Leaving the House: The Experience of Former Members of Parliament Who Left the House of Commons in 2010

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a large-scale survey investigating the experiences of the large number of MPs who left parliament following the 2010 general election. We have found that: the widely-held perception that MPs make a smooth transition into lucrative private sector employment after leaving Parliament is largely mistaken; the MPs' expenses scandal has seriously undermined the status of MPs and, as such, may also have made a career in Parliament less enticing for good prospective parliamentary candidates; and the job of an MP remains fraught with difficulties for women due to the strain it places on family life. Shortly after losing his marginal seat of Broxtowe in Nottinghamshire by just 389 votes in the May 2010 general election, former Labour MP Nick Palmer signed on at his local Jobcentre and applied for unemployment benefits. He was offered a specialist CV review with a recruitment expert and enrolled with several recruitment agencies. After securing some freelance work as a translator, he became Director of International and Corporate Affairs for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and Director of Policy for Cruelty Free International, an animal protection campaign. In 2013 he was re-selected to fight his old seat in the 2015 election, but lost again as the Conservative majority increased to over 4000 votes. After his 2010 election defeat, former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Öpik tried his hand at various forms of popular entertainment, including stand-up comedy, TV comedy shows, appearing in a pop video and in a professional wrestling match (prompting the newspaper headline 'Can this man sink any lower?'). That this profile may have damaged his future political prospects is suggested by his failure to secure a seat on his party's federal executive committee, its nomination for the 2012 London mayoral elections, or its nomination for the position of police and crime commissioner in Northumbria. He has admitted to feeling 'crushed' by his defeat, saying the 'trauma of rejection' triggered depression lasting three years and left him facing 'a long period of virtual insolvency' (Öpik, 2015). However, he did eventually secure a number of nonexecutive director roles that built on career experience he gained before he became an MP as an international training manager with Procter & Gamble. Planning for her retirement, former Conservative MP and minister Ann Widdecombe was clear that she did not want to take on non-executive directorships when she stepped down in 2010. 'I did not want any more piles of paper to crunch, any more bulging briefcases'. She would happily have gone to the House of Lords but believes that David Cameron vetoed that, and though she was offered the post of British ambassador to the Vatican health problems led her to turn it down. She was sounded out as a possible Tory candidate for police and crime commissioner in both Kent and Devon, but refused because of the lack of powers in the role. Continuing with the media work she had undertaken while still an MP, she ha...

Crime and punishment the British way: Accountability channels following the MPs’ expenses scandal

“…This contrast may have led to greater punishment of female MPs compared to their male counterparts. 41 A recent large-scale survey after the expenses scandal concluded that female British MPs in particular felt that their family lives were strained (Byrne and Theakston 2015). Our findings can also be related to the work of Gagliarducci and Paserman (2012), who find that the probability of early termination of Italian city councils is higher when the mayor is a female and that this gender effect increases in male-dominated legislatures, highlighting the hurdles faced by female politicians in a male-dominated environment.…”

The Underappreciated Loss of Political Office

“…Those who struggled to find employment, paid or voluntary and/ or where little use made of the skills and experience gained in office had a more difficult adjustment, resonating with Theakston et al, (2007). Contrary to public perception, there is no revolving door in the UK between political office and the corporate boardroom for most (Byrne and Theakston, 2016). Skills could be far better used, both to bolster the evolving new identity of former politicians and to benefit employers, political parties and wider civic society.…”

“…In the UK, Theakston has led work on Westminster MPs leaving office using mostly survey data (Theakston, Gouge & Honeyman, 2007;Byrne & Theakston, 2016) with an unspecified number of interviews. This work, and Kwiatowski's (2015) interviews with MPs, demonstrates the difficulties experienced by many in adjusting to life outside the House of Commons.…”

Strategic communication of EU affairs: an analysis of legislative behaviour on Twitter

“…On average, being a year older increases the expected rate of EU-related messages by 1.1 per cent. Given that age is the single most important reason for not seeking re-election (Byrne & Theakston, 2015), one could argue that older MPs are less concerned with losing their seats and therefore that they can allow themselves to communicate low salient affairs as well. With respect to gender, female MPs are expected to post a 27.1 per cent smaller share of tweets on EU affairs.…”