On a train journey I overheard a loud conversation by some businessmen on a day out. They were laughing and joking about the stupidity of the latest MPs and Ministers to be on the wrack for sleaze allegations. After a bit one of them got more serious. He pointed out that the kind of things the MPs were typically brought down for happened from time to time in their businesses. Should they do more to stop them? What should their attitude be to lax conduct which maybe they just allowed to pass? Who were they to throw the first stone against the MPs?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not here to excuse criminal behaviour by MPs. A few MPs have been crooks. They steal public money. A few hit people in fights when drunk, or misbehave sexually, or take banned drugs. They should of course be charged and prosecuted. They should expect rougher treatment than the minority of the public doing such things, as they are in the limelight and meant to provide a better role model.
Every party wants to stop such people becoming MPs. Each has vetting procedures. Unfortunately they rely quite heavily on self reporting, which a true crook or bruiser is unlikely to do accurately. Vetting can only look backwards. Some of the MPs who get caught abusing others or robbing from the system only take this up after being elected. References are meant to help guide, but candidates can often choose their own referees. There is not going to be a perfect vetting system that stops a few bad apples turning up in the barrel of candidates.
Most MPs who get into trouble do so for conduct that falls short of criminal charges. The advent of an Independent regulator has brought more rules. More rules lead to more rule breaking, from ignorance, sloppiness or the wish to subvert them. Some are trivial. Someone on an income of more than £100,000 a year is a few weeks late in registering a small fee for an article or tv show. The fee did not influence the way they thought or voted. Someone in a debate failed to declare an interest because it was not on their mind and not directing what they said. Some are disagreements about what rules say or intend. Some are genuine concerns which do lead to justified accusations of hypocrisy and sometimes expose wanting to use the platform of Parliament to pursue personal interests. Some get drunk and behave badly or say stupid things.
The public especially dislike hypocrisy. An MP rails against tax cheats but uses every loophole they can find to avoid tax. An MP lectures us all on net zero but has no intention of buying a heat pump and runs a petrol car. An MP argues for higher taxes on drinks and certain foods, but has a well known weakness for them that they can afford to indulge. An MP likes imposing low speed limits on people, only to break the limits themselves. An MP demands more housebuilding and infrastructure, but not near where they live.
Some MPs get caught out for relatively small sums of money. Some fall for a sting where a media group or hostile interest offer them money for disguised influence. Some overextend their lifestyles to “fit in” and grasp at dubious cash. When they register it others think they were wrong to take it.
I will look subsequently at how an MP can behave well to avoid being referred to the Commissioner on Standards.
September 18, 2025
The eternal search for perfection amomg humans. If Jesus was perfect, we know humans cannot be. Sufficient unto the day is the rigour thereof. The important thing is to have systems that work, producing an output or effect close enough to what is required, despite being imperfect.
September 18, 2025
Just so. Without doubt the current lot of MP’s reflect all the biases and faults of our population, (perhaps even in the first, lower quartile?) However I do think MP’s should be held to a higher standard of ethicality and probity. The reason being they wish to rule over the rest of us. Their standards and behaviour should reflect the best of us, not as now. Motivation for becoming an MP now appears the be ‘get in, make contacts and move on into a number of high paying, low effort positions’.
September 18, 2025
Jesus was a bit left wing for me. All that “Easier for a Camel to Go Through the Eye of a Needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
“to enter God’s kingdom, one must let go of wealth and worldly possessions” You have to let go either before death or forces to on death so it does make much sense.
Makes sense for the churches though, if they can get you to give it to them before or on death to ease your passage to heaven. A good business model I suppose as no costs in easing the passage! It seems to me that the ones that deserve to go to heaven are the ones that used and invested their assets and skills wisely to benefit the world.
September 18, 2025
LL
The Eye of The Needle is a small pedestrian gate next to the main gate at the entrance to Jerusalem through the city walls.
The reference refers to a person riding on a camel which of course means the gate is too small and narrow for a wealthy merchant on a camel to pass through with the animal and his goods.
September 18, 2025
So impossible for a rich person to enter heaven? Wow!
