/>Do MPs deserve a private life?
It has disturbed me recently to hear my friends laughing at EyeSpyMP.com. Does giving your life to public service mean that every aspect of your private life is subject to public scrutiny? I personally do not feel the need to know when my MP goes to the barber’s, has a pint or visits the loo.
Sally Bercow has now entered into the argument; pointing out that her movements have been followed despite not being an MP herself; but the wife of an MP and a resident of the Houses of Parliament. However, Mrs Bercow IS standing to be an elected representative; and not only this, she put herself firmly in the limelight by launching her political career with a tell-all story in the Evening Standard, and continues to Tweet on her day-to-day life as the Speaker’s wife. Does this exclude her to the right to keep some of her life private? I don’t think so.
She gave her interview in order to take control of what the press might publish about her past, a perfectly good strategy which appears to have worked. This is information that she chose to share with the world, this does not mean that she has to share everything in her future.
If want to have politicians in the future who are one dimensional, who have had sheltered lives, who have not experienced those things that the average person has, then we are going the right way about it. As due to this pressure from the press, and the now additional 24-hour, multi-faceted surveillance from the blogosphere, potential politicians will be faced with the choice of giving up their chosen career paths or to refrain from letting their hair down for fear that it will end up common, misrepresented knowledge within minutes, or in years to come.
The people we elect to run our communities and our country, and their families, deserve to be able to keep their personal lives private; indeed they must if they are to remain sane in the increasingly pressurised and crazy world of politics.
If we want politicians who are one dimensional, live sheltered lives and have now experience we’re going the right way… hang on… we already have that dot we???
You only had to watch Tower Block of Commons last night to see a group of MPs who clearly have never experienced the conditions some people are forced to live in on council estates across the country.
Yeah, the expenses scandal has misrepresented some Members of both Houses – but there also a fair number who have seriously abused the system and a larger number in the middle who have made claims within the rule but that are questionable about whether the claims were reasonable.
Your claim, however, that EyeSpyMp is going to usher in a new era of politicians who lack a common touch or who can genuinely relate to their constituents misses how politics often remains a game for those who believe they have a right to be an MP – people who all to often lack the skills you rightly identify as being key to being a good politician.
The Tories have done it forever, but Labour has been just as guilty with the likes of Harman and Balls now and some of the mid to late 20s self-appointed “future of the party” types who have quickly fallen into believing their own hype.
EyeSpyMp provides occassionally witty, group-sourced comments on who ate what sandwich and what bus an MP got on. Yes, comments about Sally Bercow and her kids shouldn’t be fair game. She lives there and therefore can’t avoid it. But EyeSpyMP will never grow to be anything more than banter for those in the Westminster village and does far less to put people of standing than the arrogance of sum withing the party that they, and they alone, are the true representatives of the party.