by Rosa Prince
Even now I would describe myself as a social democrat, as my prime political position. I was quite active, I was on the county committee of the SDP and it was a very active area.
I didn’t run for office but, for example, the party after the general election in 1983 was in my house. By the time I got back from Brussels in 1986, the honeymoon was over for the SDP. We did the 1987 election as an alliance with the Liberals and then of course after that the Liberal Democrats were formed.
Although I remained engaged on paper, actually I wasn’t engaged at all at that point in terms of doing things. I was doing a lot of international travel with my job and didn’t have much time for politics. My family were growing up by then, I had three kids, my career was progressing quickly. I always voted for them and I can honestly say that’s true.
Mr Swales did not step up his involvement with the party for more than a decade, when he found himself with time on his hands.
Redcar was a safe Labour seat, and when the call came ten years ago to stand as an MP, he considered it an ‘exercise in democracy’ rather than an act that would lead him to Westminster:
I always had an ambition of retiring when I was fifty and I did in 2003. Of course, when you retire early you have to decide what to do with your time and I thought: ‘I know, I’ll re-engage with politics’ – to be honest, mainly for social reasons, because I always liked the people.
Then in 2004 my local party said: ‘Have you considered running for Parliament?’
I thought about it for a week, then went: ‘Well, why not?’
In a seat where we were in third place, 19,000 behind, it was very much just an exercise in democracy.
In 2005 I got from 19,000 behind to 12,000 behind and up to second place.
In August 2005 my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer so I didn’t do much for another eighteen months. You realise what’s important and not important in life when your partner might be dying.
Fortunately she pulled through and is still with us. So, in early 2007 they said will you do it again, so I said OK – and then had a massive panic in October 2007 when it looked like Gordon Brown might call an election at very short notice, when we were poorly prepared, and I’m absolutely certain I wouldn’t have got in at that point.
The party recognised this was a seat that with determined campaigning and me as the candidate, there was an outside chance we might do it.
I still didn’t think we might win until a week to go. I was still 12,000 behind remember.
I feel that my election in 2010 has shaken the roots a little bit, in that when is a seat safe? They assumed Redcar was a safe Labour seat until I won it.
If you’re a safe seat you get ignored. Labour in the north-east do take you for granted, there’s no doubt about it. Having lived in the area for thirty-odd years I was really keen to shake that and give them a fright.
Not having seriously expected to win until the very end of the campaign, election night 2010 proved to be an extraordinary occasion.
My daughter was at the count and my wife rang her up and said, ‘How’s it going?’ And she said, ‘Scary. He’s doing quite well.’
When I got there I was a thousand ahead and pretty quickly it became 3,000. It was pretty clear all the time I was there that I was going to win. That was an incredible feeling.
[We] went off and had champagne. At 7.30 in the morning my house still had people in it. [I] didn’t go to bed.
We’d already planned a party for the Friday night – win or lose, on the booze was our plan – so you can only imagine what that was like.
I also found out that night and subsequently that a huge lot of people won money on us. One guy who was there celebrating won £4,000 on me winning, so the bookmakers must have paid out quite a lot.
To be honest, it was actually a very humbling feeling to know that not only had I got 19,000 people voting for me – I only got 7,000 or 8,000 the last time – but that many people had decided they wanted things to change that badly.
That was the Friday night and then literally on the Saturday morning I’m on the train to London and straight into ‘Who runs the country?’
It was a positive feeling [but] this was where my wife would have different feelings. About two weeks after I was elected somebody said to her, ‘Your husband’s been elected as an MP, how do you feel about it?’
And she said, ‘Bereaved.’
We were a very close couple, we got married young and we spent a lot of time together because I was working part time, hardly at all by that time, and the two of us had worked really closely on the campaign, and suddenly I’m off.
After the euphoria … you soon felt that sense of responsibility that people had put a massive amount of faith in you and you couldn’t let them down.
It took me six months to settle in. Firstly I didn’t expect to get elected, secondly I didn’t expect to be involved in discussions about the government.
Because I hadn’t been involved in politics before, the process of politics, even the ways of debates, plus all the amazing procedures and traditions here [were] quite tough to get my head round.
I didn’t feel I was joining a team, even though I brought some pretty (I thought) good experience to the group. But it’s not really been called on when I thought it would have been more.
It’s a collection of individuals who all do the job differently, maybe the Lib Dems more so than other parties, who take pride in that independence. That was probably slightly surprising.
Soon after being elected, Mr Swales was appointed to the prestigious Public Accounts Committee, which watches over the government’s handling of the nation’s finances. It was here he took part in the committee’s memorable skewering of the bosses of Amazon, Google and Starbucks over their creative approaches to paying taxes.
