This event perfectly justifies what I want to do anyway

Not that which event matters all that much, nor what it is that the respondent wants to do. It’s just a normal part of political justification - this has happened and that justifies my plan, see?

An updated MPs’ code of conduct, which should also have a statutory footing, should include a general prohibition on MPs’ second jobs – with only a few exceptions required to maintain professional memberships, such as in medicine.

We do tend to think that MPs having other jobs is a jolly good idea. Actually, ongoing and continuing exposure to what politics does to the country seems like a good idea to us - therefore those who make the laws should be trying to do something under the constraints of those laws. But that’s us disagreeing with Gordon Brown - not an exceptional event to be fair - rather than discussing the events he’s using as his justification.

His justification is that Mandelson was a very naughty boy and therefore MPs should be barred from second jobs. But Mandelson’s naughtyboyness was in angling for well paid jobs to follow his political service, not while. If MPs are to be barred from working elsewhere while an MP this increases or reduces their ability to gain, on their own merits, well paid work once they are turfed out by the electorate? Thus, their angling for well paid work to follow the turfing will be greater or lesser if they’re not allowed to keep their knowledge, skills and CV up to date?

We’d suggest that MPs keeping their hand in is useful in and of itself - our first argument - but also in reducing the amount of selling of political access they’ll do later - entirely the opposite of G Brown’s justification.

But then there ever is little logic to the insistence that this event means we should do whatever it is that was first thought of. For the usual logic is actually that I want this to be done now what excuse can I find for it? Excuses, d’ye see, don’t have to be logical nor even relevant.

Tim Worstall