Jamie Stone MP explains how to spot a quality politician

Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham. This is where the UK’s future defence leaders are trained up. You want to become a General, an Air Marshal, or an Admiral? Well it simply is not going to happen unless you pass a gruelling training session here. It’s not for the faint hearted. 

So here I was, before the last General Election, with a number of MPs gathered around a big table at Shrivenham as the ‘scenario’ was explained to us – a deuced ticklish one. 

On the table, was a model of a harbour “in a non-aligned country” which other countries that were hostile to the United kingdom wished to make use of in an increasingly dangerous international situation. How did the MPs gathered round the table propose to prevent this happening without triggering an all-out third world war? There were questions we could ask and there were Monopoly-style cards containing “intelligence”. You could select and use these and, of course, over the horizon UK armed forces stood ready and waiting. 

Well if ever you’ve seen something to enthuse a cross party group of MPs then this was it. Like a torrent, armchair plans and strategies poured forth from the many men in the room – whose voices were unsurprisingly drowning out that of our female colleagues. Indeed, the real military strategists, our own UK military top brass, had to call for relative calm and requested that suggestions were made in an orderly fashion. 

“Ram the harbour gates with a cargo vessel loaded with explosives!”

“Could we land troops and armour to the landward side of the harbour?”

“No!” interrupted an RAF Group Captain. “You do not have air superiority and this would be one act that surely would provoke this non-aligned country.”

“Well let’s simply bomb the harbour!” suggested another MP – who had, himself, once gallantly served the colours. 

And so it went on… 

And then, from my left, spoke a rather measured voice.

“What if we were able to hack into the harbour’s central IT and find out if control could be taken of the main harbour gates that would normally be opened or closed, according to the rise and fall of the ocean’s tides?”

At this point I saw something I will never forget. Suddenly, all the macho of the bombers and blowers were silenced. The reaction of the defence big wigs amongst us was fascinating. In an instant, you could see that this MP was onto something and she was ultimately proved entirely correct. 

Take control of the harbour gates while the tide is at its highest and keep the gates open while the tide recedes again. And then, hey presto! Those ships in the harbour would suddenly be high and dry on the harbour floor and many of them would fall on their sides. Thus rendering – even when the tide came back in – the harbour entirely unusable. 

It was one of the cleverest things I have seen in my time as an MP – and in many ways, I was not at all surprised when that particular MP – Abena Oppong-Asare – was appointed by the then-incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be his Parliamentary Private Secretary. I thought then and I think now that Keir chose very well. 

Although we have now moved on from the Starmer era, it is for this reason that I was particularly pleased to note last week that Abena has been elected by secret ballot by the entire House of Commons to Chair the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. She will, I have no doubt, make an extremely good job of it. 

Is there a moral to this tale? I do suggest one. It’s not always the loudest voice that is the most sensible or the most intelligent. I have been a politician for many years now and I am now totally unsurprised by the way the brashest members of the House – the ones who present any argument or mistruth with arrogant confidence – are the ones who are taken more seriously (and often fail upwards as a consequence). It is, frankly, a crying shame that many members of the public have lost faith in politicians altogether because of these few. 

However, if you look beyond the front pages of the newspapers and media headlines which platform these individuals, you will find many politicians who are some of the most intelligent people I’ve had the privilege of meeting. Those who became MPs for the right reasons – who have succeeded through hard work, unwavering values and true competence. 

It is greatly encouraging to witness someone with Abena’s true ability rise in UK politics, and during these last days, rise again. As a Black woman in Parliament, her success gives me faith that talent and determination will still find their place in our political institutions – even in a political landscape that can feel dispiriting. Moments like this give us reason to believe that true merit will continue to find its way to the fore. 

I have no axe to grind either way. I am a member of a different political party and I represent the opposite end of the United Kingdom. But I’ll tell you what, after all these years I know a quality politician when I see one – and so did the military top brass that day in Shrivenham.

Jamie Stone is the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and the chair of the House of Commons Petitions Committee.

Image credit: UK Parliament – Creative Commons