He is also proud of his role in drilling into G4S, the Olympic security firm, over the amount of money it was paid from the public purse for the contract, a persistence that unearthed some of the ‘smoking gun’ evidence that ultimately helped accelerate the departure of chief executive Nick Buckles:
In Westminster the main thing I have done is for over four years I was on the Public Accounts Committee, the only accountant on the Accounts committee and the only Lib Dem as well. I feel we have made enormous headway there.
We have done great work and probably the most lasting work will be changing the climate on tax avoidance – Amazon, Google and Starbucks [being] the most visible and the most well known.
[But] probably my most unique contribution in the PAC was actually the G4S scandal around the Olympics and the cost, the contracting behind it.
They basically ripped off the taxpayer in my view. The ripples of that … in effect led to the resignation of the chief executive. I don’t say that with any great pride by the way, but it shows you how big the scandal was.
Mr Swales’s experience of being in the Commons’ chamber has been mixed. While he enjoyed taking part in key votes, he is less impressed by the set-piece weekly joust that is PMQs, particularly after being told by John Bercow, the Speaker, to shut up during a particularly rowdy session when he was ‘howled’ at by Labour MPs. He thinks Mr Bercow ‘probably’ owes him an apology, but goes on:
I don’t particularly blame him. I just think it’s a function of PMQs and the misbehaviour of so many MPs.
Can you blame one person for all of that? Not really. He’s only one in a room of 400 or 500 people. I look now and it’s quite notable that the Liberal Democrats are sitting there quite sensibly listening to the questions and the answers and there’s orchestrated yelling from various places from the Tory and Labour Party.
I find some of the tribal squabbling that goes on just pathetic and childish. PMQs does the political process no good. The public’s opinion of us is forged by things like that. It completely undermines the respect and appreciation of what MPs do. I don’t think it does anybody any good.
However, you do get wit sometimes.
I don’t see it in terms of low points. It’s such a vivid, fantastic experience that even things you might describe as lows I just reflect on and always count myself privileged to be here experiencing whatever it is.
Although he had been asked a few times to join the government on the lowest rung of the ladder, as a parliamentary private secretary, it is only now, as he is on the cusp of leaving, that Mr Swales has accepted.
A vacancy unexpectedly created by a colleague’s mini-rebellion led Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, to invite him to serve as his PPS.
He says he wouldn’t have done it for anyone else – and although he insists it was a better use of his time to have been involved in committees and challenging the executive than in joining the government, he appears somewhat bruised by the failure of the leadership to make more of his talents:
To be honest I would have said no to anybody else but I get on well with Vince. It’s another couple of months of experience.
I’ve heard people say a mixture of all of that [serving on committees, speaking in the House and holding ministers to account] is better than the restrictions of being a junior minister.
When you add to that the freedom on occasion to vote how you want to, which I have done a few times, particularly I opposed the bedroom tax because I knew it would be bad for my constituents.
Right now I’m doing it for the experience and to help and because I will enjoy it, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do it right the way through.
One of the functions of a parliamentary system is there are only so many hours in the day. If you become a minister, something has got to give. For a lot of them what gives is bound to be the constituency and I wouldn’t have wanted to do that.
If he had decided to go down the ministerial route, Mr Swales is not certain his face would have fit in the modern Westminster:
What I have been surprised at is how the place is gradually being taken over by career politicians, most of whom went to just two universities, and they dominate all three main parties. And the people who have got other experience don’t seem to be particularly valued.
I do think that’s sad, because among the 650 people, if we did it right, there is still a great deal of wisdom and experience that I just don’t think is used.
There’s two things you see going on: the cult of youth and also the sort of political correctness.
I think to be honest one of the mistakes all the parties make is that the imbalances are not to do with the usual equality issues, they’re actually more to do with what kind of experiences have people got? What kind of backgrounds do we have here?
For example, only 10 per cent of MPs have any background at all in engineering or science. I think that causes problems. There are very few people who have actually run anything. Those imbalances are far more important than ‘Do we have the right quota of a particular gender?’
It’s not so many years since the chief executive of Asda became a back-bench MP and I just can’t imagine anybody of that level deciding to do that now. Why would you volunteer for the kind of life and scrutiny and the general public opinion that exists around it?
It’s an illustration of how the media and MPs themselves have debased themselves. That’s what makes me sad.
Given the unexpected way in which he ended up in Parliament, it’s perhaps not surprising that Mr Swales hasn’t been bitten by the Westminster bug. He realised early on he would serve only five years and – for the most part – hasn’t wavered in that decision:
Why am I leaving? Well I’m just about to turn sixty-two, my wife’s sixty-three, it’s never been part of our retirement plan to spend years doing a job like this. I can’t half-do a job. I do it full on, which means it’s very time consuming.
