Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

, listing some of those who're racking up considerable outside earnings "in addition to my duties in this house".

Some of the earnings are indeed pretty impressive and the figures, as the Mail comments, could well "re-open the row about 'part time MPs'". Only 87 of the 650 MPs declared no outside interests, in the first official register of such interests to be compiled in the new Parliament. Hmmm.

Let me stick my neck out a little - I've always thought the argument against such interests is a bit of an easy hit. Here's why. One of the most compelling complaints against the Westminster village is that it has become a hermetically sealed environment, in which the polliterati never have to encounter the outside world - so I worry about any tightening of the rules which would block another avenue of contact between village people and "real life".

When MPs began to complain about the bureaucratic horrors they experienced dealing with their new expenses system, many commentators welcomed them to the experience of ordinary citizens dealing with bureaucracy...so having MPs who run businesses, practice law, or medicine, or (in at least one case) dentistry, sit on boards, advise community groups or whatever, is one way of breaking through that Westminster insulation.

Second, just how do we judge what is an appropriate workload? There are plenty of jobs that will absorb every effort their holder can offer... and still demand more. For MPs, there is always another event to attend, another meeting to go to, another vote in the Commons, another committee where they could contribute. Most invitations to an MP to appear on the Friday night Today in Parliament result in protracted negotiations with a harassed aide - and the task of getting three busy people into the same studio at the same time to discuss some Commons subject can be a nightmare. So my experience is that our MPs are pretty busy people, working hard at a demanding job.

But it should not just be an issue of hours worked, but of effectiveness too. Back in 1940, the former Prime Minister David Lloyd George was probably not bouncing between meetings and constituency engagements at anything like the rate expected of modern MPs. But in the course of a short and savage speech in the famous Norway Debate, he sealed the downfall of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and paved the way for Winston Churchill to take his place. You could - and, OK, it's a stretch - say he saved Western civilisation. My point is that quality matters as well as the gross tonnage of questions asked and speeches made.

(And incidentally, the statistics can be misleading. An impressive number of questions put down may be the product of some diligent American intern, the total of speeches may be imposing, but was the House bored rigid, or empty?).

Which brings me to my central argument on all these issues. The judges of an MP's performance should be their constituents. Not working hard enough? Vote 'em out. Flouting their views? Vote 'em out. Stained by scandal? ....you get the picture. What I dread is the idea that someone is going to sit down and pen a specific job description that will become binding - or even suggest a standardised way of doing the job against which they come to be judged. It has always been for individual MPs to work out how best to do their job, and for their constituents to pass judgement on their performance at each election. Specifying X constituency surgeries and Y votes in the Chamber and Z speeches to be delivered puts MPs on the road to utter irrelevance, and imposes an unrealistic and misleading definition on the subtle, multi-faceted and almost indefinable task of providing democratic political representation.

And I thought the target culture was being scrapped.

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