id="u589aa8ce-db3d-5d94-b0b0-d53392680018">
Crap MPs*
Bendor Grosvenor & Geoffrey Hicks
* In our opinion
Dedication
This book was written on an impulse in August, and published just two months later. My special thanks are therefore due to The Friday Project and HarperCollins for their enthusiasm and support, in particular Victoria Barnsley and Scott Pack. I am also grateful to Corinna Harrod, Robin Harvie, Caitlin Doyle, Leo Nickolls, Chris Gurney and the various lawyers we have consulted for working so hard to turn an idea into reality. I would like to thank my co-author Geoffrey Hicks for the prompt delivery of his excellent text, and for letting me interrupt his summer. Finally, although it must be deeply unromantic to dedicate a book called ‘crap’ to someone, this is for Edite.
Bendor Grosvenor
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Symbols
40. Sir Peter Viggers
39. Robert Carteret
38. Lord Randolph Churchill
37. Tom Driberg, 1st Baron Bradwell
36. George Galloway
35. James Alexander
34. William Beresford
33. Derek Conway
32. Peter Baker
31. Christopher Perne
30. Nicholas Ridley
29. Hazel Blears
28. Anthony Steen
27. Sir John Trevor
26. Sir Samuel Hoare, Viscount Templewood
25. Horatio Bottomley
24. Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley
23. John Fuller
22. Sir William Blackett, 2nd Baronet
21. Antony, Lord Lambton
20. Terry Dicks
19. Michael Martin
18. John Story
17. Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, ‘Lord North’
16. Thomas Harrison
15. Ron Brown
14. Rt Hon John Aislabie
13. Tim Smith
12. William Parry
11. Jabez Spencer Balfour
10. Margaret Moran
9. Edmund Hope Verney
8. The Rt Hon Andrew Mackay & Julie Kirkbride
7. Rt Hon John Thomson Stonehouse
6. The Rt Hon John Prescott
5. Jonathan Aitken
4. John Profumo
3. Rt Hon George Brown, Lord George-Brown
2. Sir Oswald Mosley
1. Sir Edward Grey, Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Some people say that the expenses scandal of 2009 has done more damage to our political system than any other single episode in modern British history. Actually, the reverse is true. Thanks to the recent revelations of fraud, arrogance and incompetence, we are now more aware of the shortcomings of our leaders than ever before. We are governed by a uniquely crap generation of politicians. And now that we know, we can begin to do something about it.
But just how bad are today’s MPs, compared with their predecessors? This book attempts to answer that question by looking at MPs from the sixteenth century to the present day. It includes the murderous, the corrupt, the perverted and the merely useless. We have chosen forty – about one-quarter of whom are made up of current MPs. Only three of the forty are women. Strangely, there are eight Johns. The criteria for crapness are not scientific, and are based (libel lawyers, please note) purely on our own opinion. Some may wonder at the absence of those who ended up mired in political manure, such as John Major, James Callaghan, or even our own Gordon Brown, but political failure does not qualify anyone for this list. Individual failings do.
Symbols
A guide to the symbols used throughout this book. They are not to be taken entirely seriously.
40. Sir Peter Viggers
(b.1938) Conservative, Gosport, 1974–
After thirty-five years as an MP, during which he held ministerial office only once (as junior minister for Northern Ireland from 1986–9), Viggers found perhaps his greatest fame by submitting
