Commons and Lords

A Short Anthropology of Parliament

Emma Crewe

• Publisher: Haus Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781910376072
• eBook ISBN: 9781910376270
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The British Parliament rewards close scrutiny not just for the sake of democracy, but also because the surprises it contains challenge our understanding of British politics. Commons and Lords pulls back the curtain on both the upper House of Lords and the lower House of Commons to examine their unexpected inner workings.

Based on fieldwork within both Houses, this volume in the Haus Curiosities series provides a surprising twist in how relationships in each play out. The high social status of peers in the House of Lords gives the impression of hierarchy and, more specifically, patriarchy. In contrast, the House of Commons conjures impressions of equality and fairness between members. But actual observation reveals the opposite: while the House of Lords has an egalitarian and cooperative ethos that is also supportive of female members, the competitive and aggressive House of Commons is a far less comfortable place for women. Offering many surprises and secrets, this book exposes the sheer oddity of the British parliament system.

Notes

1. Thanks to Peter Hennessy (Series Editor) and Barbara Schwepcke at Haus Publishing for commissioning this Curiosity; Richard Cracknell for guidance on statistics; Phil Cowley and Mark Stuart for permission to use their data; the Leverhulme Trust and the Economic and Social Research Council for funding my research in Parliament; Sir Michael Davies and Lord Lisvane for the parliamentary passes and invaluable guidance; the Justice Select Committee for allowing me to watch private proceedings; and the following for their comments on earlier drafts: Peter Hennessy, Paul Coupar, Frances Butler, Nick Walker, Nicholas Vester, Chloe Challender and Simon Patrick as well as participants in a seminar at the anthropology department in University College London. I dedicate this pamphlet to my parents, Sally Ashburton and Colin Crewe.

2. Earl Ferrers, HL Debates, 13 May 1999, col. 1345. Unfortunately she would have to go back in time because Earl Ferrers died in 2012.

3. In World War II, barbarous atrocities characterised the jungle war in Asia, while the desert war in North Africa, though equally hard-fought, was distinguished by scrupulous decency on both sides. For details about such attitudes, see Emma Crewe, Lords of Parliament: Manners, rituals and politics (Manchester University Press, 2005).

4. Conservative life peer interviewed by Emma Crewe in 1998.

5. See the work of Meg Russell, Matthew Flinders, and Phil Cowley.

6. I explain more about the anthropological method, contrasting it with a new-institutionalist approach, in this article: Emma Crewe, ‘Ethnographic Research in Gendered Organizations: the Case of the Westminster Parliament’, Politics and Gender, vol. 10, pp. 1–7, 2014.

7. This included 121 peers and 58 staff in the Lords, and 44 MPs, 24 former MPs (18 of these were in the peers’ category), and 41 parliamentary staff, MPs’ staff, civil servants, journalists and Special Advisers in the Commons or government departments.

8. Emma Crewe, Lords of Parliament: Manners, rituals and politics (Manchester University Press, 2005) and Emma Crewe, House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at work (Bloomsbury, 2015).

9. Daniel Greenberg, Laying down the law: A discussion of the people, processes and problems that shape Acts of Parliament (Sweet and Maxwell, 2011), p. 110.

10. This only includes peers who are eligible to sit and not those who have taken a leave of absence or been suspended. Membership of the House of Lords, http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/composition-of-the-lords/ [accessed 16 February 2015].

11. http://www.publicwhip.org.uk [accessed 4 February 2015). These patterns are confirmed by the House of Lords Library, House of Lords: Party and Group Strengths and Voting, LLN 2012/026, 27 June 2012.

12. Rates of rebellion 1945–2014, http://revolts.co.uk/?p=711 [accessed 3 February 2015]. With the kind permission of Phil Cowley and Mark Stuart.

13. Emma Crewe, ‘An Anthropology of the House of Lords: Socialization, relationships and rituals’, Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, p. 316.