September 19, 2025
The scripture doesn’t actually say that.
It says that a man brings nothing into this world at birth and can take nothing out with him.
Making money your God is what is warned against. You can be rich and still be caring and compassionate.
September 18, 2025
Perhaps they should concentrate a bit less about their own circumstances, and concentrate a bit more on how to avoid ruining us?
September 18, 2025
I think politicians are held to a distinctly higher standard and sometimes that can seem unfair but there is a good reason. One cannot be a law maker and standard setter and simultaneously skirt with them / break them as it undermines the credibility of those laws and standards. To avoid that happening, in my opinion, a politician needs to operate at a margin above both.
Many Labour MPs’ recent actions and behaviour have been shocking. There has been aggression, hypocisy and appalling judgement and all of it is rightly unacceptable.
September 18, 2025
Sir John,
I agree that the public, in general, hate hypocrisy and one often hears the “Don’t do as I do, do as I say.” response to it.
I think all to often we like to build people up, only to knock them down.
I do wonder how the “holier than thou” journalists would fare if international, well resourced organisations dug deeply into their past lives?
I do feel that anyone who puts themself forward should expect to be held to high standards but sometimes it feels like a witch hunt.
I think sometimes all these scandals show is that MPs are just human.
September 18, 2025
It is alas not a very appealing job and appeals in general to the wrong types with a few notable exceptions. Often people on the make, crooks, liars, people who cannot make it in other fields, people who want to famous and like the sound of their own voices, have huge chips on their shoulder, rarely any understanding of science, maths, economics or logic, bitter politics of envy people, have little problem with serial lying…
September 18, 2025
People who like bossing other people around and think they know best. People who think they should tax virtually all you earning off you then give you back poor quality services that they decide for you – schools, breakfast clubs, second rate & very delayed health care so long as you life long enough to get it, subsidised but still rip of public transport, subsidised housing, benefits and hotels mainly for new migrants, new mobility cars for some or their relatives, soft loan for usually duff worthless degrees …
September 18, 2025
Correct Ll. The born to rule brigade, often as thick as mince but having the right connections
Mandelson is a case in point.
I hope if Reform gets in power the special pension arrangements for Surkeer is revisited and cancelled.
September 18, 2025
Lord Mandelson:- During his teenage years he joined the Young Communist League. He was “educated” at the University of Oxford as an undergraduate of St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where he read philosophy, politics and economics (PPE); his tutors included Nicholas (now Lord) Stern another lefty pusher of climate alarmism lunacy! This despite Stern having read a sensible degree Maths at “Poterhouse” Cambridge! Surely he should have know better! Perhaps he did mainly pure maths?
September 18, 2025
To err is human. Only those completely lacking in self awareness can deny such.
It is the extent of error, what harm it does, and the intent that is in question.
Politicians put themselves forward for office and if their intent is to use their position to further their own personal ideology and preferences or pockets, then I take issue.
A position in an International charity would be a better placement for many in Parliament now, but then I suppose it doesn’t pay as well.
In the end it comes down to personal goals in your position and balancing what’s right and wrong, what’s acceptable and fair within your position. It’s called a conscience.
I was shocked at how lacking in conscience many MP’s were when the expenses scandal was daily news.
I volunteer for a charity and have ample opportunity to just take things because they are there, surplus to requirement on that day, and isn’t even in policy that you can’t help yourself, but I know it’s wrong and wouldn’t sleep at night if I took it.
September 18, 2025
Sadly Michelle, it is mostly about upbringing. You were brought up to respect honesty, right and wrong.
If only everybody was that way.
September 18, 2025
Life has become far more complicated for everyone in the last few decades, due to new laws, taxes, regulations, Benefit changes, 24 hour news reports, and computerisation.
Few people can keep up with all of the changes, and in particular taxation, with its 22,000 or more pages of so called guidance , but it is MP’s who vote on those laws, taxes, regulations which in many cases are simply not necessary if it were not for clever layers and taxation specialists.
