Standing Down

by Rosa Prince

  I still get death threats, there’s a website set up for my death. The family don’t like that. It is objectionable.

  I went to see the Occupy movement in Brighton. They said we represent 99 per cent of the people, and the squatters often say they do as well. And I say to each one of them: ‘I will pay your deposit to stand against me, to put your point to the electorate. If you think you can beat me on that I’ll happily help you do that.’

  But they refused to take me up on the offer. There is a democratic process and you can’t just take the law into your own hands because you don’t like something. That’s just ridiculous.

  As well as being in the crosshairs of the anarchists, Mr Weatherley found himself a target of the press when, a few months after he was elected, the Daily Mirror splashed him on the front page under the headline: ‘Tory MP’s wife working as a prostitute’.

  The couple were separated by then, but that fact was not made clear until the last line of the article, something Mr Weatherley is still smarting about:

  Bizarre. It was on the front page. Bizarre. I still to this day don’t understand why people like to read this kind of thing, but they do. I guess it introduced me to journalism, can we call it that?

  I don’t talk about it, I’m not going to start now. What I would say is I was fully separated from her.

  When I talk to people about why they don’t get involved in politics, they cite that particular example, and others, where they say, ‘Why would anyone want to put themselves up for that type of treatment?’

  In that particular example, we weren’t talking about policy, we weren’t talking about how the government was run – it was tittle tattle that people just wanted to pull an MP down. That seems to be something people enjoy reading about. I suppose it’s entertainment value.

  He was also ‘annoyed’ a few years later when, after he had joined a group of MPs calling for greater regulation of the press, the Telegraph ran an article featuring a photograph of the couple and referred to the scandal:

  You don’t want to not do something because you’re frightened of what the press might say or [because] a small minority of the public might be anarchists, might plot to kill you.

  There are many colleagues here who are intimidated, who won’t put their head above the parapet on certain issues because they do not want the press intrusion or some of the flack they will get. And I think that’s a bad thing.

  On a happier note, in 2013 Mr Weatherley was asked by David Cameron to share his expertise from his entertainment background in the role of intellectual property adviser:

  He didn’t set down a defined ‘you must do this, you must do that’, and I think that was the right thing to do. It entailed what I wanted it to entail.

  We have an IP minister who is the government’s voice, so I think what he wanted to do is to have someone who could open some discussion documents, push the boundaries and go where an IP minister maybe couldn’t. So I took it upon myself to do various reports and open the debate.

  I know that he’s talked warmly about my role as his IP adviser and I think he has been very grateful for the work I have done. I know he has, because he’s sent me letters.

  Five years ago the IP direction of this country was in the wrong way. We weren’t really robust in our policies. What I have done is put the brakes on that, we have turned that around.

  A year later, however, Mr Weatherley was forced to speak to the Prime Minister on a more personal matter – his decision to resign from Parliament after a cancer scare. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do:

  I had all the radiotherapy and the chemotherapy and it makes you evaluate. I’m stuck here within eight minutes of the division bell at any one time, quite often ’til late at night.

  We don’t see our families very often. We might see them [at] weekends but then we’re off campaigning very often and doing constituency things. My kids were saying we would like to see more of you.

  It’s very difficult to turn round [to them] and say: ‘There’s no guarantee of me winning, it’s still going to be much less than I could earn in the private sector, I’m still going to be away from you most of the time, and I still want to do this.’

  And of course I do want to do this, I love this job, it is a good job to do. But there are other things to do.

  Of course I would love to be the IP minister, of course I would love to be. But I have to balance the family.

  Conscious of the need of his constituency to bed in a new candidate, Mr Weatherley announced his decision to stand before getting the all-clear. Now it appears that he has beaten the cancer, he is somewhat regretful about his decision – but understands his children’s desire for him to take on a less demanding, and less intrusive, role:

  They get associated with me rather than in their own right. My daughter ran a very successful music festival in Brighton but in the local paper, half the article was: ‘She’s the daughter of a politician’. It was nothing to do with me, I had nothing at all to do with that festival, and it’s like: ‘Dammit, Dad, get out of my life. I’ll be my own person.’

  While he understands his family’s desire for him to step away from politics, Mr Weatherley’s reluctance to leave is very apparent:

  Of course I will miss it. Of course I would have liked to have done another five years. I will miss being part of what everyone else would like to be part of. That’s a very terrible way of saying the laws that we make I think are relevant, I think we do have relevant discussions, I think we make some very important decisions here.

  I will miss having that input, being the conduit from constituents to the Prime Minister in that sort of way, so I will miss that without a doubt.

  Maybe I could have been a minister but I probably rebelled too much for that. I was an odd Conservative because I am anti-fox hunting, I am anti-nuclear power, I voted against the government a few times. I am a liberal Conservative. What I won’t miss is some of the frustrations, some of things you know should be done immediately can take years, and that really frustrates me.

