Ben Brogan: Three shadow cabinet members would have quit rather than give up their part-time jobs

Pete, Scotland

Let them go, democracy will be better served for it.

james

Why does it call their commitment into question. Haven't we had enough of hyperactive know nothings.

Tory Boy in the City

These people want to run the country. They should lead by example

Obnoxio The Clown

Sack them. If the money is that important, that's fine. But then they can forget about public office.

You can't have your cake *and* eat it. Even at Christmas.

Verity

I'd rather have William Hague part time than any of the rest of them full time.

Unsteady Eddie

I wouldn't trust the servicing of my car to a part-timer.

Besides, to pursue this would be a really handy way of off-loading Hague and his hideous intonation. He sounds like Robert Peston in the recovery room.

Max Kaye

They are quite right, too. Being an opposition politician is not, and should not be, a full-time occupation.

Cameron would do best to ignore your advice.

Heavens save us from professional [sic] politicians.

Andrew Gingell

This attitude is completely daft.

When the 3 in question are public speaking , they normally have the attention of hundreds of opinion formers. The 'price' only underscores their delivery skill.

Robert Simpson

I find it mystifying that some Shadow Ministers are so laid-back about the potential damage they are doing to the Conservative cause. I think about all the people in the country who are genuinely angered by Gordon Brown's incompetence, and wonder why those Shadow Cabinet members aren't angry too.

Perhaps they don't see the effects of Labour's policies, because they live in a gilded bubble - quite the opposite of Alan Duncan's bizarre statement "Better to be part-time wise than full-time ignorant".

john

Fully agree with your comments. Btitain is in desparate need of leadership and direction to avert the current difficulties from turning into a national calamity. Developing and articulating the policies needed surely needs the full time effort of all the shadow cabinet especially when faced with a mendacious government that has shown itself to be unscrupulous about using the considerable levers of power for party political advantage. Many people face enforced sacrifices over the coming months and years. If the shadow cabinet choose to maximise their earnings instead of commiting themselves wholly to their 'day jobs' they will significantly reduce their moral authority to persuade the country to accept the hard choices needed. This could be a defining moment for Cameron.

Kit

We need politicians with "outside interests." The idea of full time professional politicians fills me with dread.

Forlornehope

Chickens; not pigs!

TGF UKIP

Can you imagine Pre 97, if three members of the Labour Shadow Cabinet had been so semi-detached and politically unprofessional? They would have been de-bollockalized by Campbell and tarred, brushed and smeared by Mandelson.

And to think some Coffee Housers bleat at me when I go on about what a hopelessly useless bunch this Tory apology for an opposition truly is.

Verity

Unsteady Eddy, Well, I've never heard you speak, obviously, but I prefer a robust Northern accent to an Estuary whine and stopped glottals any day of the week.

DM

I think it is perfectly fair to want the shadow cabinet to be fully concentrated on the task in hand. An election is not far off.
There should be an all out fight to win the hearts and minds of the electorate, and when a change of government occurs, they should be ready to hit the ground running in their new departments.
By all means let back benchers add to their experience or earnings - although I am not sure that some constituents would view the job of representing them as a part time one.

Fergus Pickering

But TGF, the Labour full-time cabinet are a load of useless tossers. Didn't the sainted Robin Cook have a job connected with the turf? And did it do him any harm? This is a storm in a teacup.

Verity

TGI UKIP - I have taken a relaxed attitude to this because I don't think any of them has a hunger in his belly for governing. I don't think any of them (save David Davis, who has excluded himself) has a burning hunger to introduce legislation that will advance the fortunes and standing of our country; nor to take a hatchet to the thousands of repressive, undemocratic new laws waved through by Labour during the past 12 years.

Name one of the Shadow Cabinet who is incensed about what the Gramscis have done to our country and who will swear to reverse it.

You cannot.

David Cameron appears to hunger for power, but I don't think he feels passionately about the governance of our country.

So who cares if they play golf all day, or go and work in the City?

TrevorsDen

I wrote about this at some (boring) length over at Iain Dale's.

