Sleaze is the watchword in Westminster at the moment. Morale amongst staff on the parliamentary estate was already low before the latest partygate shenanigans. Recent embarrassments about outside interests, dodgy MPs, drinking on the estate and historic sex offences have taken their toll. Few of the twenty-somethings who work in the Commons have a good word to say about our elected members at present, whether it’s Neil Parish watching porn or Liam Byrne getting just a two day suspension for bullying his staff. Parish fiddles while Byrne roams, indeed.
Will anything change as a result?
Some of those in parliament have had enough. Mr S has been told that a new grassroots organisation is being launched by two enterprising young researchers to lobby for change in Westminster. The group – ‘Conservative staffers for change’ – was started by Henry Dixon-Clegg and Angus McVean, who work for Sir Desmond Swayne and Karen Bradley respectively. The pair have written letters to Boris Johnson, Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle and Tory chairman Oliver Dowden in which they declare that ‘many of us are ashamed that the reputation of our workplace is coming into disrepute.’
The dynamic duo claim that ‘major allegations of illegal behaviour are treated as mere gossip’ in parliament which has ‘enabled the toleration and acceptance of abuse for too long.’
‘In any other workplace things would never have been allowed to get this bad,’ they say, arguing that ‘change must come from the top’. Their proposal? A Speakers’ conference to discuss HR in Westminster. They are also aiming for the Tory MP selection process be reformed in order to ‘consider how a prospective candidate will treat their staff and their workplace.’
Two dozen signatures have been added to the letters, with more being solicited in parliament this afternoon before being sent to Johnson, Hoyle and Dowden in the coming days. Will anything change as a result? Given the recent scandals involving Messers Parish, Warburton, Ahmad Khan et al, don’t bet on that any time soon…
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