I will never forget the expression on the East Enders’ faces when I rode past in a chariot while canvassing for their votes during my first attempt to become an MP.
I was behind a group dressed in Egyptian clothing. One person was dressed as Queen Cleopatra. We even had a camel. (This was because East London’s council offices were built in the shape of pyramids. Miss Bluebell, a beauty diva, was with me on a float.
During that campaign in the Labour stronghold of Newham in 1979, I often attached a loudspeaker to my car and drove through the streets blaring out Rod Stewart’s hit Maggie May.
It was in memory of Maggie Thatcher, then our party leader. It’s amazing how times have changed. I didn’t win Newham, but 1979 was the year of Mrs Thatcher’s first triumph.
She was, without a doubt, the most brilliant and thought-provoking politician that I have ever known. It’s difficult to think of anyone else who has changed our country and the world as much.
She understood the hopes, dreams, and hopes of ordinary people. I’m often asked how she would view modern politics if she were alive today. In some ways, she would be in complete despair and disbelief. She would have been thrilled at the EU referendum result. She would be stunned and appalled at the rise to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and the revival and expansion of the far Left.
I’ve no doubt she would be saddened by the decline of Parliament, with its reduced working hours and the rise of the unelected power of bureaucrats.
At the risk of sounding too Victor Meldrew-like, Parliament has changed a lot since 1983, when I was first elected. And not always for the best. It is difficult for me to compare any of these new recruits to the 20th Century’s greatest thinkers.
Best of British: Sir David, above, with his dogs Lilly and Beau, during the Westminster Dog of the Year Competition in 2012, which involved a host of MPs from all over the UK
Enoch Powell, Tony Benn, and Michael Foot all had distinct personalities. They could be unpredictable, but they were also passionate, passionate, and willingly put their lives on the line for what was right.
They could also make a real impact. I find myself telling constituents all too often that I cannot create change in the same way as politicians back in 1980s.
This is due in large part to the fact that more people are elected to power. The public elected debaters and orators in the 20th Century. They were people who had the ability to persuade and could fill a room with energy and leave you feeling awed and amazed.
With today’s crop, interactions are via third-party social-media platforms and often debates are held with very few MPs in the Chamber. The eccentrics have, in general, vanished.
Sir Nicholas Fairbairn was the Tory MP in Perth and Kinross. It was quite an experience to meet him. He wore a tartan jacket like Rupert Bear and a working revolver attached to his belt.
Of course, back then, email and text messages were not available. My secretary sat at what would now be regarded as an old-fashioned golf-ball typewriter, churning out responses to constituents’ individual handwritten letters. It would take at most a week to receive and send a reply via the post.
Today, the impact of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp is clearly different and has significantly affected the quality and quantity of debate. However, it does have its benefits. My ability communicate effectively and efficiently has increased threefold with constituents. My constituents know what I do at all times of the day.
I was 11 years old when I decided to become a MP. I know it is terrible and unhealthy. The boy who sat next to me at St Bonaventure’s Grammar School in Forest Gate, East London, wanted to become a meteorologist, and we both achieved our ultimate ambitions.
Sir David pictured just weeks ago with wife Julia at daughter Alexandra’s wedding with their other daughters as bridesmaids
I was born on March 26, 1952, at Howard’s Road Hospital, Plaistow. My mother was one 11-year-old child and was raised within the earshot of Bow Bells. My father quit school at an early age, and for most of his adult life, he worked as an electrician for London Electricity Board.
My children laugh in disbelief that we didn’t have many of the modern amenities people take for granted today. We didn’t have a bathroom, a refrigerator, a telephone or telephony. A tin bath was mounted on the outside wall. There was also an outside toilet and a larder.
During my secondary school years, I’d become aware of the physical deterioration of our East London neighbourhood. The environment was becoming more dangerous, the roads were neglected, and the housing was in poor condition. I set out to find out who was responsible. Surprise, surprise! It was Labour!
The 40-year-old local MP was not a resident of the constituency and did not hold any surgeries. At this point it was clear: I had big ideas and would oppose the current Labour regime.
I was 16 when I received a newsletter from Forest Gate Ward Conservative Association in the spring 1968. It called for new members. I joined the party immediately and have never looked back.
After high school, I attended Bournemouth College of Technology, where I received a degree as an economist, and then briefly became a special needs teacher at a Bethnal Green junior school.
I was a candidate in the 1977 Greater London Council elections, but lost. I was then elected as the prospective Newham North West parliamentary candidate. I also lost that election, despite the support of Queen Cleopatra & Miss Bluebell.
Nevertheless, I was privileged enough to be chosen to represent Basildon in the 1983 General Election.
Standing on a podium in a building that had once been a zoo, I never expected to win – but I did. My childhood dream became a reality. I was the first elected MP with no county or local councillors from my party in the constituency. Four weeks prior to the local elections, only 28% of the votes had been won by the Conservatives. I had achieved the most unlikely victory.
