Radio
Where are they now?
Michael Vestey
After 60 years of heroic failure and indolence as a Tory MP, Sir Plympton Makepeace lost his seat at the last election. How many Plympton Makepeaces have there been? I wondered, as I listened to Maurice Denham's enchanting monologue, On The Whole Its Been Jolly Good, on Radio Four this week (Monday). Written by Peter Tinniswood to celebrate Denham's 60 years in broadcasting, Makepeace remi- nisces like an old P.G. Wodehouse charac- ter about his long life on the backbenches and what he proudly calls his dalliances.
`I remember seeing Winston whatsis- name standing up in the House and give that Adolf thingumyjig a fearful rollicking,' he recalls with a rheumy chuckle. He was not over fond of Churchill. 'I didn't like his manner towards me when I offered him special rates to join the House of Com- mons Trainspotters Society.' The closest he came to legislation was a failed attempt to introduce a Bill banning cars from using roads frequented by badgers as he was dis- tressed that so many were being run over. He had no ambition for high, or for that matter low, office and concludes that, unlike so many other MPs, his lifetime achievement is that he has done no harm. Denham is such a supreme radio actor he must have been born speaking into a microphone, and this afternoon play was wonderfully funny.
`Why did they boot me out?' asks Make- peace. It's what 126 MPs have been asking since they were booted out a year ago. Some of them have been baring their souls on Talk Radio this week in a documentary The Ex-Files (Friday) presented by the political journalist Ed Boyle. They spoke frankly to him about their feelings, the sudden loss of status and income, and their poor prospects of finding suitable employment. For every David Mellor who has since prospered, there is a Robin Squire who has only recently found a job, a part-time one at that. Squire was a chartered accountant but even that qualification seems to have ruled him out. He was persuaded to apply for the job of a public school bursar but failed to get it. After six months he began claiming the jobseekers allowance.
After the election Squire was shocked at finding that ex-Tory MPs have what Boyle described as 'political leprosy'. He said, 'I was tempted at some stage to produce a cloth and a bell and ring it, shouting "unclean", marching the streets.' Another MP Anthony Coombs was dismayed to find people sniggering at him; he wouldn't have displayed that attitude towards those who'd been downsized in industry. The problem is, those who were made redundant in the Eighties or Nineties blamed the govern- ment whose membership of the ERM deepened the recession, and they drew some vengeful satisfaction from kicking out the Tories. Of course, the ERM was a huge and costly mistake but downsizing was an unstoppable trend anyway. I doubt, though, that unemployment would have been so high without the ERM fiasco.
Some of these MPs clearly lost touch with aspects of the world outside Westmin- ster. Jerry Hayes said he worked 15- to 17- hour days as an MP and would find it difficult to go back to a `nine to five' corpo- rate life. They don't work these hours any more, Jerry, I wanted to tell him, except perhaps in local government; working life in Britain has changed, as Henry Belling- ham discovered. He was a barrister before becoming an MP ten years ago, and although he has an opening at the Bar he's been out of it for so long that he doesn't think he could return. Matthew Carrington was a merchant banker but now he's reached 50 firms don't want to know. He does now have a job but it took him some time. He poignantly described election day and how, as he was canvassing, his con- stituents wouldn't make eye contact; the response was cold. He knew then for cer- tain that he would lose, The long-serving MP Harry Greenway seemed to be the most shattered by his defeat, even now. Being an MP had been his life and he wept as he talked about the loss of his constituency. He had never been away from it for more than six days at a time, he knew every street, constituents would come to his house. Jeremy Hanley, the former party chairman and Foreign Office minister, took a more robust view. He admitted that whenever he went near his old constituency of Richmond-upon- Thames he said to himself, 'Sod off, Rich- mond.' You can't blame him, I suppose, as that's pretty much what Richmond told him to do a year ago. Hanley was surprised to find that prospective employers didn't know who he was or what he did as an MP or minister. He was interviewed for a job involving for- eign affairs and was turned down. Several of these ex-MPs are so addicted to West- minster that they're determined to return. Some can't tear themselves away. David Nicholson is working as a researcher for a Tory MP who kept his seat. I found this Programme compelling but I was irritated by Boyle's apocalyptic style of presentation. He's a good broadcaster but he over dramatises his script and delivery. Apart from, that, I welcome the fact that Talk Radio is broadcasting more documentaries and deviating from its almost non-stop Phone-in format.
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