From The Times
April 8, 2010
White, balding ex-politician seeks new life
It will be a terrible wrench leaving Parliament. I hope the new guard realise what a privilege it is to be an MP
Chris Mullin
Any day now, I shall turn into a pumpkin. My pass to the Palace of Westminster will be deactivated. The flow of invitations and e-mails will dry up. Access to the parliamentary intranet will be denied, the hard-drive will be wiped and the waters will close over 23 years in Parliament.
I can’t pretend it isn’t painful. Some of my colleagues, especially those fingered in the Great Expenses Meltdown, cannot wait to get out but I am not among them. I could easily have managed another term, but I thought it better to go while people were still asking “why?” rather than “when?”. Plus there are other things I wish to do with my life before I enter my dotage.
It is a high-risk strategy. There is a world outside the warm bosom of the Mother of Parliaments but there is not a huge demand for balding, middle-class, white male former politicians of a certain age. A fact forcibly brought home to me some weeks ago when I applied for a vacancy on a public body that would not exist but for a series of events I initiated, only to be rejected on the ground that “they were looking for someone to take the organisation forward”.
A female colleague who retired at the last election applied for the chairmanship of a little quango that, as a minister, she had been responsible for setting up. She was not even shortlisted.
No matter. At least I have writing to keep me company. A small industry is developing around my diaries, the first volume of which was published last year and which has since been reprinted three or four times. Two more volumes are in the pipeline and I am flooded with invitations to address dinners and literary festivals.
To my pleasant surprise I have discovered that the political meeting is not dead, it has merely transferred to the literary festival. At Hay-on-Wye, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Henley and a host of other unlikely places I have addressed audiences of up to 750 — labourish, liberalish, greenish people (and even the odd Tory) — interested in the way the world turns round and thirsty for intelligent discussion. It may not last, of course, but it is fun while it does.
Things I will miss: the daily walk to work from Kennington through the Duchy of Cornwall estate, along the river and across Lambeth Bridge — the Palace of Westminster illuminated in the early morning sunshine, gold leaf glinting on the Victoria Tower.
Access to the library: one of the great, unsung bonuses of membership of the House of Commons is the wonderful library, staffed by bright, cheerful men and women who take pride in being able to supply just about any piece of information in the twinkle of an eye.
There was a poignant moment, some weeks ago, when I came across a research assistant for one of my colleagues, hovering at the library door. “Would you mind photocopying this for me?” he asked, proffering a couple of sheets of paper. “Only I am not allowed in.” As it happens, he is a candidate for one of Labour’s safest seats and, therefore, certain to be elected on May 6. “A few weeks from now,” I replied, “our positions will be reversed. You will be allowed in and I will have to wait at the door.”
Maybe I have become institutionalised, but most of all I shall miss the companionship of colleagues, from all parties. It is often said that Westminster is a big village and so it is. If you sit in the atrium of Portcullis House long enough, you will come across everyone you have ever known, from the Prime Minister down. If I walk to the BBC studios 100 yards along Millbank, the odds are I will run into two or three old friends and pause for an interesting exchange of views about the issues of the hour.
I will miss my constituency, too. All the more so because I intend to go on living there for the foreseeable future. The constituency is one of the great strengths of the British political system. After 23 years everyone in Sunderland South knows I am their MP and I know my constituency inside out. It is my small kingdom. At the moment, I have a licence to poke my nose in anywhere I choose and the expectation that any representations I make will be taken seriously. All that will change, come the Dissolution.
One other small regret. A self-indulgence really. My children, aged 20 and 14, will never have a chance to vote for their old dad. On May 6 my oldest daughter, Sarah, will cast her first vote in a general election, but she will have to put her cross by someone else’s name.
When Sarah was young she thought that all men went to Parliament. She had a little friend called Martha whose father worked in South Shields. She inquired of her mother: “Why does Martha’s dad come home from his Parliament every night when my dad doesn’t?”
“Retiring?” exclaimed my younger daughter, Emma, on hearing that I was standing down. “What will you be then?”
“Nothing. I shall have retired.”
She shook her head in disbelief. Understandable when you think about it. For all her short life her dad has been a prominent figure in the small world that she and just about all her friends inhabit and from now on he will be just like anyone else’s dad.
There will be many new faces in the next Parliament: perhaps as many as 300. If I could offer the new generation one simple piece of advice, it is this: take Parliament seriously. It is a great privilege (and one that is sometimes taken for granted) to have been born in a democracy and to serve in a political system where, although harsh things are sometimes said, we are not actually trying to kill each other. Where differences are ultimately resolved at the ballot box. Where one side wins, one side loses and the loser lives to fight another day.