It has quite an effect on the family. So I’m retiring really, it’s as simple as that.
I don’t regret one minute of it. I’m pleased we have had a five-year fixed term Parliament because it’s given me a good go at it.
I briefly flirted with standing again, I did. But I think any MP will tell you this – it’s quite a stressful job. I want to come out of this with my health intact as well.
I did it because my area needed a lot of help and I wanted to give myself to it for a few years, and I’ve done that.
I will be making a contribution in various ways in the future. But I won’t miss it in the way that some people seem to do.
Certainly I have always, throughout my life, enjoyed meeting interesting people and you completely overdose on that here. And the chance to do things and make things happen, both nationally and for your community, and I have enjoyed that.
There’s lots I won’t miss. Eight hours a week travelling. Some of the pettiness.
About a year ago, [because of] one of the regular train delays that we have, I tried another route home and I ended up at Doncaster train station at about ten o’clock at night being bothered by a drunk. I remember thinking: ‘How glamorous is this job?’
On a Thursday night I might typically get home at 11 p.m., then I’m on again in the constituency at 9 a.m., not having seen my wife since the Monday morning. There’s that whole relentless nature of it.
I have no regrets. I like to sleep easily every night and look forward to every day, and sleeping easily at nights means I’ve done my best and I honestly think I’ve done that in this job.
It’s been an absolutely fascinating window on life, much broader than I have ever had before.
I’m interested in people and if you’re a student of people this has got to be the best job, because you meet everyone from kings and queens to paupers and everyone in between.
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Ian Swales: CV
Born in Leeds; raised in Harrogate; attended Manchester University; became financial and business manager for ICI before setting up his own consultancy firm.
2005: Unsuccessfully fights Redcar
2010: Elected MP for Redcar with largest swing since the Second World War, appointed to Public Accounts Committee
2013: Challenges major companies over their tax payment during PAC session; becomes Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman
2014: Announces he will be standing down at the 2015 general election
2015: Appointed private parliamentary secretary to Vince Cable, Business Secretary
Ian Swales is married to Pat and has three children and five grandchildren.
TIM YEO
Tim Yeo, sixty-nine, was Conservative MP for South Suffolk (1983–2015).
‘Why would you want to leave? Look around, who wouldn’t want to work here? I come to work here even in the recess.’
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How did you end up in Parliament?
For me politics is a bit like a drug. The more you take it, the more you get addicted to it. It gets into your blood.
Mine was a seat that counted on the Friday morning in those days, so I had, therefore, the opportunity to watch the great results in ’83 coming through, a great Conservative landslide, and so I knew everyone else had done very well and I just hoped that was the case [for me]. And of course it was the case, so that was fine.
How did you feel on first becoming an MP?
Obviously it’s an exciting moment for anybody. [For] 99 per cent of the people who come into Parliament, it’s been an ambition they’ve probably cherished for a while, so when it’s actually fulfilled that’s a great moment, of course.
It’s a cross between a club and a school and therefore you get to know people pretty quickly.
Best of times?
I’ve enjoyed the last five years a lot. Parliament is a much more vibrant place than it was. The role of an elected select committee chair [of the Energy and Climate Change Committee] is a very interesting one.
I think if I had been Chancellor of the Exchequer I would have said that was the high point, obviously, but by comparison to what I was doing, to me it was more satisfying.
You’ve slightly more control and you are more independent – ‘I’ve been e
lected, I can do whatever I like.’
Worst of times?
It’s obviously not good [to have resigned from government following an extra-marital affair]. I don’t think there are any redeeming features at all.
There’s no going back from it, there’s no looking back either. I’ve always thought that you can’t change the past no matter how much you’d like to, so don’t lose too much sleep.
Why are you leaving?
I’m leaving partly because my constituents decided they didn’t want me – well, the party decided. And they’re quite entitled to take the decision. If you live by the sword you die by the sword.
It’s past history now. They’ve chosen an excellent candidate who has my full support.
Will you feel a pang on 7 May – and what are you going to do next?
I will certainly be interested on election night because a lot of my friends are standing and I think this is going to be the single most interesting election night of my lifetime – really quite amazing.
I’ll have two TVs, or possibly three, because you need to watch all the channels. We’ll probably have a few people round for drinks, maybe a few ex-colleagues, and we’ll watch what happens.
I’m taking up a post at Sheffield University, which I’m very excited about. They’ve formed an industrial advisory board for what they call Energy 2050, which is a new initiative, so I will chair that advisory board.
What are your thoughts for future MPs?
One of the great things about Parliament is that it’s a very individual place. There isn’t really a blueprint. Long may that continue. I’m sure there will be changes I’m not even able to anticipate right now.