Stewart Stevenson writes to Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Dear Jack and Malcolm,

As a fellow 68 year old politician I am shaking my head in wonder. The people who voted for me, and even more those who are my constituents but did not, expect my priorities to be their priorities.

But they also ask, “Where do you find the time for a personal life?” Because while they expect me to be available whenever they need me, they recognise that I will be more effective if I have some “me time” too.

What I do with my “me time” matters to them too. If I were a dullard with no outside interests, and with no interest in the outside world, with no interest in those outside my world, it would be difficult for me to listen to their interests and respond with any semblance of interest.

Because there is a fundamental difference between interest and interests.

Choose the right interests – in my case genealogy, social history, photography, news – and you then are able to take an interest – in others interests.

But if your interests are self-interest, then politics is something where you should be in the audience not on the stage.

If you choose self-interests that are self-serving, you are no longer serving those whom we are elected to serve.

In our Scottish Parliament our Code of Conduct talks of our need to be “selfless”. That's not a rule; it's an overriding principle which trumps merely reading the rules and ticking the boxes. Its language is clear:

“Members should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not act in order to gain financial or other material benefit for themselves, their family or friends.”

and the code also says:

“These principles set the tone for the relationship between members and those they represent and between the Parliament and the people of Scotland.”

We've given up the right to compartmentalise our life, the right to override our role as a Parliamentarian in favour of our private interest.

So why have you as long-serving politicians fallen into the trap of putting yourself before others, or at the very least – appearing to do so?

It can't be because you are hewn from different stone than the rest of us.

I see no argument to suggest that those who stand for election to Westminster are less driven by a desire to work for a better world than those who stand for other offices.

But we are all changed by our experience. Any job we take on gives us new skills, new friends, new interests. Being elected to public office is no different.

The minority who show that they are tempted by self-interest is too large to ignore.

There is talk of the “Westminster culture”. It's certainly very different from any other legislature in the world. Only China has a larger one. The United States gets by with 450 Congressmen and women and 100 Senators. Westminster has grown by salami slices to approaching 1,500.

They are many arguments for abolishing a chamber of any legislature which lacks the citizens' mandate.

And oppositions frequently suggest they will.

But perhaps your present difficulties are formed in part by adjacency to that chamber of entitlement - The Lords - who represent no one and are accountable to none. And which provides a well equipped club in a very expensive city from which too many of its members can pursue their private interests at public expense.

Perhaps you can now show again that you are still capable of the leadership which you have both demonstrated in senior office in the past, by foreswearing any offer to join Westminster's second chamber, a chamber with very, very different priorities from those that we serve as elected politicians.

Take the opportunity to return to “selflessness” as a guiding principle by telling us you will not go to an unelected Lords.

By example, lift up humility and lend your substitutional weight for moves to achieve its abolition – my preference – or replacement by a small democratic revising chamber.

Kind regards,

Stewart Stevenson,
Member of the Scottish Parliament

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Published in Holyrood Magazine, 4th March 2015