When I first arrived at Westminster, there was a fearsome woman in the Whips’ Office called Mary Frampton. She was very large and everyone seemed afraid of her. She was known by many as ‘Bomber Command’.
I didn’t know what kind of office it might be. I’m not sure I had even considered it – I was just happy to have been elected.
During my 15 or so years as MP for Basildon – before switching to Southend West because of boundary changes – I believe I was able to make a huge difference to people’s lives. I was able to stop three school closings and I stopped the razing of a silver-birch forest. I also persuaded the former Housing Minister to purchase 10,000 properties that were sold to tenants under Right to Buy, but which were uninsurable due to the movement of underground clay.
With two days to go before Basildon Hospital A&E was to be closed, on the advice of a completely misguided health bureaucrat, I was able to stop the closure. As a constituency MP, it would be difficult for me to repeat those successes today. Unelected bodies hold the real power.
All of this is based on the inexorable rise of the power, and interference of EU and its impact upon parliamentary legislation. I am optimistic that the Brexit vote will result in the restoration of Parliament’s sovereignty and that of our MPs and Ministers.
Much of Parliament’s power had already been undermined by the endless quangos introduced by Tony Blair. These unelected, unaccountable organizations, often with high-paid senior staff, have increasingly become the real power sources for so many things that influence our daily lives. These bodies are more than happy to take the blame for things that go wrong.
I look back at the Blair years with complete disdain. Blair was considered by many to be the greatest con man and charlatan of all time. He was the biggest egotistical maniac I’ve ever met.
I had always felt that he thought Parliament was a nuisance.
It was completely false to claim that he was another Margaret Thatcher disguised as New Labour. He was a brilliant PR man. After being elected PM in 1997, for the cameras, he quickly invited Mrs Thatcher to No 10 – after which she made the statement that he wouldn’t damage our country.
She was so wrong.
During the 1992 Election, Labour launched their campaign with Blair arriving in a cavalcade at Vange & Pitsea Working Men’s Social Club in Essex. The very idea that Blair, given his background, had anything in common with a working men’s club was truly laughable, yet the media bought into the lie.
Blair would claim that he was the saviour for the Labour Party and did tremendous good, but I completely disapprove of many of his decisions.
He broke up the United Kingdom, and I blame him for many difficulties we are now experiencing in Scotland. He interfered in the House of Lords, removing the hereditaries. However, he fundamentally failed to reform foundations on the revising chamber.
I blame him for his handling of immigration in general and for changing London’s face without regard to social cohesion.
I blame him above all for misleading Parliament about the war with Iraq.
I won Basildon for the second consecutive time in 1987. Standing on a podium in a building that had once been a zoo, I never expected to win – but I did, writes Sir David
He has blood on his hands. He brought terrorism to these countries much faster than was normal, and the world order was ultimately destabilised. Even though he was so miserable, I preferred Gordon Brown.
Since my first days as a Parliamentary member, the security threats we face today are not easily recognized. 1979: The IRA bomb which killed the Tory MP Airey Neave at the underground Commons parking lot. [the INLA in fact claimed responsibility]The 1984 Brighton bombing triggered a period of change.
MPs have been given advice about personal security ever since Neave’s death. As an MP with a young family, I was informed of a death threat made against me, apparently by the IRA, to coincide with the 1990 visit of Princess Diana to our local hospice, St Luke’s. I was given appropriate suggestions by the police, including having an emergency button near our bed. Mercifully, nothing happened.
We still regularly check our locks at homes and many others have CCTV cameras. However, the most significant change has been in constituency surgeries. It is important to be more cautious when accepting appointments. Never to see someone alone.
These increasing attacks have ruined the great British tradition of people meeting their elected politicians.
Life passes by so quickly and it’s easy to forget how you saw the world when you were young.
Sir David beams proudly while he is with his son, also David and daughter Katie, while Julia cradles baby Alexandra. This was 1990.
However, Parliament’s pace of change, which I love, is too fast without much thought or scrutiny. We’ve lost too much experience, too much of our connection with the past. And I feel that wiser and experienced voices have not been there to say: ‘Hang on, let’s think again.’
I feel as if I’m on a journey, yet I’m not entirely sure when it’s going to end. Whether I have mellowed or not is for others to decide, but I now understand what is meant by the expression ‘politics is the art of the possible’.
It’s been frustrating and at times sad to be watching Parliament slowly diminish, but my work is not yet complete. I want to still be able to make a difference, to change people’s lives for the better.
After so many years of wanting us to leave the EU, I’d like to be around for a while to ensure that the benefits of our departure are felt by everyone. I don’t want this to be the last book of my life.
© David Amess, 2020
Ayes & Ears, by David Amess, is published by Luath Press at £14.99. To order a copy for £13.49, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937 before November 7. Free UK delivery on orders over £20. Proceeds from this serialisation will go to David Amess’s chosen charities and the Jo Cox Foundation.