Members of Parliament are not normal

 In Mark Menzie's case sympathy is undeserved and censure pointless. The MP for Fylde, who telephoned an elderly party worker in the small hours begging for money because "bad people" were holding him to ransom, cannot expect forgiveness; but reproach (though he will meet it in spades) is futile. Some people do just get themselves into the most awful mess...

Why do MPs at every level in the parliamentary pecking order, from prime ministers such as Boris Johnson to backbenchers you've never heard of like Menzies - why ever do they take these crazy risks? They know the danger very well. They're public figures. They know the media will go gangbusters if they're caught with trousers down, fingers in the till, tractor porn on their laptops or (if male) running down the road in lipstick and high heels...

Raving Madness
Caius Gabriel Cibber (1630-1700)
Photo Credit: Bethlem Museum of the Mind [CC BY-NC] 

Yet the very people who need most to tread carefully, tread most dangerously. The number of MPs who have lost their party whip now exceeds the total Lib Dem parliamentary party.Why?

I know why and the answer is simple. The sample is skewed. People who want to be MPs are not  normal. They are not representative of the general population, but a very distinct personality type: a minority whose nature disposes them to take stupid risks...

They think they can wing it. And often enough they do. Always have.

People who want to be MPs have an enlarged appetite for status, fame and applause, an exaggerated belief in their own chances, and a stunted appreciation of risk. They start, as so many do, with a private dream of being prime minister... Self-belief and self-advertisement are their trademarks...

In Labour the path from trade union or local council to parliament is now less trodden and we're seeing a less even and hopefully less boring crop. The next election may throw in many more young and unexpected Labour victors.

As with the Tories, some will fly and others will crash. Few if any of the crash victims are wicked or even seriously influential people, so perhaps we should celebrate the very miscellany of modern parliaments, gasp at the crashes, enjoy the aeronautics, and treat the whole thing more as music hall than morality play.

(Matthew Parris, The Times, 2024)

Is this the mind-set of some or many of politicians operating globally? Is this desire for fame and status a common feature in each and every political setting whether it be the Senate and Congress in America or the National People's Congress in China? The author of the article was a former member of Parliament.