On reflection it can be synthesised down to this. Cameron would be well advised to talk softly and carry a big stick.

Any shadow cabinet member who cannot work this out is not worth the real job.

TrevorsDen

Oh and ...

Thank you TGF UKIP for pointing out that an effective opposition, dragooned by ruthless spin doctors usually work out as a disastrous government

sugar free

I don't think they should have other jobs, to me, if they have the time for 'outside interests' surely it shows they are not doing enough work as an MP?!! Maybe that's the problem, why politicians come out with such rubbish as Nick Clegg's '£30 state pension' comment (surely it can't just be because he is a lib dem?!) If Cameron want's to make a stand, he should give them an ultimatum. If Hague is one of the ones who disagrees, he needs to decide if he wants to stand his ground or keep his place in the next government!

Marbury

Presumably they'd have to give up these outside interests if they were in government. So they are in effect being asked to give up, what - one year's worth of extra-curricular income? This doesn't seem like a big sacrifice to me.

JohnAnt

A minister or shadow spokesman should be full-time. They're paid well enough.
If it doesn't affect their work for the Tories, why aren't they plotting and hammering the government night and day, forging alternative policies, willing themselves hungrily into power? Apart from Andrew Lansley, who should be offered a full-time job outside politics.
I don't care how potentially useful Hague is. If the money is more improtant to him, let him b***er off. Either he's to be a feared and dreaded scalp-taking minister-in-waiting, or he's to be a more avuncular version of Noel Coward. He can't be both.

Steve

Hague is just too much of a big hitter to lose, and if the stories of a Ken Clarke return are true I very much doubt he would give up his jobs on the side either. However, the excuse of outside experience being useful for work in the Commons is just bunkum. Truth is many MPs are finding it hard in the recession to live the uber-comfortable existence they have become used to. But its only fair they should suffer alongside the rest of us!

Fergus Pickering

Are we sure we wantto be governed by people who hunger for power? I should have thought that such people were usually unpleasant, often mad. Perhaps more odinary, less driven people are the ones we want. Hague used to hunger for power. Then he got himself a life. I would have thought David Davis used to be power hungry but lately he thought of things he liked better, like ight and justice. Brown and Blair are two examples of the obviously power-hungry. Boris is perhaps a man who likes other thigs MORE than power. Ken Livingstone is the other sort. Well? Considfer the great golfer Bobby Jones, who gave himself a penalty stroke that nobody else knew he had incurred and thereby lost a Championship by one stroke. There was somethingt that mattered to him more than winning. Or Jack Hobbs who missed a straight ball in a Test Match and laughed out loud. Those are the men for me.

Dave B

I don't see what's so terrible about their having other jobs. Is shadow minister really a full-time gig?

TomTom

but I prefer a robust Northern accent to an Estuary whine and stopped glottals any day of the week.

Hague does not have a Northern accent - it is simply adenoidal but not recognisable as regional - at least noone in YOrkshire owns up to it...and he bombed as Leader in Yorkshire at least outside the farming belt around Richmond in sparsely populated North Yorkshire - he has zero traction in West Yorkshire where Leeds and Bradford have more population than North Yorkshire

Chris

Cameron and Osborne should have stuck to their guns. Now they've missed fantastic opportunity to get rid of that clown Hague.

Ian C

We need to recognise that the grip that this Nu-Lab lot have on Parliament has left the opposition role, deliberately, a very difficult one to perform.

We certainly need people with up to date experience on the opposition front bench. But to believe that they should all be moonlighting would also be wrong.

Those who support Hague and Davies are forgetting that the former wanted out of leadership once he'd tried it and the latter is regarded as the laziest politician of his generation. His following is misplaced.

Hague has lost his cutting edge and should be sent upstairs and Davies should look to himself and decide if he is interested. Those with the ambition but relevant experience need to rise but not by politics alone.

wonderfulforhisage

Well said Verity (11:46).

You wrote "I don't think any of them has a hunger in his belly for governing. I don't think any of them (save David Davis, who has excluded himself) has a burning hunger to introduce legislation that will advance the fortunes and standing of our country; nor to take a hatchet to the thousands of repressive, undemocratic new laws waved through by Labour during the past 12 years."

