Peter Moore: MPs should do more to maintain standards

In this Parliament we have more disgraced MPs than Liberal Democrats. Some of the behaviour may help “Have I got news for you” but occasionally it is beyond satire. We have had an MP ringing a 78-year-old lady at 3.15 in the morning asking for £5,000, another MP sending photos of his genitals to a stranger online and another watching tractor porn on his phone in the chamber of the House of Commons. 

Has this behaviour always been happening?  If it does not affect the constituency, should we turn a blind eye? After all Earl Grey, as well as being famous for his tea, was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834. He abolished slavery throughout the empire, introduced the Great Reform Bill and got the Duchess of Devonshire pregnant.  What would have happened if Earl Grey had a smart phone? 

Would this behaviour be accepted in any other profession? It may sound old fashioned, but MPs are meant to be professionals which should carry with it certain responsibilities.

In my old job as a GP we were overseen by the General Medical Council. (GMC). I have no doubt that had I ever been locked in a flat with bad people and demanded £5000 from a 78-year-old in the middle of the night the GMC would have looked at the incident carefully. (For the avoidance of doubt, I didn’t).  The GMC have the power to strike a doctor off the register which means that they can no longer practice. If that is seen as a red card, they also provide yellow cards. Sometimes they limit what the doctor is allowed to do and sometimes they insist that the doctor works under supervision with a senior doctor reporting back on progress. 

When I started at medical school there was an introductory lecture when we were told that   we should always look the part. “You may have to tell someone they have cancer and need their voice box removed or tell someone that they have a poor outlook”. The patient and the family must have faith in the doctor and someone in T Shirt and jeans chewing gum may not exude confidence. Even as students we had to have short hair and wear a tie in the anatomy department and on the wards. 

I was also a tutor for medical students in my own practice. One student had a stud in his tongue. I thought this was inappropriate but was I a dinosaur? Has the world moved on? I spoke to his tutor at the University who agreed with me. “In any consultation it is vital that the attention is always on the patient and not the doctor. Nothing must deflect attention from the patient”.  

On another occasion a young female student wore a low-cut top. My female partner asked me to mention it to her. I wondered whether it would be better coming from her but she pointed out that I was the official tutor. I gently discussed it and, from then on, she came into the practice with a top which would not have looked out of place on a nun. 

A hospital doctor with a low-cut top also created a problem for one of my patients. He was a pleasant elderly man with a heart condition. He was reviewed regularly at Torbay Hospital but, after one review I received a letter telling me that he had high blood pressure. This was new. When I saw him in surgery his blood pressure was back to normal. “Do you know that doctor?” he asked me. I didn’t. “She’s gorgeous, wore a low top and then bent forward to check my blood pressure…”. Neither me nor the cardiologist ever found his blood pressure raised again.

The vast majority of MPs behave well. I do not expect MPs to have exemplary lives. After all we are electing MPs not the Archbishop of Canterbury but perhaps we should expect all of them to, at least, show the same level of behaviour as we expect from doctors and other professionals.