As someone who is almost young and never cool, I am duty-bound to report a newish trend from the front line of the actually young and cool: TikTok. Users of the app are sharing their dating “red flags”: early signs that a potential partner is a wrong ’un. They range from eating too much protein to being a Taurus and — my favourite — using the phrase “You’re not like the other girls”. Intended as a compliment, what this actually means is: “I usually hate women, but for you I am willing to make a brief exception.”
I am always reminded of this phrase when MPs tell me that “parliament is not like other workplaces”. This line is usually wheeled out after a bullying or harassment scandal or, more specifically, after the attempts at reform that follow the scandal. Again, to translate, what this phrase actually means is: “Proper HR processes are for other, lesser workplaces. Not for us. We are different. We are not like the other girls.”
Imagine my delight, then, when I saw last week that Tory MPs were calling for parliament to operate like “a normal workplace”. Finally the time for reform had come. The sunlit uplands were on the way. Except it hadn’t, and they weren’t. It turns out that this desire for a “normal workplace” was restricted to a change to the process of investigating MPs accused of wrongdoing.
But let’s not be cynical. Let’s take them at their word. Perhaps MPs really do want a normal workplace. How would that actually look? As someone who (on a particularly good day at least) could be considered to do a real job, or at least to know some people who do, I have some suggestions.
For a start, normal workplaces have HR departments that ensure promotions take place on the basis of merit. This would avoid the debacle we saw last week of MPs trotting along to vote for a motion they all knew to be profoundly wrong because they also knew that if they failed to do so their careers would be toast. An HR department would also not threaten to remove funding from MPs’ constituencies if they did not toe the line, as the Financial Times reported Tory whips did last week.
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Imagine a world in which our elected representatives could vote with their brains and consciences, and once a year a polite woman with a clipboard would emerge and measure them against several key performance indicators (time taken to respond to emails; avoidance of major national embarrassment: all the usual metrics). Those who performed well could be made junior ministers. I have seen utopia, and it is a middle-aged woman named Susan who has organised the Westminster bake sale and wants to talk to you about your conduct at the Christmas party.
I am not being entirely serious. But the fact remains that parliament needs much better HR. At the moment MPs can manage their offices like mini fiefdoms, with complete control over hiring, firing and promotions. There is nothing to stop them just hiring their mates, or their mates’ kids. Then, once employees are in situ, there is no formal performance review system. Promotions, pay rises and reprimands all exist at the whim of the member.
More often than you would like to think, this system leads to a toxic work environment. Countless parliamentary staff have regaled me with stories of their boss’s unreasonable or creepy behaviour. “You should report it,” I always say. “There is an independent complaints procedure.” More often than not, this is met with a shrug. Staff worry that the process is without teeth and that a complaint would lead to more problems for them than for their employer. If parliament were a “normal workplace”, staff would be allocated centrally by and answer to an HR department, fixing these problems. Try mentioning this idea to MPs, however, and you will again be met with that old phrase: parliament is not like other workplaces.
I do not want to leave you with the impression that I think that all MPs are sleazy clowns with their hands in the till and their eyes on their staff’s bodies. The large majority are good people. But the system leaves big opportunities for abuse open to those who are not. Some MPs are trying to improve the system. Look at Stella Creasy’s efforts in campaigning for maternity leave for MPs, or Jess Phillips’s work on bullying and harassment. But there is no real momentum in the quest to make parliament a normal workplace.
Normal workplaces have management training days at ring-road hotels, multiple-choice tests in which the answer is always “Report it to my manager”, compulsory diversity training, anti-bullying training, just-about-anything training. Equally, people who take home £4,500 a month after tax and need two houses pay for those houses themselves. But, more important than any of these things, in normal workplaces if HR decides that you have violated the company’s code of conduct, there is not a vote among all your mates to check if they agree.
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This is good enough for the rest of us. But Tory MPs have shown that it is not good enough for them. They are different. They are special. They are not like the other girls, and parliament is poorer for it.