Source: The Conversation – UK
The life of the average British MP is not luxurious or lavish. It is stressful and strange. And sometimes, it can be dangerous.
Former Labour MP Paula Sheriff is the latest to detail the threats she endured in her time at Westminster and call for greater protection for politicians.
MPs are expected to be “on call” 24/7 and be able to cope with incompatible pressures and demands. All their friends and family – even girlfriends or boyfriends from the distant past – suddenly become fair game in the eyes of the media. At the same time, Sheriff said she continued to receive threats several years after stepping down as an MP.
To explain this shift, three reference points come to mind.
Political psychologist Ashley Weinberg once asked a deceptively simple question: should the job of national politician carry a government health warning? Weinberg’s contribution focuses on the stress and strain of coping with modern political life.
Precarious employment, limited resources, unsettled personal life and a low-trust, high-blame environment all add to the picture. These pressures have increased in recent years as voters become more volatile, the media more aggressive and sensationalist and the rise of populism ever more divisive.
The death of former Conservative MP and Reform UK spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe has highlighted the issue again. A 28-year-old man has appeared in court charged with her murder and is expected to face trial next year. Meanwhile, police are investigating any possible political motivation.
Back in 2012, a public engagement campaign launched by then-Labour MP Gloria de Piero when she was relatively new to parliament also asked one simple question: why do you hate me? In hindsight, de Piero’s campaign looks incredibly prescient. It identified and sought to understand a distinctive shift in the relationship between the governors and the governed.
Gone was the respectful deference of British society from previous decades. Now, 50 years later it has been replaced by an aggressive, dismissive and sometimes dangerous form of anti-political politics.
The third reference point is a book by psychologist Caroline Elton about medicine and the inner lives of doctors. It also asks a simple question. We turn to doctors when we are stressed and ill, but where can doctors turn at moments of stress or professional collapse?
This is a book about doctors and the harsh realities of medical life. It examines why so much of what they do is traumatic, painful and ultimately unlikely to heal the deep-rooted sources of most of the ailments they face – poverty, deprivation, social inequality and hopelessness, for example.
The clear link between the professions of medicine and politics is rarely acknowledged. MPs and doctors hold “surgeries”, and treat individuals as patients or constituents with limited resources. On top of this, they try to navigate complex and fragmented systems, must sometimes respond to emergencies and crises, are very often dogged by concerns about accountability and inadequate regulation. Ultimately, their relationship with the public is based on trust.
And yet MPs are generally viewed as increasingly untrustworthy, while doctors sit at or near the top of professional trust charts, based on public attitudes.
There are, of course, major differences in the roles of doctors and professional politicians. But the simple fact is that MPs are also human. To return to Elton’s book, they are coping with the usual challenges of life – parenting, caring for ageing parents, managing the mortgage and making sure that there is food in the fridge and that someone is doing the washing.
Little sympathy?
We need only look at Conservative minister-turned-podcaster Rory Stewart’s book, Politics on the Edge, for the realities of political life in Whitehall and Westminster. The pressures of overlapping and often competing pressures left Stewart feeling like a fraud, and one specific event made him briefly contemplate suicide.
The Life of an MP by Labour’s Jess Phillips provides an even starker account of the threats, misogyny and abuse that female MPs experience. This explains the large number of recent reviews and reports that outline increasing levels of harassment and security concerns about MPs.
An interesting picture on changing social attitudes to politics is provided by the award-winning book, The Good Politician. Using the UK’s mass observation archive, the authors reveal how public attitudes – and more specifically the language used by the public to discuss and describe politicians – evolved throughout the 20th century. Put simply, the language used by the end of the century would have been unimaginable 60 years earlier. It became more forceful, personalised, critical and aggressive.
This evolved rapidly during the first years of the 21st century. Critical attitudes and aggressive assertions have progressed into an increasing tendency towards action.
The murders of MPs Jo Cox and David Amess fit within this narrative, but beneath these terrible events lies a now almost normalised pattern of abuse. The fire bombing of Keir Starmer’s family home makes him possibly the first prime minister to leave Number 10 without an obvious place to go to.
The simple fact is that politics is an increasingly dangerous profession. The great risk is that these perils will further reduce the already diminished pool of people who think that “getting into politics” is a sensible pursuit.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Matthew Flinders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/08/25/how-political-life-in-britain-became-so-dangerous/