  I think I have made a difference; I know I have.

  ***

  Mike Weatherley: CV

  Born and raised in Kent; attended South Bank University; became a chartered accountant involved in the music and film industries.

  2001: Unsuccessfully fights Barking

  2005: Unsuccessfully fights Brighton Pavilion

  2010: Elected MP for Hove; tabloid exposé about his ex-wife

  2012: Instrumental in introducing anti-squatting measures; diagnosed with cancer and has operation to remove oesophagus

  2013: Appointed Prime Minister’s intellectual property adviser

  2014: Announces he will be standing down at the 2015 general election

  Mike Weatherley has been divorced twice and has three children.

  GREG BARKER

  Greg Barker, forty-eight, was Conservative MP for Bexhill & Battle (2001–15).

  ‘Helping David Cameron become Conservative leader was the high point – scandal and scrutiny meant it was downhill from there.’

  ***

  How did you end up in Parliament?

  I was a passionate Conservative from my time at university. I drifted away from politics in my twenties but ended up fighting a seat in 1997 in Eccles in Manchester – and Eccles fought back rather successfully. I was then really fortunate to be selected in my home county of Sussex, in Bexhill & Battle.

  How did you feel on first becoming an MP?

  It was quite overwhelming, very moving. I think I have a romantic view of Parliament, very conscious of the history and the sacrifices that have been made over the years. So I was slightly daunted by it, but not in a bad way.

  Best of times?

  The biggest difference I would have made in my life, and the thing I’m most proud of, isn’t anything on my climate agenda and green energy, it’s actually at the very beginning: making a difference to the Cameron project. I think David Cameron is unique. Having seen him
up close dealing with highly complex and stressful issues, he’s awesome.

  Worst of times?

  That was very difficult [a tabloid exposé of his private life, which reported that he had left his wife for a man]. That was probably the darkest moment for me and my family.

  Why are you leaving?

  What being a minister reminded me is that I don’t just like being something, I like doing something. If I jump while I’m still in my forties, there are lots of opportunities for me to explore other things, to go back into business, to work abroad potentially and make an impact in a way that is different than if you stay in the House of Commons.

  Will you feel a pang on 7 May – and what are you going to do next?

  Go on holiday! I will be working partly here, partly abroad. I was in the private equity world before I came into government and I’ll be going back to my roots.

  There will probably be a lump in the throat and I’ll probably be sad to wave goodbye to Bexhill & Battle, but the job of an MP these days is so different even to when I came into the House and I really didn’t want to be one of those MPs that just motors along.

  What are your thoughts for future MPs?

  People in the outside world don’t appreciate how hard MPs work and also how demanding the role is. The scrutiny you get now, some people get off on it, but it is very draining.

  ***

  Greg Barker: the full story

  Greg Barker grew up in Sussex, in a non-political family who, he jokes, saw him as the ‘black sheep’ for his ambitions. By 1997, he was living in Tooting, south London, and working in the City when he made his first, unsuccessful attempt to run for office in a safe Labour seat.

  He was rewarded at the next election with selection for the plum constituency of Bexhill & Battle, not far from where he was raised:

  I was always fascinated by politics and a passionate Conservative from my time at university. I was asked to be on the selection committee in Tooting and after a morning the agent took me aside and said, ‘Look, rather than asking all the smart-a*** questions I think you ought to be answering them.’

  So I got selected very late on for a hopeless seat but that really lit the touchpaper. It was a brilliant window for me into politics and a part of the world I didn’t know and confirmed for me that I really did want to go into politics.

  And I was then really fortunate to be selected in my home county of Sussex in Bexhill & Battle. It’s a lovely part of the world with even more lovely people. My parents, friends and family all rallied to the colours.

  Mr Barker was one of the first Conservatives to get a taste of the threat from the UK Independence Party, when Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, stood against him. To complicate matters, his predecessor, Charles Wardle, had defected and campaigned against him, meaning that despite being in a safe Conservative seat, Mr Barker’s first election was at times ‘horrible’.

  He says:

  The campaign had an edge to it because we had Nigel Farage, but it was an incredibly exciting experience. Nigel Farage was a very serious opponent. The interesting thing was he could be quite charming on a personal level but when he engaged in debates he became much more ideological and the mask slipped.

  The most unpleasant thing about UKIP was the people who arrived in the constituency, skinheads from London, people who were clearly veterans of the far-right fringe, and who scared off a lot of the very decent naturally UKIP sympathisers in Bexhill.

  Despite all the nastiness, Mr Barker won comfortably and found himself in Parliament at the age of just thirty-five. While the experience was ‘daunting’, he soon made himself at home, with the help of some new friends by the names of David Cameron and George Osborne:

  For me it was very obvious that both David and George were head and shoulders above the rest in terms of raw talent and ability. I was also convinced, leaving personalities aside, that the party just needed to skip a generation and we needed a modern, charismatic, telegenic leader to create a centre-right alternative to [then Prime Minister Tony] Blair that we could sell to the country.

