Member News
By Sam Macrory - 7th February 2011
Retread n. (r trd). A revision or reworking; a remake or rehash
Sam Macrory interviews the five MPs who returned to the Commons in 2010 after a period of absence.
As dictionary entries go, the definition for “retread” isn’t glamorous. But in political circles, it is used to define a member of a small and occasionally illustrious club. Tony Benn was a retread. So was Michael Foot.
Winston Churchill managed it twice. More recent club members are Francis Maude, Andrew Mitchell, and Sir Malcolm Rifkind – who retrod the same Kensington and Chelsea seat once held by fellow retreads Michael Portillo and Alan Clark.
These are the politicians who, after being rejected by the electorate, refuse to give up their parliamentary ambitions. They move on from their defeats and prove their former electors wrong, returning to Parliament after enforced or hosen periods of absence, re-emerging a few years older and a little wiser.
The 2010 election saw five retreads return to Parliament. On the Labour side there are four. A triumvirate of former ministers in Geraint Davies, Chris Leslie and Stephen Twigg all relocated after being ousted in 2005, while John Cryer, himself the son of a retread MP in the late Bob Cryer, stayed put in East London to complete his successful comeback. Then there is the one Conservative retread. Jonathan Evans managed to sit out his party’s 13 long years in opposition before making his return to Westminster last May.
Losing hurts. As John Cryer puts it, there’s “nothing so ‘ex’ as an ex-MP”. For Stephen Twigg, the man whose victory against the Conservative minister Michael Portillo became the defining image of the 1997 election, the defeat left him “shell-shocked”. Even a friendly text from Portillo – “May I recommend a by-election” wrote Portillo in a nod to his own 1999 return to Parliament – failed to cheer the mood. But all five were faced with the challenge of finding work and then weighing up how they would plot their return to Westminster.
Now safely returned with the letters MP after their names, the quintet discuss their defeats, the intervening years, and the experience of returning to Westminster, first as an ex-MP and then finally as a re-elected one. Heroic? Desperate? Defiant? Ambitious? The term ‘retread’ holds rather more meaning than you might think.
Did you expect to lose your seat?
Geraint Davies: I overturned a Conservative majority of 15,000 votes in 1997, so I was banking on losing in 2001, but I won with an increased majority, only to lose in 2005 by 75 votes.
Stephen Twigg:I thought I would scrape back in. Jonathan Evans: I had a majority of 130, but I still thought there was a chance I might get re-elected. My count was declared the next day, so I had the opportunity of watching what had happened.
Chris Leslie:I overturned a 12,000 majority in 1997, so I kind of knew the writing was on the wall at some point.
John Cryer:Hornchurch was one of those seats which we were surprised to win in 1997. There was always the possibility that people would go back to the Conservatives – and they did.
How did you react?
GD:Losing your seat is a bit like a bereavement in the family, and losing by just 75 votes makes you think: if I’d switched the votes of 38 more people then I’d have won. You can easily ask if you should have canvassed another road or attended another meeting, but obviously it’s not healthy.
ST: It was a pretty horrible couple of weeks. The victory had been such a big emblem of 1997, it was my home area, and I had grown used to being the local MP. You have to clear out of the office and help the people who were working for you.
JE:It wasn’t the greatest shock in the world. I had only been here five years, which was helpful in establishing what I would do next. The first thing I did was go on holiday for a week.
CL:It was obviously bitterly disappointing to lose my home constituency.
JC: It’s like having a limb lopped off – it’s a massive change. There was no sympathy, but I don’t mind that – I’m not the first person to lose their job.
Were you certain you would stand again?
GD:There was the expectation that I should stick around and win back the seat, but I didn’t fancy being the sad former MP at the back of the residents’ meeting.
ST:On the Tuesday I had lunch with Oona King. She made it very clear that she would not come back, but I knew that I wanted to. I had a strong emotional attachment to my old seat, but I knew I needed to find a new one.
JE:I had always wanted to be in the House of Commons, and I enjoyed it a great deal – but I’m very much against the idea that this is the only thing that you ever do in your life. I’m different from the other retreads. They’ve embarked on a political career, they fell at a hurdle, and they’ve started again on the same journey.
CL:Just as I got to know how the system worked as a minister, I was cut short. I always had a sort of feeling that I wasn’t quite finished. I was toying with how and where, but you can’t afford to do that if you need to earn a crust, so I focused on my day job.
JC:I didn’t think too much about the long term as I needed to make a living, but in the back of my mind was the thought that I wanted to be back here.
What did you do next?
GD:I saw defeat as an opportunity to move back to Wales with my family. I was appointed by Environment Agency Wales and the Welsh Assembly to head up the team to adapt Wales to climate change through investing in flood defences.
ST:I worked for the Aegis Trust and the Foreign Policy Centre. They weren’t chosen to keep me close to this place, but they did, and they gave me flexibility.
JE:There were no Conservative MPs in Wales, so William Hague, the Tory leader, appointed me to be the party spokesman in Wales as we had the referendum coming up. After that, I joined a law firm, but I didn’t want to give up on political involvement altogether so I stood for the European Parliament. A year after my election I stood against our leader, and succeeded him.
CL:I worked for the New Local Government Network, and in 2007 I was seconded to help Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign. JC: I worked as a political officer for Aslef and then the GWU. I really landed on my feet, as I stayed working in politics and the Labour movement.
How did you find returning to Parliament as an ex-MP?
