This Honourable House Read Online Free

patience of a saint. Basically decent.’ Betts shrugged.
    ‘God save us from decent politicians. They’d put us out of business in no time – we’d have nothing to write about. Only the mad, the bad and the stupid want to go into Parliament. Isn’t that the view you peddle at every morning conference?’
    ‘Correct. I can’t figure out why anybody normal would sincerely want to be an MP.’ Betts waved away the offer of a Gauloise. ‘The money’s terrible, the hours anti-social, the rewards dismal. They’re blamed for everything that goes wrong and get no credit for any success – certainly not from us. The daily thrust of the job’s a chore, answering all those whingeing letters from constituents and pressure groups. Waiting to catch the Speaker’s eye for five seconds of prime time. When light dawns on the brighter ones, it’s too late. Outside politics, most are unemployable.’
    ‘With a few exceptions who write for the Guardian or get jobs on talk radio,’ Pansy joined in, laughing.
    ‘How many ex-MPs did we discover had ended up on the dole? About forty, wasn’t it? And those are the guys who were running the country last year,’ Betts agreed.
    ‘It’s a funny old world,’ Pansy drawled, in a passable imitation of Margaret Thatcher.
    She pinched his arm again and scurried away. The discussion had served to focus Betts’s own doubts about the fairytale pictures unfolding on the screen. He watched Benedict’s arrival at the church. Like so many others of his ilk the man had read politics at university, been active in the student union, got a job, probably unpaid, in some MP’s office, done a stretch in the party’s research department and been hooked for life. It was a sickness, an infection. Whether they were born with oversized egos or acquired them along the way was a moot point. There should be a government warning issued with every college politics course that the condition was catching, dangerous and incurable, and would leave sufferers the object of ridicule for as long as they were remembered. Their opiate was public adulation. Being forgotten, of course, was the ultimate humiliation.
    Nobody sane would see Parliament as a respectable occupation, Betts reasoned, not if he or she could earn a living doing anything else. They should be out running a business or tossing moneyaround in the City, or in the wig and gown of a lawyer. Betts shuddered. He hated lawyers. In a just world, newspapermen would be free to comment and criticise as they thought fit. A call from the office of a new female Secretary of State had already been taken: she was furious with some anodyne remarks he had made in a leader column. Why anybody should object to being dubbed ‘vile’ was beyond him, but she had taken umbrage. Betts had a nasty feeling that that was not the last he would hear of it.
    He peered more closely at the monitor. The Ashworth betrothal had been greeted with pleasure on every side. The guest list included frontbenchers from other parties. The most important, for whom Betts was now searching, was Andrew Marquand, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had been Ashworth’s tutor at St Andrew’s. It was there, apparently, that the bridegroom’s passion for politics had been kindled. So Marquand had more than a double hike in petrol tax to answer for: he had been responsible for corrupting the attitudes of a whole cohort of youngsters, convincing them that the political world was full of sweet opportunity. Several, including Benedict, had accompanied their guru into the mire of Westminster.
    As if on cue, the Chancellor appeared at the entrance to the church. St Margaret’s was the old parliamentary place of worship, situated opposite the Palace of Westminster under the shadow of Westminster Abbey. The twelfth-century crypt chapel under the Palace could have been used but would not hold enough guests. Cameras were allowed inside St Margaret’s but would have been barred from the Palace. Benedict had