  Those were very momentous years. We had the death of the Queen Mother, the Golden Jubilee and then the build up to the war in Iraq, so these were all big parliamentary occasions.

  I settled in I think pretty well. It was fun. I was hugely respectful of the institution. I was very conscious of the privilege of being here. It was a very happy time.

  After two years on the back benches Mr Barker was invited to join the Whips’ Office by Michael Howard who had become party leader in 2003 with his support.

  He still harboured the belief, however, that the Conservatives needed a leader from the younger generation, and while he admired Mr Howard, he felt it was a ‘fence too high’ for him to topple Tony Blair at the 2005 general election.

  Instead, his mind turned to the leadership contest he knew would inevitably follow, barely bothering to campaign in his own safe seat, and entirely focused on how best to shape the events that would play out after polling day.

  He says:

  Michael Howard had resigned on the morning after the election. I remember talking to David Cameron who was still in his constituency. There were a number of us around David encouraging him to stand and I think he was minded to do that but we didn’t know how it was going to pan out.

  There was a degree of modesty on his part; becoming modesty. He certainly wasn’t pushing himself. He was quite cautious and took his time to decide whether or not to run but I think it was in hindsight a done deal from the get-go.

  Much of the way through it I sort of carried David Cameron’s bags. I would go to events and act as his unofficial PPS and also as one of the campaign managers. We had that sense of underdog excitement. It’s much more exciting to be after the incumbent than to be holding the line. That group of us really believed in our candidate. It wasn’t just a power grab or machine politics. We genuinely believed in David and his modernising mission.

  Was it Baldwin or Curzon who said ‘No man is a hero to his valet’? Having acted in some ways as David Cameron’s political valet in the election campaign, I emerged in awe of him and he improved in stature, having seen what he was like behind the scenes.

  Mr Barker’s reward was to be given the climate change brief – then a new and exciting issue, and one he had begun to master during his time on the back benches when he served on the Commons Environmental Audit Committee.

  He was able to use his post to help ‘detoxify’ the Tory brand, travelling with Mr Cameron to the Arctic Circle in a bid to show off the new leader’s green credentials.

  The resulting ‘hug a husky’ images became an indelible part of the Cameron project, displaying the Leader of the Opposition as the coming man – right-on, youthful and modern. When Mr Cameron became Prime Minister, Mr Barker was made Climate Change Minister – to his huge relief.

  He denies, however, that the climate change agenda was adopted only out of political expediency, and defends the government’s record on the environment:

  Certainly David Cameron has been my most valuable ally during my time in government.

  What’s happened is there have been fewer speeches, less sound bites, since the financial crisis but if you look at what we’ve actually done in terms of policy implementation, all of our major policy commitments that were adopted during that time have been implemented. We haven’t shirked away from any of them.

  The political narrative has moved on but in terms of have we walked the walk? Absolutely. If you actually audit the big policy deliverables, it’s quite impressive.

  The leadership election and those first months as shadow Climate Change Minister were to prove the high point of Mr Barker’s time in office.

  In October 2006, the Daily Mirror ran an exposé about his separation from his wife of fourteen years, Celeste, under the headline: ‘Tory MP leaves wife and children for a man’.

  Finding himself at the centre of such attention, and becoming the Conservatives’ first openly
gay MP, was an ordeal, he says, coloured his view of politics.

  Like many other MPs at the time, the feeling that he could no longer enjoy his time in Parliament in quite the same way was exacerbated by the 2010 expenses scandal.

  He says of the publicity surrounding his private life:

  Fortunately by the time that broke in the tabloid press it had all been sorted with my former wife who was extraordinary and very supportive.

  After that, when you’ve had that kind of exposure, particularly in the way that you view the press, it’s never quite the same.

  Being recognised, being a public figure, it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

  And then again on expenses. While I wasn’t a primary target of the expenses scandal, every MP had their issue to deal with, real and perceived. The worst thing about that was just the general change in the public’s attitude.

  It sounds a bizarre thing to say, [but] I think the Conservatives felt it more. Partly because it was led by the Daily Telegraph, it felt like a more personal betrayal.

  How would Labour MPs feel if the Daily Mirror had plunged a dagger into the PLP? So that was certainly disconcerting. And the loss of respect for the office of MP, rightly or wrongly, that changed the mood.

  In Conservative seats where perhaps there was a lingering degree of deference, which was going anyway, that’s not the century we live in, expenses put paid to that once and for all. I don’t think it makes the job of an MP any easier.

  With the 2010 election, Mr Barker was leading a ‘slightly bipolar existence as an MP’, happy that Mr Cameron was Prime Minister but not personally enjoying life in the Commons despite the excitement of becoming a minister.