The Political Animal

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Jeremy Smugman Sneers A Lot. - Rated
This is one of the most depressing political books ever, essentially becoming a politician is a huge waste of time which will in all likelihood be a failure and will screw up ones family life. Makes you wonder why they didn't become TV presenters instead.

Some of the anecdotes are fairly amusing, but the overall tone is that the political class is something pitiful to behold.

Why do they do it? - Rated
What makes for a politician? According to Paxo it is ambition, drive and liking to hear your own voice. To get to the top he unearths the surprising statistic that you most likely will have lost a parent, especially a father, when young.
Paxman writes well in an entertaining fashion so he is a pleasure to read. He charts how one becomes an MP and the duties involved. It is not a family friendly life. Conformity is required, enforced by the whips. If one conforms one may rise to ministerial office and the ministerial life is surveyed all the way up to prime minister. Life beyond office or parliament is also examined. The treatment is both sympathetic and critical. Corruption is shown to be rare. What Paxo omits is the commoner, more hum drum life in local politics. Councillors are too dull beasts for the top journalist. Yet many who become MPs follow the local government route, even those from political dynasties like the Benn family.

A dissection of Politics and politicians - Rated
Two questions stand out in Jeremy Paxman's book. Why do people want to be politicians?; and why do the public mistrust politicians?
Why do people want to be politicians, there is one major reason given by the MP's themselves, to serve the public but as Paxman points out the aphrodisiac of "Power" and control is always there not very far beneath the surface.
Using examples both historic and modern he shows how Politicians climb their way up the ladder of power,only a few reaching the heights of cabinet posts. Some are shown to be very active in their constituency, others less so. Some have a history of voting with their conscience, most though have at least one eye on the main chance.
The second question is answered indirectly so many times in this book. We do not like Politicians because.
Loyalty to party is valued over personal integrity.
Party conferences are no longer anything but commercial side-shows.
The whips, especially New Labour ones, come across almost as Gauleiters, semi house-trained thugs there to oversee that no member considers voting with their conscience rather than what the Leader requires.
They blatantly lie.
The sycophantic questions at PMQ's.
They are backstabbers par-excellence, look at how Mo Mowlem was punished when party members dared to give her a standing ovation during Tony Blair's party conference speech.
They vote themselves inflation busting pay rises and protected pensions whilst dragging their feet over workers who have been sold out by their employers.
Party membership is in decline as people of all political hues despair of the self-serving chancers currently at Westminster.
Recent voting figures show the electorate has switched off in large numbers.
For any politician who still wonders why the people do not trust them I suggest they read this book and then look in the mirror and tell us if they like what they see. Pre-supposing,obviously,that they can even be honest with themselves.

GRAND INQUISITOR - Rated
There are very few slouches, if any, among the political interviewers that I have seen in Britain and the USA. Paxman is not perfect by any means, but I have never quite seen his equal. He has two besetting sins. One is in overdoing questions of the 'Why are you beating your wife?' variety and the other is a propensity to naff debating points, trying to manoeuvre ministers who admit to the slightest change of mind into saying that they should be considering resignation on that account. He is quick-witted, forceful and tenacious, and he is guiltless of the mindset known in America as 'respect', something that can disconcert his American interviewees who consider respect to be their right.

The tone he adopts in this book does not surprise me, but it may have surprised some of his victims. It is analytic, the wit and perception is often acerbic, but in general it is far from unsympathetic to politicians. Paxman muses on what the job is, what it is perceived to be both by those who do it and by the general public, and what persuades people to go in for it. He sees the whole political circus as a combination of the inspiring and the demeaning, its actors a combination of the powerful and the completely futile, helpless, naïve and manipulated. He does not spare individuals, and even American readers ought to be entertained by the part about the ludicrous Sir Gerald Nabarro, whom older British citizens will wince to recall and who would have been thought highly improbable if he had been a character in fiction. He has no strong political convictions of his own so far as I can see, and he is candid about any he ever did have. Like myself, he joined the Labour society at university not through any great belief in Labour but because he could not even stomach the alternative. He feels some obvious nostalgia for the days when there was a clear philosophical divide and not just a choice of managements, as when Clement Attlee's post-war government aspired to 'the socialist commonwealth of Britain', but he is not so simple-minded as to suppose that any such clear ideological choice is possible without disastrous results these days. How much, or rather how little, really depends on ideology as opposed to perceptions, outside influences, individual decisions and particularly individual mistakes, sheer luck and above all what Macmillan called 'events, dear boy, events' is something on which I find him particularly clear-headed and illuminating.

He writes in much the way he talks. That suits me in general, except to say that he is prone to giving too many instances. On air these come over very effectively as pungent asides, in print they tend to dilute the thrust of his argument which is somewhat discursive anyway. This is good-quality journalese, the work of a thoughtful, intelligent and battle-experienced professional, and I found it a very easy and agreeable read. As a writer he is no Muggeridge, but as a thinker he is less egocentric and much fairer-minded. He is witty and entertaining, but in fact the funniest thing is not in the text of the book at all, but the last two quotes from reviews on the back page, and I'm sure he picked those, or at least approved them, himself. He would not, I'm sure, expect me to award him 5 stars, and consequently I have not done so.

The rise and fall - Rated
Jeremy's book charts the rise and fall of a hypothetical polititian in an attempt to better discover what makes and motivates the species. The book is extremely well researched with a liberal sprinkling of anecdotes, facts and conjecture. The writing style is gloriously indirect and verbose in a very British way, something that might not appeal to all, but which for me added to the joy of reading.
The portrait of a polititian that emerges is a pretty damning one, but is neither unsympathetic or unkind. "Feet of Clay", one of the chapter titles, perhaps best illustrates what I mean. We discover that they are human too, in fact perhaps even a little more human than the rest of us in a strange way.
There are also some fantastic lines, such as "Golden candyfloss helmet" to decribe one MP's blonde, rain soaked wig.
Definitely a buy recommendation if you have an interest in British politics and at least a passing knowledge of a name or two from the scene, so as to better appreciate the anecotes.