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If you were an MP

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    If you were an MP

    Which debates in the House would you turn up to in particular? Obviously we might expect MPs to go to all debates, but in practice they can't, not least because normally there are debates on the floor of the House taking place at the same time as several committee meetings focussing on the scrutiny of particular issues. So most MPs have to pick and choose.

    The question occurred to me because I noticed the order of business in the Commons today is debates on pubs, destruction of historic sites in Iraq and mental health, and I thought to myself "I'd go to all three of them".

    #2
    If you were an MP

    Unlikely I'd spend a lot of time in the chamber. Maybe go for the big ones where there's a chance of being on telly.

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      #3
      If you were an MP

      Take myself in to the police for questioning.

      Kill myself.

      Inject myself with a truth serum so I could blurt out various details of my corruption and sleaze during television and press interviews.

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        #4
        If you were an MP

        I think being an MP, at least just a regular backbench lobby-fodder MP, is one of the dullest jobs around. You have next to no influence over party policy and have to vote the way you are told.

        I think the real work is in the behind the scenes - the committee stuff where you might get the chance to get an amendment in, or exercise some scrutiny, but that's about it - then there's all the constituency work which can probably be quite taxing especially as you're dealing with people who think you have a lot more influence than you actually do.

        If push came to shove I'd probably rather be a Euro MP, even less power and influence, and dull as dishwater debates on the standardisation of some obscure component used in the off-shore oil industry, but I'd be quite happy to spend six months in Strasbourg and six months in Brussels.

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          #5
          If you were an MP

          This is why Dennis Skinner is actually a bad MP. Can't do any constituency work or have any idea what his constituents think or expect of him, because of his antiquated idea that he has to be in the chamber every day. Amazing that's he's commended for doing so, really.

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