Oh how much more simple would it be if there were just a few simple taxes, like Income tax, and VAT, or that you did not need a hundred descriptions of simple theft.
The simple answer John is if you make the rules, you should understand them fully and abide by them.
As our justice system, and HMRC will say, ignorance is no excuse.
Perhaps our recent deputy Prime Minister would still be in place if the tax laws were much simpler to understand.
September 18, 2025
Oops Not layers-lawyers !
September 18, 2025
I have some sympathy for her simple error in thinking the sale to the trust had disposed of her property. It seems that as her beneficiary son was only 17 she was caught out. She should really have resigned because her housing bill and her workers right bill will bother do vast harm.
The good news for her is she can get the £40k stamp duty back when the disposal is full, perhaps when he reaches 18. Plus she gets a tax free pay off from losing her job through her negligence! Plus perhaps another one when she is voted out in 3+ years!
September 18, 2025
The last line I very much doubt.
September 18, 2025
If you seek to preside over the laws that govern us then you had better live a blameless life. Do not seek to force us to live one way while pursuing a different agenda yourself.
On top of this you must rule for the majority and not the minority, seeking the outcomes that advance the UK not your personal doctrine. (Those who sought to the the EU and blocked the withdrawal agreement could be said to be acting for the majority whereas those who advance immigrant cases or cry for continued disability payouts are speaking for a minority).
Those MPs in the majority party that blocked cuts to disability benefits and seek to increase payments to families with more than two children while continuing to spend ever more of our (and borrowed) money are as bad as the ones who have resigned.
September 18, 2025
@ Narrow Shoulders
Parag. 1 are you perhaps referring to King Charles, Two Tier Kier, Ed Miliband types and their climate hypocrisy?
P2 To Kier the Majority are far right and he hates them! Only these to be taxes and robbed by him!
P3 The cuts will have to come in the end!
September 18, 2025
Agree 100%
September 18, 2025
There is no one better placed to review and comment on these rules and to maintain the high standards demanded of MP’s by the British Public.
September 18, 2025
How do we survive the daily efforts of the government to ruin us? – might be more interesting and relevant.
September 18, 2025
MPs must be held to higher standards than the general public. Standards come from the top down in parliament, business, the forces and the family. Long ago, I learnt that the person who will steal for you will also steal from you. With 650 MPs, there will always be a few rotten apples. But over the last few years, the standard of our MPs has gone down, and the current government and its MPs seem to be the lowest of the low.
They refuse to face reality about the UK’s debts and spending, refuse to do what voters want regarding immigration, give away UK assets and spend a fortune doing so ( Chagos Islands), overtax us, overregulate us, and a majority from all parties would love to give our sovereignty away to the EU again. They have no vision except to make the UK a more miserable place to live, and that is what they are doing!
September 18, 2025
Attitudes towards conduct have developed over the last thirty years or so to become too often ridiculous today. Now even more apparent than real alleged wrongdoing easily provokes manufactured-for-effect shock and outrage rather than genuine repugnance. Contrasting with that we see too often perpetrators paraded as victims whose sins are washed away since it is somehow wrong to expect the foolish, wicked and/or immoral to be accountable for their own weaknesses and transgressions.
At the root is of course the belief, progressively developed over the last sixty years or so, that individuals are fully entitled to conduct themselves as they choose, fulfilling any selfish desire regardless of any obligations they have or wider effects that result.
An MP would do well to have a crisis management PR firm on speed dial and take coaching in brazen self-assurance and contrite regretfulness, either to be deployed to suit.
September 18, 2025
What annoys me are the personal insults. I believe that the vast majority of politicians mean well.
Some people say that this or that politician is nasty or hates the rich or hates the poor (take your pick).
I believe the Labour Party is making the poor even poorer but I don’t think that they mean to.
Others say that a political leader is stupid. How can somone who has gained high office be stupid? Some politicians, such as Nigel Farage and Diane Abbot have had vile things said about them (just 2 examples – but there are lots of them).
I hate left-wing policies but I do not hate the politicians who vote for them. I think they are wrong but I don’t think they are stupid.
