Tonight I am interviewing former MP Martin Bell about his new book, A VERY BRITISH REVOLUTION.It charts the expenses scandal and looks at possible solutions. The event takes place at Wanstead Library and I am told that it is a sellout. Always nice to have a big audience.
If you have any questions you think I ought to put to Mr Bell - not just aboiut expenses, but his career, do leave them in the comments.
You can buy Martin Bell's book HERE.
You could ask him why he only ever ran against Tories.
ReplyDeleteHow about "When will we get MPs into Westminster that seek to lead the country rather than MPs that just say what focus groups tell them they should be saying?"
ReplyDeleteGood book about the expenses scandal although I'd rather not be reminded. A book that makes you think. I am a German living in Wales who is interested in British politics.
ReplyDeletemy question to Martin Bell is why, having felt so compelled to put on his ice cream seller's jacket and pursue the Major government so sanctimoniously, he was so strangely silent about the more numerous and more serious ethical transgressions of the Labour government since 1997 ? didn't fit his political motives maybe ?
ReplyDeletevr6 has hit the nail on the head. All BBC apparatchics view life entirely through "rose coloured" prismatic lenses. The result canly only be a distorted view of reality.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know if he thinks there will be more opportunities for independent candidates to stand and get elected (both nationally and locally) in the future on the back of the expenses scandal?
ReplyDeleteThe humiliation of the political classes in Britain seems to have occurred only after they agreed to forego most of their real authority.
ReplyDeleteWe are all familiar with the notion that the government can call out the "Payroll Vote" when it needs to but, by also feather-bedding the back-benchers, it has managed to engineer a disgracefully passive culture in Parliament.
As we now know, the fiddles have been going on for years, but their exposure waited until after the Lisbon Treaty was a done deal, because the government needed to keep them on-side.
It's a further sign that UK politics is now a backwater, with all the key decisions being taken elsewhere.
You're better off out of it Iain. The people pester their MP's because they think they have some authority and status but, in reality, Parliament's been reduced to a talking shop.
If you get the chance please ask him if he has to try really hard, or does it come naturally, him being a boring windbag.
ReplyDeleteOn second thoughts don't bother, you run the risk of getting a five minute reply to that question.
Having served his term as an MP he stood against Eric Pickles when more deserving individuals would have fitted the anti-sleeze profile(the Dark Lord Mandy springs to mind). Perhaps his friends in the Labour and Liberal parties,who gave him an unopposed run in 1997 required their payment.
ReplyDeleteAfter serving his four year term as an MP he stood against Eric Pickles when far more deserving individuals fitted the anti-sleeze profile ,the Dark Lord Mandy, springs to mind. Perhaps his friends in the Labour & Liberal Parties required their payoff for giving him an unopposed run in 1997.
ReplyDeleteHow does he feel in retrospect about being Alastair Campbell's patsy in standing against Neil Hamilton? (AC took credit for Bell's stand in his diaries).
ReplyDeleteI was going to ask a question with the word "sanctimonious" in it but VR46 has beaten me to it.
ReplyDeleteAsk him why he thinks his school (and mine), produced not only him but the only other independent MP Richard Taylor? Also Peter Hitchens and his brother Christopher!! Was there something particular about The Leys School Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s that produced a few of us (if I may include myself in such distinguished company) who are nobody's patsies!
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