"Once elected, the job of an MP is to represent the people of his or her constituency (constituents) in Parliament, whether or not they voted for him or her."
Factsheet M1 Members Series Revised October 2005

"My job as an Labour MP
is to support the Labour Government and work for the re-election of another
Labour Government"
Sion Simon MP on Sky News, 12 October 2006 (03.24 into the video)

I think the public would like the first job description to be true but believe that the second is more common.  And that’s one of the reasons for a distrust of politicians.

(hat-tip to Bob Piper for pointing me towards the video but not for the reason of this post.)


2 Comments

Andrew Brown · 14th October 2006 at 11:25 am

I don’t think these positions are mutually exclusive.
Clearly (almost) every MP would rather that their Party were in Government and almost all those I’ve had anything to do with have done their best to represent the interests of their constituents.

Shane · 14th October 2006 at 2:00 pm

Possibly not mutually exclusive but based on what they see on TV which one do most people think comes first?
Of course once constituents meet their MP their estimation of them goes up.

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