September 18, 2025
If not stupid then evil. ‘Stupid’ is the kind man’s view excusing the evil.
September 18, 2025
Crikey Sir John, have you got something you would like to tell us? We get it, MPs are human after all, who would have thought it?
Reply No I have nothing to tell. I was never referred to the Commissioner and took great pains to obey the rules.
September 19, 2025
replry-reply
Exactly John, and thank you, that is exactly what all Mp’s should aim to do as they make the rules which they want others to follow.
September 18, 2025
The reason why allegations of sleaze, hypocrisy and misbehaviour are so highlighted by political parties and the MSM is because this is the only weapon they have to bring down their opponents and gain office for they’re all pursuing the same major policies of high wasteful spending to justify high taxation, a race to ruin our economy using the false science that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are causing global warming and that mass immigration, both legal and illegal, is beneficial to the country. Whilst at the same time knowing that it is in fact our Civil Service, quangos, regulators, institutions, “charities” and judiciary who are actually making the real decisions while they await Buggins’ turn.
September 18, 2025
Nobody ‘vets’ people better than the local community in which they have lived. When the local Associations invite candidates anyone accepted on the shortlist would make a good MP. They have typically been known for decades, the people with whole they have traded or whom they have employed have years of experience and have been able to judge them in all sorts of situations.
We submit people for the electorate to support like Christopher Gill, Andrew Bridgen, John Redwood, Enoch Powell. They all do us proud, they all throw their hearts into doing their best for their homeland and people, in the position given to them by those people. It’s the people’s truck that honours.
I doubt any named would get past the Political Party machine vetting services.
September 18, 2025
‘It’s the people’s trust which honours.’
September 18, 2025
Good Morning Sir John. I hear what you say (and perhaps what you don’t actually say). These are my thoughts on what i see currently in Parliament and your above essay.
1) Generally the calibre of MPs seems woefully lacking, and not least in real-life experience and/or understanding of such from the point of view of the electorate.
2) Many MPs simply seem to be “out for themselves” and pander to those who can give it to them.
3) Those few MPs who truly believe and are passionate about anything the establishment aren’t interested in are ignored/sidelined/ousted.
4) A party vets its candidates based on that party’s current political views; in the case of Lab & Cons seemingly in line with the establishment’s liberal/progressive/woke “standards”.
5) Am a believer in FPTP but feel something is very wrong when a party gets a 174 seat majority on +/- 21% of the vote [9.7m votes out of 28.9m votes cast (a 59.8% turnout)] and would love to know your views on this aspect. Should we have a USA Presidential election system for PM? Or did the last-minute boundary changes create this imbalance? Do you think in-person (with sensible exclusions)voting should be mandatory?
Having started typing this i realise there is way more to cover, but will leave it there for now as so much needs to change for MPs to become true representatives of their constituents in my view.
Reply PR is worse than FPTP MPs would be less accountable to electors, whereas they are very under our single member constituency system. Parliaments would usually have no majority party so all parties would be free to dump their promises and join a coalition doing things nobody voted for.
September 18, 2025
We should have voted for AV when we had the chance. AV maintains the good FPTP idea that there is a single elected representative for the constituency but ensures that the winning candidate obtains 50% or more of the vote in that constituency. This means AV prevents a constituency electing a candidate who does not represent their views through a split vote, an outcome which can never be described as democratic. The voting members of the HoL should be allocated in a ratio representative of each party’s vote share at the last GE and we definitely need referendums so that the silent majority have a say in our policies and laws.
September 18, 2025
You can’t ensure 50% for the winning candidate unless there are only two candidates.
Second choices are NOT the same as first choices and do NOT count in the same way.
I would NEVER register a second choice.
September 18, 2025
Totally agree Lynn
Well said.
September 18, 2025
@Reet- the party vets candidates, they are vetted for their loyalty to the gang leader to ensure they will follow whatever the leader dictates. The electorate wants to choose someone that will represent them, their comuity and the country in Parliament. That is where what calls itself a Parliament, part of a democratic system has deserted its electorate.
