And so they have humiliated themselves in the most cringe-making fashion with few daring to question the actions of this administration which impact directly on their constituents.

Meanwhile, the whips encourage these MPs to "feed" ministers with tame questions when in the Commons, but otherwise to keep well away from Westminster in case they develop political nous or opinions of their own.

Instead they are encouraged to focus on giving quotes on local issues, accompanied by soft-focus photographs, to the local media.

Incompetence all round

Come the campaign, all Conservative candidates need to expose this tactic for the deceit it is.

But being so lacking in principles does make Labour hard to attack on occasion.

Although perhaps I'm being a tad unfair? For there is clearly a minister who feels so strongly about fox hunting that he has refused to take up the offer from qualified kennel staff to help out in the cull of the poor blighted livestock.

We have witnessed incompetent governance buttressed by equally incompetent backbenchers

But there has been an equally damaging outcome of this poor-calibre intake on the Labour benches: their total inability to encourage this administration to govern efficiently.

Hence we have witnessed incompetent governance buttressed by equally incompetent backbenchers.

Let the voters judge

This undercurrent is ever-present, with the antics of Robin Cook in "representing" British interests abroad and Nick Brown's disbelief that he can't solve a problem by wishing it away, springing most readily to mind.

And there are occasional incidents which are so mind-boggling that it is hard to know whether to laugh or to cry.

A recent "prize winner" is Janet Anderson, the so-called tourism minister, arguing on the BBC's Newsnight that the British countryside is still open to visitors, but that they must stay on "tarmac" roads. At least, I thought that plumbed new depths of lunacy until I heard it repeated by Tony Blair.

It will soon be up to the voters to decide the fate of such people. And judging parliamentary candidates against the "competence" test on the issues which matter is, surely, not a bad criterion?