14. Lord Carter, HL Debates, 27 March 2001, cols 104–105.

15. Stephen Lukes, Essays on Social Theory (Macmillan, 1977), pp. 68–9.

16. See Shirin Rai, ‘Disruptive democracy: Analysing legislative protest’, Democratization, Vol. 20, 2013, pp. 385–91.

17. Conservative membership is down from nearly 3 million in 1951 to under 180,000 in 2011, while Labour’s decreased from 880,000 to under 200,000 during the same period. The Lib Dems have lost over 20,000 of their 90,000 members since 1991. The Caravan Club has more members than all the political parties put together, at around one million (http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/membership/about-us/who-we-are/club-facts [accessed 16 February 2015]).

18. Earl Russell, HL Debates, 13 October 1998, col. 1324.

19. Interview with Emma Crewe in spring 2000.

20. Lord Weatherill told me this story on 26 June 2000.

21. Emma Crewe, The House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work (Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 137, 143.

22. Interview with Emma Crewe on 17 December 2013.

23. Interview with Emma Crewe on 15 May 2000.

24. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100217916/david-camerons-personalmessage-to-tory-members-in-full [accessed 20 May 2013].

25. Richard Fenno, Home Style: House Members in their Districts (HarperCollins,1978) p. 56.

26. Interview with Emma Crewe on 24 July 2012.

27. To be more precise members are elected within parties and then approved by the Committee of Selection and then the House itself, whereas chairs are elected by the whole House.

28. The Reform of the House of Commons Committee was set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009 to consider proposals to improve parliament. It was chaired by former MP Tony Wright so became known as the Wright Committee.

29. Jesse Norman, tweet, 06/07/2012 17:56.

30. Malcolm Rifkind MP, HC Debates, 9 July 2012, col. 52–3.

31. Nadhim Zahawi was on the same Board by 2014 and Penny Mordaunt was appointed as a Minister in the same year.

32. Interview with Emma Crewe on 1 July 1998.

33. Emma Crewe, Lords of Parliament: Manners, rituals and politics (Manchester University Press, 2005) p. 106.

34. Earl Ferrers, HL Debates, 3 December 1957, vol. CCVI, col. 709–10.

35. As quoted by Dorothy Hughes, Women in the House of Lords, House of Lords LLN 2014/008, 2014, p. 5.

36. Ibid, p. 17.

37. Emma Crewe, Lords of Parliament: Manners, rituals and politics (Manchester University Press, 2005) p. 118.

38. MP participant at a conference in Parliament, 28 October 2011.

39. Sarah Childs, ‘A feminised style of politics? Women MPs in the House of Commons’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 6, 2004, p.10.

40. Rosie Campbell and Sarah Childs, ‘Parents in Parliament: “Where’s Mum?”’, Political Quarterly, vol. 85, issue 4, pp. 487–492.

41. Paul Flynn, How to be an MP (Biteback Publishing, 2012), p. 138.

42. Emma Crewe, House of Commons: An Anthropology of MPs at Work (Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 173–4

43. Ibid, p. 174.

44. Ibid, pp. 174–5.

45. Nirmal Puwar, Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place (Berg, 2004).

46. The Democratic Audit, www.democraticaudit.com/?p=2278 [accessed 3 February 2015].

47. Sarah Childs and Mona Lena Krook, ‘Critical Mass Theory and women’s political representation’, Political Studies, vol. 56, 2008, pp. 731, 734.

48. Butler, Judith, 1988. ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal 40 (4), p. 528.

49. Richard Rorty, 1990, ‘Feminism and Pragmatism’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, University of Michigan, 7 December 1990. http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/r/rorty92.pdf [accessed 4 February 2015], p. 4.

50. Both the written and oral evidence can be found on the parliamentary website, http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/house-of-commons-governance-committee/house-of-commons-governance/oral/15827.pdf [accessed 4 February ...

Table of contents

• COMMONS AND LORDS
• Contents
• Parliamentary curiosities
• Party discipline: the whips have no clothes
• Women in Parliament: Performing patriarchy
• Parliamentary scrutiny: Reading the runes
• Seductive gilded village and addictive city of torture
• Notes