The Commons man
Women in parliament – the new suffragettes
Boni Somes with Margaret Moran and Joni Lovenduski
Politico’s, 230pp, 17.99
Have you ever wondered what Westminster is really like? What it feels like and tastes like from the inside? If so, regardless of your gender or politics, this is a book you have to read. Boni Sones succeeds in bringing Westminster to life, as well as shining a light on the traditionally male world of parliament, fashioned by 500 years of men-only shortlists.
Women in Parliament deconstructs the ‘Blair’s babes’ phenomena to give readers a real taste of what happened when the 1997 election doubled the number of women in parliament overnight. But, even after this huge increase in women, 82 per cent of MPs were still men. It is no wonder that women, a small minority of parliamentarians, weren’t able to transform the Commons overnight. Yet they remained burdened with vast expectations.
Sones demonstrates that, notwithstanding their small powerbase, the 101 Labour women elected in 1997 eventually succeeded in ‘transforming the Commons beyond recognition and [giving] a new direction to policymaking’. The journey to power in policy terms (witness the government’s current priority of childcare and early-years provision) was riddled with setbacks and ridicule. Sexism was rampant and, even for someone who was there at the time, it is still shocking to remember the behaviour of older men in an institution that was ‘halfway between a public school and a gentlemen’s club’.
Jackie Ballard, formerly a Lib Dem MP, says that at Westminster ‘behaviour falls way below the standards you would allow in any workplace, particularly in terms of sexist language and so on’. Dawn Primarolo adds that ‘in any other workplace it would fall into one of two categories: bullying or harassment, and that’s sexual harassment.’ These women’s views are echoed throughout the book, with examples that will make your hair stand on end. As one MP elected in 1997 said, explaining why she would not stand again, ‘I got tired of the willy-jousting.’
The book’s value for me is two fold. There is the fascinating insight it gives into parliament per se: in particular, a physical sense of the lay of the land and an emotional sense of what it’s like to become an MP. It is hard to describe the first days and months for a new MP: lost, bombarded, electrified, frustrated, terrified, excited and, more often than not, clueless. Someone without a boss, yet with a ‘whip’; someone without professional support, yet with status. As Virginia Bottomley puts it, the House of Commons ‘is completely a place of sole operators…It is extraordinary the degree to which you have no feedback, no management, no supervision.’
Although it’s not difficult to capture the majesty and importance of Westminster, it’s far harder to capture the insanity of the place for a new MP, and this is what the book does so well. For example, one new MP was impressed to find that every member’s coat hanger had a red Aids ribbon attached – only to discover that these red ribbons were for MPs to hang their swords on. And the sword ribbons are still there today – in 2005.
As well the insight the book gives into the day-to-day workings of parliament, its value also lies in its examination of the significance of the number of women elected in 1997. The significance is not that we constituted a critical mass. We didn’t, and still don’t. Rather, there were enough of us to say ‘wait a second, British democracy is great, but some of what goes on here is sheer lunacy. Let’s fast forward 100 years. Let’s make some changes.’ Women in Parliament is the first work to actually document this process, from the point of view of those involved, and to signpost some of the changes made. These changes don’t just affect women, but affect our country and our democracy and, for that reason, they should be of interest to all.
Oona King was MP for Bethnal Green and Bow from 1997 to 2005
Continental drift
The right nation – why America is different
John Mickelthwaite and Adrian Wooldridge
Penguin books, 464pp, £8.99
The award-winning journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge have written an engaging and perceptive history of the US conservative movement. They brilliantly articulate what makes modern America tick – from churchgoers in Colorado Springs and gun clubs in Massachusetts, to black supporters of school vouchers in Milwaukee – and why we ignore the rise of the Republican right at our peril. The book gives us cause to wonder why the post-9/11 debate about America has been so profoundly unsatisfying – yet it is surely in part because moralistic rhetoric has taken precedence over hard-headed strategic analysis. The Right Nation serves as a useful corrective to this tendency.
