a golden age of backbench MPs ?

I met Mike Frear, the MP for Finchley this morning and, unintentionally, the the conversation came round to the role of the backbench MP. We had been at a presentation by the economists Stephanie Flanders and Stephen King. I engaged him on the question of what the government position currently was on tax avoidance and evasion. he gave me a stock answer from the MPs' briefing card and feigned vague interest in the idea of making everybody's tax payments a matter of public record.





Now Mr Frear may well be a very good constituency MP and, in fact, I believe he has made a good satrt, but the rest of the conversation rather dismayed me. he said something like, 'of course I am just a humble backbencher so I'm afraid I have no influence on such thngs'. I told him, coincidentally I had just been writing a piece for a politics student survey entitled 'are we entering a new golden age for the backbench MP?'. It will refer to the activities of people like Tom Watson on phone hacking, the justice select committee's work and the like, together with the new traction that all MPs have with there being no gurarnteed government majority. I was, therefore, perhapos a little rude in saying to him that if he felt himself powerless he would be powerless. It is dispiriting to think that many Mps, of any party, should think this way.





There is the potential for a golden age of backbenchers, but they have to display two qualities. One is the belief that they can influence things, perhaps over a narrow range of issues , the second is the kind of hard work and tenacity that Tom Watson has demonstrated.