One wonders how easy wielding a hatchet would be given that much of the legislation is sourced from Brussels.

I've come to agree with Peter Hitchens that the best thing for the country would be a Labour win at the next election followed by the disintergration of 'The Useless Tories'. This would provide the room for an opposition party with priciples to rise from the ashes. My own preference would be a party with an ideology akin to UKIP and the Libertarians.

Just imagine, DD Prime Minister, William H. Foreign Minister, John Redwood Chancellor, Boris Home Office, Carswell Education, ....Oh dear, I think I'd better go and have a lie down.

Rhoda Klapp

If you want to sack three shadows, sack the three who do the job of shadow worst. It's crazy to judge on the time they spend on it as if that was a measure of effectiveness. And this is not a fit story to take up all our time, it's just silly. Just because some insider (with an agenda of their own) tells you something, doesn't mean you have to write it up.

TrevorsDen

Mr Wonderful - such idiotic notions, reading Peter Hitchens will not help.

Martin Griffin

"Ask not what your party can do for you. Ask what you can do for your party".
Ken Clarke & David Davis appear more in the media to promote the party than most of the shadow cabinet. I don't care what they do between 1.00 am and 6.00 am but all other hours they should be working to get the Tories elected.

Tom

Total rubbish. We constantly hear moans about career politicians with no experience of the real private sector or the outside world – exhibit one is Gordon Brown who has never done a real job outside the political bubble in his life. The same accusation is regularly leveled at David Cameron.

Surely we want people of the right calibre regardless of their background and interests involved in making what are often highly emotive decisions about the direction of this country. One of the perceived failings of parliament and this government in particular is that not a single MP would make a decision that would put at risk their easy ride on the Westminster gravy train. Perhaps if they are not solely dependant on their MPs income they will be less fearful of taking the kind of policy decisions that are going to be enormously unpopular and very necessary given the mess the current government are going to leave as their legacy.

Democracy is supposed to be representative of the people and I fail to see why those who are able to maintain successful part time employment should be forced to give that up in the name of common purpose. If they are failing in their role as a shadow minister then by all means sack them but it does seem to me that there is a correlation between the most accomplished media performers and the three MPs we are gossiping about. If they are capable of doing the job then keep them, if not then replace them. The rest is just noise.

Kevyn Bodman

Fergus Pickering,24 Dec. 3.17am.
One of the very best comments on any thread this year.

Steve

wonderfulforhisage

I've come to agree with Peter Hitchens that the best thing for the country would be a Labour win at the next election followed by the disintergration of 'The Useless Tories'. This would provide the room for an opposition party with priciples to rise from the ashes. My own preference would be a party with an ideology akin to UKIP and the Libertarians.

If Labour win the next election it won't be because the Tories are incompetent it will be down to a corrupt and biased electoral system in Labour's favour. In the nineties Labour appealed to the electoral commission to cut the big northern cities into increasingly tiny constituencies giving them a practically permanent majority. Is it not despicable that Labour won the 2005 election with an overall majority of 60 seats when they only had 36% of the vote. But disregard the electoral system for a moment, if Labour do win the next election for whatever reason. The pound would continue to devalue to next to nothing as Brown would continue to borrow from China and the Middle East thus neutralising our ability to criticise their human rights record. The Bank of England would print money just to keep the economy afloat. The last vestiges of our ability to govern ourselves through Parliament would be handed over to Brussels. There would be a continued assault on our civil liberties through the politicisation of the Police and Civil Service as Brown continues to expand the public payroll after spending millions advertising these posts to like minded individuals who read The Guardian. And ... well I think thats all I can contemplate for right now. To hate Labour and vote anyhting but Tory is just nuts. It would take a massive 20 - 25% swing at least for the Lib Dems to overtake the Tories by a single seat so it is only fully fledged masochism to pin your hopes on UKIP or anyone else when UKIP holds a single seat in Parliament for which it was not even elected. Ignore the ideologues such as Hitchens and Heffer. I think they subconsciously desire permanent Labour government so they can keep writing self flagellating drivel for the rest of their career. Learn to love him! Vote Tory!

