I was going to be snarky about in this appeal for sympathy by former MP Joe Ashton, on behalf of the Association of Former Members of Parliament, but really, it’s impossible to satirise.
Few voters or even newspapers ever realise that the average length of service for a Member of Parliament is about 8 years.
Sooner or later the guillotine falls. Either the voters feel like a change and sack them, or their local parties deselect them. Or their constituency boundaries change, or they retire on a pension based on their length of service.
In one general election, in 1997, 164 MPs lost their seats inside two hours at midnight.
Many of them were shown on television with the whoops, cheers and boos of a pop idol arena with their relatives and children watching and silently crying.
Their secretaries and staff also lost their jobs too.
What happens to the losers then? Nobody knows. Or even bothers to find out. Many sacked MPs suffer serious problems in getting other jobs. Employers are notoriously wary of setting on staff who may know too much.
Like many other thousands of people who become unemployed they too have the same problems of moving schools, moving houses, getting into debt and applying for benefits.
But so do other people. So there is little sympathy
Unfortunately, in other jobs the skills and professional experience is transferable. There may be vacancies in the same trade just a few miles away.But for MPs there are no other Parliamentary factories except in London at Westminster. Workers in all other large companies can meet their friends to help each other. Defeated MPs are isolated scattered and rejected they are single unemployed individuals with no prospects anywhere.
Our Association is not about jobs it is about keeping old soldiers of the regiment together, able to give specialist advice and help for their widows too. Our members are from all parties, ranks and titles, ranging from two former Prime Ministers, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, and former Chancellors and Chief Whips.
We have 80 Lords and 40 ex-cabinet ministers in our group. We could, if necessary, form a new government tomorrow and easily run the country.[…]
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Poor loves, pining away for Westminster and their lost importance. My heart bleeds.
But what a bunch of failed also-rans and losers, salivating for the days when life was good and no-one ever questioned your expenses or the handy little tax dodges that let you maximise your parliamentary income while keeping family and ex-mistresses sweet.
Oh yes, that’s now, isn’t it. No wonder the Association’s so ready to leap into action and form a government should the call ever come. Once a wanker, always a wanker.