As you are aware the crowd that have stolen the power and the nation got there simply because the alternatives deserted thier supporters, effectively disenfranchising thier core voters by wanting to morph into another Socialist Cabal. Now they are at sea as they have chosen a team that owned the collective responsibility of failure, they chose looking for continuity, and more of the same,not ceasing the opportunity to refresh with new blood and thinking. That happened because they ignored the real supporters and drivers that create a political party, those on the ground that pay thier dues and spread the message. A political movement is not the Gang Leader, it is the people, ignore that you deserve to fade
September 19, 2025
Agree with you Ian B, you explained it all very well.
At this time i feel the background to present-day parliamentary outcomes may be far more insidious than we can say. If am right, the solution can only come from the majority demanding it and am not sure which would be the most effective mechanism to achieve this. Am still oddly hopeful.
September 19, 2025
Thank you for your reply and i 100% agree PR is way worse than FPTP. Have simply wondered whether the last-minute boundary changes played a part in the greater inequity of results?
September 18, 2025
Sir Jon
A lot has been reflected on today. To me it is Parliament that itself is wrecking what it should stand for. The rule of Law for one, has become one sided and two tier, further compounded by Laws and Rules that in themselves are flaky and flawed in meaning. To many knee-jerk created Laws & Rules made in response to things that could even be considered as one off’s, then the scope is at a later date widened so much so it corrupts the original premise.
Parliament doesn’t support freedoms, democracy or its own institutions, then wonders why amongst their members people go astray. This is then followed up by the Nation as a whole losing respect for the institution.
To much ego being able to cancel things they ‘personally’ don’t like without considering the bigger picture.
Yes, all MPs are individuals with individual views, or they should be if it wasn’t for the gang culture that dominates and dictates. So, ‘looking-in’ respect is lost, they have thrown it away. At the same time the Nation is a multitude of individuals with a multitude of views but as much as Parliament and its MPs have now respect, so it is reasonable that Society should pick up on the same clues and lose no respect for them.
September 18, 2025
Else where in the same vein, we have the pontification of Parliament on the Criminal Invasion for no other reason than it appears to be on message. As it is always met with inaction. Then we have the taxpayer funding a home office that is maliciously undermining society by facilitating this Criminal Invasion. More double standards.
As with these Charities the Taxpayer whether they agree or not is forced to contribute up to 25% of the Charities funding. The results with full agreement of Parliament the UK Taxpayer is funding the people traffickers as well – the (Parliament) is unable to think things trough.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/17/home-office-backed-charity-obstructs-migrant-deal/
Those aware of the News would have see the videos of the French Authorities physically blocking and in one case sinking criminal boat people trying to invade French Territory. Yet in the channel they phone up the UK Border Force who obligingly enter French waters to extract this criminal back to the UK.
If we have a Parliament that doesn’t respect itself is it any surprise that the same is thought of it by others.
September 19, 2025
Ian B
They are not Charities in the real world if they take funding from Government/taxpayers.
A true charity raises its own money, and the staff work free of charge, without any form of payment.
September 19, 2025
@Berkshire Alan – yes a distortion for the profit of a few individuals that run, not help for those in need in the UK
September 19, 2025
Exactly so Ian B. It’s all become farcical, except for the people whose daily lives are directly affected by, and suffer most from, this wholesale ineptitude. Unforgivable.
September 18, 2025
Spot on Ian
September 18, 2025
The ‘party’ system helps to protect and promote MPs at the cost of integrity ….Parliament rewards party MPs over independant MPs; the partys get more funds, more MPs on committee/qangos, more peers selected and more on ‘all party jollies’ ….we’ve lost a great deal by promoting parties and it needs to be reversed
September 18, 2025
@glen cullen – and those that do the empowering the paying the wages, like the country fail to be served. Something out of place and as you suggest it is the loyal party member selected by their ‘gang-master’ that is required to place, or miss place, their loyalty to them, before their constituents or country.
Technically any one can stand but only those that are appointed by a gang boss get the money to beat of al-comers – maybe election funding for candidates should only come from within the constituency they are to represent.
September 18, 2025
Agree