This year鈥檚 General Election, we鈥檙e assured, is so thrillingly balanced that even experts won鈥檛 make predictions. Well, here鈥檚 one for starters 鈥 a prediction, not an expert. Despite this Parliament running its full five-year term, far fewer MPs will retire than in 2010.
OK, it鈥檚 not the rashest of forecasts. First, we鈥檝e known the likely election date for years, so the usually late flurry of MPs in safe seats being bribed by some vanity-appealing job or bauble into making way for younger, leadership-friendly candidates has mostly already happened.
Second, however you rate what is officially the 55th 海角视频 Parliament, at least they haven鈥檛 been as collectively awful as the 54th lot, who went into parliamentary history as the Rotten Parliament.
Rotten to the proverbial core, with even the official scale of the expenses scandal requiring nearly 400 MPs to repay us taxpayers 拢1.3 million for illegitimate claims for everything from Gordon Brown鈥檚 cleaning costs to moat cleaning and duck houses.
Some had offended so blatantly that they were prosecuted or deselected. Many more grudgingly paid up, reciting the mantra about the system being to blame and that they鈥檇 done nothing wrong. However, just in case their voters might not fully understand, they then grabbed the ludicrously generous retirement offer available, 拢60,000 plus 鈥榩arachute鈥 payments and final-salary pensions, and ran.
The expenses scandal ratcheted up the average 80 retirees per full parliament to a post-war record 149. Unsurprisingly, given the Conservatives鈥 long-term lead in the polls, two-thirds were Labour MPs, including Birmingham鈥檚 three: Clare Short (Ladywood); Lynne Jones, whose Selly Oak constituency was being drastically reshaped; and Si么n Simon (Erdington).
Simon鈥檚 decision was perhaps most interesting. First, because his main reason for standing down was to enable him to campaign 鈥 unsuccessfully, as it proved 鈥 for a Birmingham elected mayor. Second, because, first elected in 2001, he was the only one of 15 West Midlands retirees to have sat in only two parliaments.
Even with our over-sized House of Commons, it still takes most aspirants a fair amount of time, effort, sacrifice and luck to get in. Once there, they tend to stay 鈥 for voluntary retirees an average of over 20 years or four full-length parliaments. Si么n Simon鈥檚 two terms, therefore, were highly exceptional 鈥 at least in 2010.
Most MP retirements fall into one of three groups: seniority, sin, or stash. Seniority is self-explanatory. If you鈥檝e been at Westminster since, say, the early Thatcher years, you鈥檝e made your public service contribution and amply earned your retirement, in the already overcrowded Lords or wherever.
Sin is wider ranging. In 2010 it was expenses, this time sex and violence: sexting pics of one鈥檚 ministerial genitalia (Brooks Newmark, Braintree); 鈥榰nwelcome sexual approaches鈥 to a constituent (Mike Hancock, Portsmouth South); inappropriate relations with a 17-year old girl, plus repeated arrests for drunkenness, assault, and 鈥榓ltercations鈥 (Eric Joyce, Falkirk).
Stash too is a reflection of our times. May鈥檚 election will see the retirement of a slew of particularly Conservative ex-ministers in their fifties, who sense their frontbench careers are behind them, and hope their ministerial experience will open doors to some lucrative and not too taxing (in every sense) paydays.
This parliament, though, has produced an entirely novel fourth group of 鈥楽鈥 retirees: single- termers. There are 10 so far 鈥 all in marginal seats, in which first-term incumbents would generally have at least a slight advantage. All but one retirees are Conservatives, and (though not in the West Midlands) disproportionately Conservative women: one in nine of their 36 new women MPs.
Louise Bagshawe/Mensch, compulsive tweeter and already possibly the best-known Conservative backbencher, was first, announcing after barely two years her resignation from her highly marginal Corby seat, due to the difficulties of balancing the demands of politics with those of her young family.
Her new, and New York-based, husband volunteered that she also reckoned she鈥檇 鈥済et killed at the next election鈥 鈥 embarrassingly prophetic, given Labour鈥檚 sweeping win in the ensuing by-election with a 12.7 per cent swing where two per cent would have sufficed.
Note those stats. Seven of the eight Conservative seats subsequently vacated by single-term retirees would be lost in May with a Conservative-to-Labour swing since 2010 of just 6 per cent, which is precisely what this week鈥檚 Poll of Polls is showing, with the two parties neck-and-neck on 33 per cent.
All seven are Labour 鈥榖attleground target seats鈥 and also the focus of a specific 鈥極peration Flight鈥 campaign by the Blairite pressure group, Progress 鈥 鈥淎s the incumbent flies off, Progress flies in鈥.
Here in the West Midlands last weekend the Progressives flew into 鈥 in order of increasing marginality 鈥 Dudley South, Cannock Chase and North Warwickshire.
Dudley South MP Chris Kelly was the last and possibly David Cameron鈥檚 most infuriating single-termer retirement. He waited until last September; then, almost calculatedly overshadowed by Douglas Carswell鈥檚 more dramatic 海角视频IP defection, he confided to his Facebook page that he too, though for no reason apparently worth mentioning, would be stepping down.
Cameron鈥檚 reaction 鈥 apart presumably from some relief that Kelly, though a referendum-demanding Europhobe, would not be joining Carswell and 海角视频IP 鈥 is not on record.
Alongside Kelly on the 鈥榰nlikely to be greatly missed鈥 list is Cannock Chase鈥檚 departing Aidan Burley. He did, though, make his mark 鈥 providing the uniforms for a Nazi-themed stag party, and tweeting his insightful views of Danny Boyle鈥檚 Olympics opening ceremony: 鈥渓eftie, multicultural crap鈥.
Which brings us to Dan Byles, an immensely more substantial figure and surely a loss to both his ultra-marginal North Warwickshire constituency and to Parliament. His pre-parliamentary career was almost straight Boys鈥 Own: mountaineer, sailor, polar adventurer; army medical service in the Falklands, Kosovo, Bosnia and Iraq; plus shared world records for ocean rowing and arctic trekking 鈥 with his mother.
Following which, mere legislating must have seemed pretty humdrum, so Byles set about reforming the Constitution. With the Coalition sulking after having to abandon its Lords reform legislation, he and Lord (David) Steel introduced their own Private Members鈥 House of Lords Reform Bill. Providing for the first time for elderly Lords to resign and criminally guilty ones to be removed, it received Royal Assent last May: for a single-termer, one more probably unique achievement in a remarkable life.
* Chris Game is from the Institute of Local Government Studies at the University of Birmingham.