And so I close my eyes and step into the abyss. Retirement is either the greatest mistake of my life or the best thing I have ever done. A year from now I shall be better able to judge. As of now, I have simply no idea.
Chris Mullin has been the MP for Sunderland South since 1987. The first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills was published last year; a further volume is due in September
I can’t pretend it isn’t painful. Some of my colleagues, especially those fingered in the Great Expenses Meltdown, cannot wait to get out but I am not among them. I could easily have managed another term, but I thought it better to go while people were still asking “why?” rather than “when?”. Plus there are other things I wish to do with my life before I enter my dotage.
It is a high-risk strategy. There is a world outside the warm bosom of the Mother of Parliaments but there is not a huge demand for balding, middle-class, white male former politicians of a certain age. A fact forcibly brought home to me some weeks ago when I applied for a vacancy on a public body that would not exist but for a series of events I initiated, only to be rejected on the ground that “they were looking for someone to take the organisation forward”.
A female colleague who retired at the last election applied for the chairmanship of a little quango that, as a minister, she had been responsible for setting up. She was not even shortlisted.
No matter. At least I have writing to keep me company. A small industry is developing around my diaries, the first volume of which was published last year and which has since been reprinted three or four times. Two more volumes are in the pipeline and I am flooded with invitations to address dinners and literary festivals.
To my pleasant surprise I have discovered that the political meeting is not dead, it has merely transferred to the literary festival. At Hay-on-Wye, Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Henley and a host of other unlikely places I have addressed audiences of up to 750 — labourish, liberalish, greenish people (and even the odd Tory) — interested in the way the world turns round and thirsty for intelligent discussion. It may not last, of course, but it is fun while it does.
Things I will miss: the daily walk to work from Kennington through the Duchy of Cornwall estate, along the river and across Lambeth Bridge — the Palace of Westminster illuminated in the early morning sunshine, gold leaf glinting on the Victoria Tower.
Access to the library: one of the great, unsung bonuses of membership of the House of Commons is the wonderful library, staffed by bright, cheerful men and women who take pride in being able to supply just about any piece of information in the twinkle of an eye.
There was a poignant moment, some weeks ago, when I came across a research assistant for one of my colleagues, hovering at the library door. “Would you mind photocopying this for me?” he asked, proffering a couple of sheets of paper. “Only I am not allowed in.” As it happens, he is a candidate for one of Labour’s safest seats and, therefore, certain to be elected on May 6. “A few weeks from now,” I replied, “our positions will be reversed. You will be allowed in and I will have to wait at the door.”
Maybe I have become institutionalised, but most of all I shall miss the companionship of colleagues, from all parties. It is often said that Westminster is a big village and so it is. If you sit in the atrium of Portcullis House long enough, you will come across everyone you have ever known, from the Prime Minister down. If I walk to the BBC studios 100 yards along Millbank, the odds are I will run into two or three old friends and pause for an interesting exchange of views about the issues of the hour.
I will miss my constituency, too. All the more so because I intend to go on living there for the foreseeable future. The constituency is one of the great strengths of the British political system. After 23 years everyone in Sunderland South knows I am their MP and I know my constituency inside out. It is my small kingdom. At the moment, I have a licence to poke my nose in anywhere I choose and the expectation that any representations I make will be taken seriously. All that will change, come the Dissolution.
One other small regret. A self-indulgence really. My children, aged 20 and 14, will never have a chance to vote for their old dad. On May 6 my oldest daughter, Sarah, will cast her first vote in a general election, but she will have to put her cross by someone else’s name.
When Sarah was young she thought that all men went to Parliament. She had a little friend called Martha whose father worked in South Shields. She inquired of her mother: “Why does Martha’s dad come home from his Parliament every night when my dad doesn’t?”
“Retiring?” exclaimed my younger daughter, Emma, on hearing that I was standing down. “What will you be then?”
“Nothing. I shall have retired.”
She shook her head in disbelief. Understandable when you think about it. For all her short life her dad has been a prominent figure in the small world that she and just about all her friends inhabit and from now on he will be just like anyone else’s dad.
There will be many new faces in the next Parliament: perhaps as many as 300. If I could offer the new generation one simple piece of advice, it is this: take Parliament seriously. It is a great privilege (and one that is sometimes taken for granted) to have been born in a democracy and to serve in a political system where, although harsh things are sometimes said, we are not actually trying to kill each other. Where differences are ultimately resolved at the ballot box. Where one side wins, one side loses and the loser lives to fight another day.
And so I close my eyes and step into the abyss. Retirement is either the greatest mistake of my life or the best thing I have ever done. A year from now I shall be better able to judge. As of now, I have simply no idea.
Chris Mullin has been the MP for Sunderland South since 1987. The first volume of his diaries A View from the Foothills was published last year; a further volume is due in September
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