GD: I didn’t come in very often. When you lose you are required to clear your office and exit quite quickly.
ST:At first it was awful. I hated it. On the first time I came back I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. It became easier, but it always felt a little strange.
JE:The atmosphere is not one which left me feeling terribly comfortable about coming along as a former Member.
CL:A lot of people forget that you have lost, and they’re quite embarrassed when they find out. If you had a fragile ego you wouldn’t want to go back to the club that threw you out.
JC:I was back in constantly. The first couple of times it wasn’t too pleasant, but I got used to it.
Do you think you were better off being out when you were?
GD:From outside, the coups and expenses stories underlined the insularity of the Westminster village. If I had picked a time not to be here, then that would have been it.
ST:Realistically, if I had scraped by in 2005 then I would definitely have lost in 2010. But despite the fact it was a very difficult Parliament for Labour, I still wanted to be here.
JE:It can be a debilitating experience being on the back benches in opposition. I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues that have been through that journey, but I had no ambition to be at Westminster during the time that we were over 100 seats behind. From 1999 onwards I never really missed sitting on the back benches.
JC:Obviously Parliament has gone through the mill, but I never thought losing was a good idea.
When did you see a clear route back?
GD:I had originally wanted to become an MP in Wales and in 2007, when Alan Williams said he wouldn’t be standing again in Swansea West, I applied for the candidacy.
ST:I got selected as part of a de-selection – not necessarily the route back in that I would have expected. The Lib Dems selected a candidate with the surname Twigger. I became utterly obsessed that voters would accidentally vote for him, not me. I was less secure than I could have been.
JE:When David Cameron became Conservative leader, he made it clear that he did not want to continue the relationship that the Conservative Party had with the European People’s Party grouping. It was perfectly clear that our influence would be diminished – and that led me to the conclusion that I was unlikely to want to remain in the European Parliament. When events took the turn that they did, it seemed to me that for me to try and win a seat from the Labour Party was a good thing to do.
CL:There was so much ‘churn’ as the election approached, and it occurred to me that there had to be an opportunity.
JC: My return was not necessarily what everyone in the upper echelons of the Labour Party were so keen on, as I had voted quite a lot against the government. It was only at the last minute that Leyton and Wanstead came up.
How is Parliament different for you?
ST: One of the last votes I was involved in in 2005 was to partially reverse the sitting hours. So this is the first time I have had late votes on a Tuesday. I remember Oona saying: “If we lose we won’t have those bloody late nights.”
CL: I was a sole traveller when I first came in, and now I have a family. It’s not a family-friendly place, so it’s much more difficult this time. There is also a lot less respect for the job than there used to be since the problem with expenses.
JC:In 2005 not many people had emails. That’s probably the biggest single difference.
How have you changed?
GD:It’s good to be out for a while as it’s easy to become institutionalised. I enjoyed not being here and doing a job of work in terms of helping Wales adapt to climate change, but it’s good to be back with fresh insights and perspective.
ST: I have lots more experience – I hit the ground running.
JE:After my election in 1992 I probably went through the process of being at every set of questions – you can already see it in those people who are jumping up and down and asking pre-prepared questions. I’m not likely to be in that sort of category.
CL: Before I felt part of a squad that was led: loyalty was very much the driving factor. That is still the case, but now it’s about “what ideas have I got and how can we make them work”, rather than being a foot-soldier and not daring to make a suggestion. In hindsight it might have been good for my soul to lose.
JC:You always learn something from losing, but my political principles are the same.
Do you feel part of the Class of 2010?
GD:The advantage of being a recycled MP is that you can make new friends with the new intake and reconnect with people who were there before.
ST: There is a sense of having a bit in that camp and a bit in the 1997 camp, and of being in either. I suppose those distinctions become less significant with time, but if you acquire a tag then you tend not to lose it. People know me because of 1997 and Portillo, and that win is associated with Tony Blair, but with the passage of time these labels become irrelevant.
JE:I regard myself as part of the 1992 intake, but it’s hard to say where I fit in. I’m not really sure where I am in the batting order, but I have had a career as a minister already.
CL:A lot of my 1997 colleagues have gone, so it’s about making new friends.
JC: I’ve got a lot of friends in the 2010 intake, but when you’re a retread you’re not really part of it.
What are you hoping to achieve?
GD: I’m re-engaging in the areas I have experience in. If Ed wants me to join his team in any way then I’m obviously very happy to do so.
ST: Like Chris, I stood for the shadow cabinet and didn’t get in. I’m now in the shadow foreign affairs team, and I’d like to gain a reputation for seriousness on those issues.
JE:I have a range of issues in which I am very interested, and I think there are a variety of ways I can contribute. I tried for Cardiff North first time around, but they deemed me too young. They can’t complain now that they have me at the age of 60.
CL:As an opposition MP I have the freedom to raise whatever issue I like, and I have spent a lot of time getting it out of my system. I’ve also got the shadow portfolio in the Treasury team that I wanted. I would love to do that in government. I also appreciate that you have a finite time now – when you’re in government, you really ought to seize the day.
JC: I’m not interested in being on the front bench. I want to focus on my constituency and being a backbench MP. I’m on the Treasury select committee and back on the parliamentary committee, the ruling body of the PLP. My constituency has been hit by the cuts and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. No matter how hard you try, you feel as though the prospects of stopping the devastation heading in our direction are very limited. It’s the most depressing experience I have ever had.
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