A WEEK IS A LONG TIME...

It was Harold Wilson who gave us the phrase “A week is a long time in politics” – and in the case of what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa that is certainly true.

In January I visited the UK to write an article about Sky News and to attend the Fabian Society New Year Conference where Ed Miliband was to speak. Also pencilled in to my diary was a meeting with Sir Teddy Taylor, the former MP for Southend East.

As I caught a minor bug I went ahead with the Sky and Fabian dates but cancelled my meeting with Sir Teddy along with a couple others.

I wanted to chat with Sir Teddy about Gadafi because he had travelled to Libya on a couple of occasions to meet him. My interest was to learn what he made of the leader of that nation and to discuss his views on the Lockerbie bombing – especially as Sir Teddy is from Glasgow. It was mid-January and nobody had foreseen what would happen just weeks later. At that point Gadafi and Libya were on the rehabilitation list!

Reading Sir Teddy’s words in his autobiography Teddy Boy Blue now makes strange reading. I quote:

“If we endeavouring to solve the many problems facing the Middle East my belief is that we would make more progress if we treated the various nations with dignity and respect.

“Another good example of this is my experiences in Libya. I paid a visit there at a time when Mr. Gadaffi (sic throughout) appeared to have no friends in the world and when I was advised that it would be dangerous to travel there. However, as so often before, I found that the foreign office assessment of nations was not too accurate. I visited Mr Gadaffi on my first visit there and several times thereafter. During my first visit he agreed to cancel the provision he had made for the supply of weapons to the IRA and to many other terrorist groups in the world. These massive changes in policy have been maintained.

“The main feature for me on my visit to Libya was to see the actual country itself and the services provided to the community. Of course there is always the danger of being misled, but I can only say that as a person who has no financial or other interests in nations like Libya ...my assessment was that they had many positive features which sadly are not communicated to our people. My experience in the world is that those countries which the West approves of are often the most horrible nations for people to live in whilst those they disapprove of are often liberal and exciting nations which people seem happy to live in.”

It would be interesting to know how Sir Teddy feels about these impressions now.

As I say – a week is a long time in politics!

BED AND BREAKFAST MP

As the expenses controversy rages around the heads of Britain’s MPs I have been reading “Teddy Boy Blue” – the autobiography of former Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor.

It makes interesting reading and I offer you this piece that describes Sir Teddy’s arrival in Parliament in 1964. No moats or duck islands here!

“A Scottish MP has to spend his week in London, travelling up only at weekends to visit his home. The salary was not too good at that time and if expensive accommodation was secured and a full-time secretary employed, there would not be much left. Nowadays, things are much easier for MPs with quite generous allowances being made available on top of salaries for accommodation in London and for the employment of secretaries, but these privileges were not available in 1964.

“So it had to be a little guesthouse in Clapham for accommodation which, as it happened, turned out to be the ideal place to live. I discovered it in an advert in The Sunday Post and the proprietors, a Mr and Mrs Fair, looked after me in the way in which you would expect a favourite aunt to do.”

I have held the view since studying the book that it should be required reading for all those who aspire to Parliament as it sets out the day-to-day life of a back bencher in great detail.

Now I also believe it should be required reading for all British voters as it describes the hard often humdrum work carried out by the majority of the nation’s elected representatives at both national and local level.

I believe some 170 MPs have had their expenses examined and published in print by the Daily Telegraph. That is a shameful figure but it still makes a large minority and doesn’t given credit to the latter day Sir Teddy Taylor’s who serve their nation and constituents with dedication and honesty.

(Teddy Boy Blue – Edward M Taylor – Kennedy & Boyd – http://www.kennedyandboyd.co.uk/)