Verity

Except for the two or three top spots, being a shadow minister simply isn't a career. There are something like 30 ministers. Can you name more than six or seven? That would mean 30 shadows. Can you name more than three or four?

David Cameron wants to be prime minister because ... well, he just does. He doesn't burn to reverse the utter wasteland the Gramscis and Marxists have visted on our formerly familial, cohesive and kindly civil society, and the HoL - the former most effective second chamber in the world - and our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. He just wants to be PM, so then he can get on with the next chapter in his bio: "Dave Goes to Brussels!". There is no sense of outrage at what Labour has done to our country emanating from Cameron.

The rest of them don't seem to have any personalities or memorable characteristics. Does any of them have an unexpected turn of phrase? No. Is any of them quite a wit? (Well Hague can be funny, to people who aren't distracted by his accent, which is like not finding someone witty because you don't like his tie.)

Has any of the rest of them come up with a telling phrase that pierces right through to the truth of this nightmareish government?

No.

How hard can it be to shadow Heather Blears and demolish her, for God's sake? Jacqui Smith should be long gone by now, as should the ridiculous Harriet Harman who walked around her own constituency with police bodyguards and wearing Kelvar. (So Ms Popularity, then.) And she had Justice for Fathers men scaling her house and camping on her roof. It's "Carry On Governing".

But there they all sit - undamaged. A keen and focused Opposition would have had her laughed out of Parliament.

My point is, there is no hunger for governance in this Shadow Cabinet - partly because most of them subscribe to pinkish politically correct values - and the hours of attendance in the HoC will make no difference.

strapworld

Well said Fergus Pickering.

I have said that i would far rather have politicians with a life outside politics -where he will be meeting real people and learning how they are thinking!

Rather that than the full time politicians we see at national and local levels - usually Labour or Lib Dem and they are third rate people who have never employed anyone or created anything.

IF we are to get out of this bloody economic mess created by full time politicians then give me street wise part time politicians any time!

Mr Forsyth. Try another story please!

Hysteria

What Tomat 11:46 said - but I agree with the sentiments behind Verity's posts.

I just hope they are hiding their passion to destroy the socialists as part of some great master plan -

there again I believe in Santa Claus so what do I know....

Unsteady Eddie

Verity.

Hague's robust Northern accent? Either you speak of a different man or a different North from the one I know.

He does to the Yorkshire accent, what Estuary speakers have done to the formerly vibrant and distinguished speaking style of the South East - namely raided it of one or two tokens and set them in a mire of stunted commercialese in which everything must be fashioned to offend no-one at the Rotary dinner or the creative writing 'workshop'.

But what else would you expect from a man who busied himself writing Party Conference speeches at an age when he should have been out on his bike.

Unsteady Eddie

And anyway Verity, the glottal stop is a crucial tool used in human speech. Why would we want to leave it unused?

Verity

Unsteady Eddie - Had a little Xmas drinkie have we?

Henry Rogers

Verity (and of course Eddie),

Like you I don't much care for the sound of the glottal stop in English, but it, or something like it, is quite a useful part of language in general. You'll recall from Malaysia just what happens to final "k"s in Malay.

But we can all be as purist as we like. Languages develop and change in ways which are largely uncontrollable. The spoken word is so democratic, it's beyond the power of those who seek to dominate. Unless of course they lock us all up for 42 days continuously extended.

And Verity, it's high time Coffee House gave you a regular column to save the rest of us fuming over some of the other occasionals.

Happy Christmas anyway!

Verity

Henry Rogers, when it comes to language, I am a mere anak.

True Bred Pomponian

To repeat (almost) some of the previous remarks, two hours a week of William Hague is worth George Osborne working his socks off all week (as Peter Oborne put it). It's about ability not hours worked.

Unsteady Eddie

Verity.

Never had an Xmas drink in my life. Too busy enjoying Christmas.

Any chance of addressing other bloggers' points rather than shouting loudly with a finger in each ear?