That said, it is not without weaknesses. The US is a truly unique society, according to Micklethwait and Wooldridge, precisely because it has produced a more potent conservative movement than any other nation in history. The virulent strain of right-wing ideology that blends laissez-faire individualism, Christian morality and militaristic nationalism has placed America on a trajectory that is wholly distinct from the rest of the world. US politics has become a culture war between Christian heartland conservatives and a metropolitan coastal liberal elite. The structural divergence between the US and Europe is set to grow deeper in the coming years, according to this thesis, which is now shared by many on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is a popular view because it is innately comforting to believe that Bush’s America radically diverges from European values of solidarity, tolerance and collectivism; as some have described it, ‘effete Europe verses virile America’. There are, of course, important differences: President Bush described America as ‘a nation with the soul of a church’, where 95 per cent of the population regularly proclaim their faith in God. The growing disproportion in military might between Europe and the US also reflects a profound disagreement over the role of hard and soft power in the international order. As the neo-conservative Robert Kagan tells us, ‘Europe is Venus and America Mars’.
But an argument is not proved right simply because it is expressed elegantly. The current US administration may have strengthened, by its ill-chosen rhetoric, perceptions of a growing divide. Yet it is a myth that the two continents are somehow destined to move ever further apart.
Economic interdependence confounds the polarisation between Europe and America, since the strength of the relationship is literally counted in jobs, growth and living standards. US and European GDP and share of world trade amounts to over 40 per cent of the world’s total. The Asian tiger economies may be rising fast, but in the last ten years American investment in the Netherlands was ten times greater than in China. The EU accounts for half of the total global earnings of US companies, and Europe has more investment in Texas than America has in Japan. This ever-stronger commercial relationship provides a powerful bridge across the Atlantic.
But there is a more profound truth at stake. Progressive politics needs a multilateral America working harmoniously with the EU. From peace in the Middle East to trade with the poorest nations in Africa, the US and Europe have to be capable of acting together as partners and allies. This is manifestly true on so many global issues, from better environmental management to the resolution of regional conflicts, especially in the Balkans.
In a world of new terrorist threats precipitated by Islamic fundamentalist regimes, a unity of purpose between America and Europe is necessary for our collective security, just as it was during the Cold War era. There may indeed be frictions and disagreements as the ‘twin faces of western modernity’ grapple with a more dangerous and complex global order. But to falsely posit Europe and America as competing civilisations only does harm to an already precarious free world.
Patrick Diamond is a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and a transatlantic fellow of the German Marshall Fund. He is a former special adviser to the prime minister
Spinning a yarn
Time and fate
Lance Price Polperro, 368pp, £8.95
Terrorist threats. Debates about civil liberties. Controversial welfare reforms. This is the setting for one of two books published recently by Lance Price, and although Time and Fate is a work of fiction, ‘the truth’, remarks the author wryly, ‘is often a lot harder to believe than the fiction’.
Having served as a special advisor to the prime minister in the No 10 press office and as director of communications for the Labour party, there is inevitably a compulsion to seek similarities between the characters and events depicted by Price in Time and Fate, with those he describes in the Spin Doctor’s Diary, his first-hand account of life at the top of Blair’s Britain.
The novel is set some time in the future: King Charles III is on the throne, Britons are spending euros instead of pounds, and global terrorists have attempted to attack the London underground with chemical weapons. Three years into his premiership, Labour prime minister Paul Sinclair finds himself outside the comfort zone of his honeymoon period in office: his MPs are in rebellion, the foreign secretary is after his job, his special relationship with the US is causing domestic disquiet, and he is struggling to cope with the demands of family life. Readers will undoubtedly draw comparisons between Sinclair’s Britain and Blair’s Britain, particularly when Sinclair is forced to take military action based on false intelligence.
Such comparisons are, in fact, positively encouraged by the publisher, no doubt hoping that, by doing so, Time and Fate can capitalise on the popularity of Price’s other book and the publicity it has attracted. However, such lazy and predictable comparisons do not do justice to the strong characterisation and compelling plotline that make Time and Fate such a welcome, gripping page-turner.
While Time and Fate tackles some of the contemporary debates raging in modern British politics, it does not attempt to shoehorn fact into fiction, as one might have expected from a spin-doctor-turned-novelist. Instead, a number of concurrent storylines bring alive a believable and wide cast of characters, from ruthless politicians and hard-hitting journalists, through to drug dealers and prostitutes, in a way that successfully evokes the humanity and emotions of the people behind the headlines.
Although it has been published on the back of the storm of publicity surrounding the Spin Doctor’s Diary, it deserves to be read as a refreshingly engaging political novel in its own right.
Wes Streeting