Nevertheless, his father, Earl Granville, was determined that he should represent the family in the Commons, and he was elected for Yarmouth in 1744. There is no record of Carteret ever speaking in debates, and he seems to have figured out how to vote only once, in 1746. He stood down at the 1747 general election. He did manage to marry one Molly Paddock, ‘a woman of vile extraction, bold, loose, and vulgar’, but evidently did not succeed in working out the rest, for he died without issue in 1776, the last of his line.
38. Lord Randolph Churchill
(1849–95) Conservative, Woodstock 1874–85,
South Paddington 1885–95
Churchill’s career was one of those that promised much but delivered little. Despite being the architect of a new, populist form of Conservatism, which he called ‘Tory Democracy’, his main contribution to political history was his dramatic resignation.
From the outset of his political career in 1874 – the year when his son Winston was born – Churchill was seen as a rising star. But he had a knack of antagonizing the very people whose influence and support he needed. In 1875, he helped to save his brother from being named as co-respondent in Lord Aylesford’s divorce case by threatening to publicize incriminating letters sent by one of Aylesford’s friends to Lady Aylesford. Since that friend was the Prince of Wales, this was not, perhaps, the shrewdest move, and social ostracism beckoned for several years. He survived this, however, and began to build up his own power base within the Conservative Party.
His success in appealing to the grass roots made him a force to be reckoned with, although he never endeared himself to Sir Stafford Northcote, the leader of his party in the Commons. He openly undermined Northcote in opposition after 1880, with the creation of a party-within-a-party, the so-called ‘Fourth Party’. However, this did not matter unduly, as Northcote was rapidly being eclipsed by the party leader in the Lords, the Marquis of Salisbury. Salisbury recognized Churchill’s significance and made him Secretary of State for India and then Chancellor of the Exchequer (which he combined with the job of Leader of the Commons). But in 1886, Churchill threw away all his political advantage by attempting to bluff Salisbury. He threatened to resign in order to achieve cuts in defence. Salisbury called the bluff and let him go.
After his resignation, it seemed as if he might return, but no opportunity ever arose. Salisbury refused to offer him the Paris Embassy that he sought. Meanwhile, his health deteriorated. It was (and still is) widely suspected that he was suffering from secondary, and then tertiary, syphilis. Despite his son’s subsequent denial of this diagnosis, Lord Randolph’s behaviour became ever more erratic, and he died in 1895. We suspect that history might not have paid him much attention at all, had it not been for the achievements of his more successful son.
37. Tom Driberg, 1st Baron Bradwell
(1905–76) Independent & Labour, Maldon 1942–55, Barking 1959–74
Thomas Edward Neil Driberg had many attributes, but a devotion to Parliamentary duty was not among them. He spent most of his time working as a journalist and on his other main interest: blow jobs.
Elected first as an Independent, before taking the Labour whip, Driberg was an assiduous MP in his early Parliamentary career. However, from the 1950s onwards, he increasingly spent his time on writing and oral sex.
There can be few MPs whose skills in fellatio helped gain them a place in the Dictionary of National Biography, but, as the book states, ‘Driberg had a consuming passion for fellating handsome, lean, intelligent working-class toughs.’ Policemen, fellow politicians, miners and sailors were all among his conquests.
Driberg was also an effective, popular writer for newspapers and magazines, and preferred that to spending time on his work as an MP. When Clement Attlee’s government was in its final days, calling in MPs from their sickbeds to help maintain their slim majority, Driberg was off for months at a time covering the Korean War. And we can be reasonably certain that his interest in military activity was not confined to the war effort. Men in uniform had often caught his attention. During the Second World War, he was once caught by a policeman when he was just about to service a sailor’s ‘long, uncircumcised, and tapering, but rock-hard erection’.
While that particular coitus ended in interruptus, most of his encounters were carried off successfully. Apart from one unsuccessful prosecution, Driberg was lucky. It was widely suspected that he had avoided exposure because he had so much incriminating material on pillars of the establishment. It is claimed that he performed fellatio on Nye Bevan, and that he even made a pass at Jim Callaghan. Despite his extracurricular activities, Driberg got married, to a Mrs Ena Mary Binfield. Upon the surprising event, one wag commented that ‘she won’t know which way to turn’.
Intelligent, cultured and able, Driberg might have made a good MP, but we think he deserves his place here for his constant distraction from Parliament. Unsurprisingly, although he was tolerated as an MP, he never achieved ministerial office – that, at least, his party might have found a little too hard to swallow.
36. George Galloway
(b.1954) Labour, Glasgow Hillhead 1987–97, Glasgow Kelvin 1997–2005, Respect, Bethnal Green & Bow, 2005–
George Galloway is very litigious. But we still think he is a crap MP.
35. James Alexander
(1769–1848) Old Sarum 1812–32
There may have been MPs in the unreformed days of Parliament who were more useless than James Alexander, but the accolade he receives here is not just for his own undoubted mediocrity. Uniquely, he is the only MP on this list who qualifies because of his constituency. Alexander was one of the last MPs for the seat of Old Sarum, the most glaring example of ‘pocket boroughs’ in the old electoral system before its reformation in 1832.
Old Sarum deserves its notorious reputation. Pocket boroughs were, literally, bought by wealthy proprietors, who were then able to make sure that the MPs were men who supported their interests. The Earl of Caledon bought Old Sarum in 1802. Just outside Salisbury, it was mostly a collection of old ditches and ramparts from a long-abandoned medieval settlement. In the borough, there were only three houses. You might think that living in the constituency would grant you the right to vote, but you would be wrong.
The Earl believed in ‘one man, one vote’ – just so long as that man was him. Attached to the borough were eleven ‘burgages’, which gave the holder the right to vote, and the Earl decided who held the burgages. These were granted to his friends and family, and in 1812, Caledon decided to elect his cousin, James Alexander, as one of the MPs. He knew the level of commitment he wanted from his Members, noting that if he decided to sell the borough, ‘I am sure they would cheerfully resign.’
Alexander lived down to the Earl’s expectations. He hardly ever spoke in Parliament, always voted with the government, supported the suspension of habeas corpus and defended the property tax. Caledon was so satisfied with his cousin that he exchanged estates with Alexander so that the MP took over the nominations. Unsurprisingly, he always elected himself. Although he has been justifiably forgotten by history, we feel that James Alexander deserves a special mention here: a crap MP for a crap constituency.
34. William Beresford
(1797/8–1883) Conservative,