What should one do if one’s own Member of Parliament were to misrepresent reality and twist the truth in order to raise their profile on social media and blow their own trumpet in the House of Commons? One asks this purely hypothetically, of course, for it would be truly beyond the pale were such a thing to happen for real.
Imagine this entirely theoretical scenario. One’s local Member of Parliament visits a comprehensive school within his (or her) constituency. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that this is a school in which one has worked for many happy years and is therefore a school in which one is emotionally invested and indeed a school of which one has an intimate knowledge. It is possible, for example, that one might well have taught a lesson in pretty much every single classroom in such a school. One might, indeed, have a thorough knowledge of the school and the fabric of its buildings, as a result of working there full time for well over a decade. Since leaving this school (again, entirely hypothetically), one might have maintained contact with it on and off, and one might have visited the school on occasion. All possible, in this entirely imaginary tale, I hope you can agree. What is less plausible in one’s story is the behaviour of the Member of Parliament.
To continue this whimsical flight of fancy, imagine that the Member of Parliament saw fit to poke about in an area of the school that has been condemned for several years and is completely shut off to both students and staff. Imagine that this has been the case for so long that — as someone who has worked there for over a decade — one is not even entirely sure where that part of the school actually is, since in one’s imagined scenario the condemned area has been quite rightly out of bounds. Perhaps nobody goes there and perhaps nobody has access to it except for the site team, in this altogether imaginary school in this altogether made-up story. Despite these facts (I say “facts”, but of course, do remember that this is an entirely fictional tale), the Member of Parliament in one’s story takes some pictures of this disused area (imagine that! Ludicrous!) then shares those pictures on his (or her) social media pages and makes claims about the entire school being in “an appalling state”. I mean … this is simply ridiculous, isn’t it? Any publisher would reject such a story as thoroughly unconvincing. Rip up the story and start again, you foolish author, for our fine upstanding Members of Parliament do not behave in such a way. They are busy, important people; they have no truck with such shenanigans.
Forgive me, but we must stretch this truly bizarre tale even further, to the point where you will of course recognise it for the blatant fiction that it must be. For this entirely imaginary Member of Parliament actually speaks in the House about his (or her) visit to this wholly make-believe comprehensive, in a manner that could, in extremis (and, of course, this is what makes this account so obviously hypothetical), be considered misleading to the House. He (or she) describes classrooms (note the plural! Classrooms!) which are “held together by gaffer tape”, leaving one, in one’s imagined scenario, scratching one’s head and struggling to picture the classrooms that he (or she) is talking about. He (or she) then goes on to describe the disused area of the school of which he (or she) took these photographs, and claims that he (or she) “almost fell through the floor” and was what’s more assailed by the stench of mould, all the while insinuating that this is actually representative of the state of the school. The classrooms, after all, you may recall from the imaginary description, are “held together by gaffer tape.” So, in this crazy hallucination, one is still left trying desperately to picture whether one saw a single piece of gaffer tape in one’s entirely imagined 13 years at this entirely fictional comprehensive school. One’s imagination may seem to have completely run away, for in one’s head the very same school is (in an alternate universe that one might call reality) so well-maintained that it is positively the envy of other schools in the area. So free from decay is the site (a source of pride for its site team) that visitors comment on the fact. This is all in one’s vivid imagination, you understand.
In a final flourish to one’s extraordinarily far-fetched tale (I really must write it up some time), one’s fabricated Member of Parliament doubles down when challenged on social media, deletes all of one’s posts in which one points out that he (or she) has misled the House, and even claims to be doing what he (or she) is doing at the behest of the school. This is despite the fact that he (or she) is not in government and not in a position to secure them any funding and perhaps despite the fact (and here things get really wild) that the Leadership team at the school might, one could possibly fantasise in one’s wildest moments, have asked him (or her) to desist. One can just about conceivably imagine that it has been made clear to this MP gone rogue that his (or her) interference and naming of the school on social media and at Westminster is distinctly unhelpful and unwelcome. Could one not?
What an extraordinary tale, I am sure you’ll agree! So, what would one do, in this entirely imagined situation? (I realise that it is so ludicrous that you might not even consider it worth fleshing out a plan for such an unlikely situation, but do humour me for a few more lines). One would, I suspect, have to write to this Member of Parliament directly, as one of his (or her) constiuents, in order to express in no uncertain terms one’s disquiet with his (or her) behaviour. One might even have to explore what avenues there are for making a formal complaint about such a state of affairs, given one’s sincere belief that a distinctly less than truthful statement has been made within the hallowed walls of Parliament. Furthermore, if one were to find oneself in this highly unlikely position, one would certainly (one imagines) feel thoroughly disillusioned with the honesty and integrity of one’s democratically elected representative and one would (one suspects) feel glad, not for the first time, that one did not personally vote for such a person.
