What was appealing about Crosland was that he was a Cavalier in a Roundhead party, so many of his comments were outrageous, particularly his undisguised dislike of the House of Commons.

I thought of him this week, because Tuesday was the deadline for nomination papers to be handed in for those wanting to run for election to the House of Commons.

Nomination used to be a little town hall ceremony where rival politicians chatted uneasily while sipping sherry.

“That awful sherry should be a warning of what’s to come,” Crosland said to me in 1964. “You’ve been elected to parliament and you’re consumed with pride right now, but soon you’ll be bored to death with the place. The only way you’ll be able to tolerate it is to stay away as often as possible.”

buzz’

Crosland wasn’t trying to shock, he meant it. In his own early career he’d been rebuked for being drunk in parliament. “How else is one to endure being here?” he replied.

At the present time, when we’re told the House of Commons isn’t respected - though it’s one of our most famous institutions - it’s worth remembering that the decline in its prestige didn’t start recently.

The Commons doesn’t now have, and is never going to regain, the reputation it had in the 19th Century. Yet prodigious efforts have been made to restore its former glories. For instance, in my time there from 1964 to 1977 the great cry was for modernisation. In many ways it still is.

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Tony Crosland’s open contempt for parliament wasn’t widely shared, but many of my contemporaries sensed that the House of Commons was in decline.

They put this down to parliament giving the appearance that it was out-of-date. They felt it needed a contemporary buzz.

My friend Sir Robin Day suggested one. He made a powerful case for televising parliament. Eventually the change was made. Has this brought fresh life to parliamentary debate? I don’t think so and it’s had one unfortunate, unintended consequence. The chamber of the House of Commons is emptier than it ever was, because MPs can now watch Commons’ debates on the telly in the comfort of their offices without going into the building at all.

The modernisation programme went far beyond televising parliament, but perhaps it made things worse. MPs voted themselves adequate pensions, special offices and large secretarial allowances. They were given greater security to concentrate on their job and better facilities to do it.

Professional politicians

But what exactly is an MP’s job? Is it like a full-time job in private business? I remember discussing this issue with some of my colleagues 30 years ago. They were reformers to a man.

To begin with, most of them were eager that the parliamentary day should be changed. They didn’t want the existing arrangement of afternoon and evening sittings. They wanted something much closer to the nine-to-five working day.

Again and again the significant word “normal” was used. “Normal” hours should be worked so that a “normal” family life could be lived. When I pointed out that one of the reasons for using the evenings was to free up the day so that MP’s didn’t have to be professional politicians, but could do some work outside parliament, some of my friends grew enraged.

They let me know that they wanted to be professional politicians and they disapproved of MP’s having outside financial interests. So did the British people, they said. The people no longer trusted MP’s and were suspicious of any activities they didn’t know about. There should be a register of interests so that every penny earned and every treat enjoyed must be written down. Then the people would be reassured.

Genius in the House of Commons represents failure, any government job equals success

What was necessary was to make an MP’s work open to scrutiny, so that the voters could see that he, or she, was working flat out to get their benefits paid, their jobs preserved, their drains unblocked and their hospitals improved.

I wasn’t particularly enchanted by this vision of the narrow and puritan life politicians would have to lead in order to be trusted and it did occur to me that neither Winston Churchill nor Disraeli could have lasted five minutes in such a climate of opinion. Hugh Gaitskell and Nye Bevan wouldn’t have been around for long either.

Nevertheless events proved my colleagues were right. The avoidance of scandal has become the chief duty of an MP. And it helps to be regarded as diligent, obedient and orthodox.

The changes made in the House of Commons were an unavoidable response to both public and fashionable demand. But if anybody thought that lost respect would be recaptured by these means then they’ve been .

The Commons isn’t well regarded however hard it tries. And I might know the reason why. I used to be friendly with an elderly peer who’d been close to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.

Democracy in danger

One day he disturbed Baldwin apparently asleep on a couch in his room in the House of Commons. Baldwin opened an eye and said: “I’m not asleep, I’ve just been thinking that mine will be the last government where parliament is supreme.”

Alarmed by what seemed a prediction that democracy was in danger my friend, who was then an earnest young man, said: “Oh dear, prime minister where do you think the threat will come from?” Baldwin sat up and said briskly: “Why from Whitehall of course, where else? The time’s coming when the government will swamp parliament.”

Baldwin, a grossly underrated figure incidentally, foresaw in 1936 what becomes ever more obvious as year succeeds to year.

When I was first told this story it made a great impression on me because it made transparent what I’d always half-known, but tried to avoid thinking about. Some of my friends, including Tony Crosland, had very little interest in the House of Commons. They wanted to be ministers. If they had to spend any serious length of time on the backbenches they’d be off. Of course there’s nothing wrong with such ambition.

Indeed I’d go further. It’s the only kind of political ambition many lobby journalists understand, as I can illustrate. The greatest House of Commons figure of my time was Michael Foot, who for 30 years made brilliant and witty speeches at the drop of a hat. But he’d always refused ministerial office, until he joined the cabinet in1974.

Sir Robin Day pushed for televising parliament

Jimmy Margach, lobby with the Sunday Times, came up to me chuckling and said: “I’ve just been asked by a new boy in the lobby why Foot, who’s been a failure for so long, has suddenly become a success.” There you have it. Genius in the House of Commons represents failure, any government job equals success.

It is government - where Tony Crosland wanted to be - that’s prized, not the House of Commons. And it’s easy to see why.

Jimmy Margach went on to write a book in 1978 in which he said: “The stark fact is that Whitehall and the Executive have during this century - and before my very eyes - arrogated to themselves the supreme power and authority of parliament.”

That was written 27 years ago. Since then the British Government has got stronger, not to mention the power now exercised by the European Union. The House of Commons is a poor, frail thing alongside this. Yet I’d be upset if anybody thought the House of Commons had been diminished by some dark conspiracy. Everything that’s happened has been done in the open.

Of course there’s a concerned minority in the country that worries about the impotence of the House of Commons, and may be disturbed by the implications of the new European constitution, or the long-term of Scottish devolution.

But politics these days is no longer about such things. It’s been reduced to basics - the big issue is whether the government is dishing out the goodies - or failing to. Tony Crosland would have been delighted to know that his priorities prevailed.

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