It tends not to count against them. The most notorious case involves Home Secretary Suella Braverman, reappointed by Rishi Sunak less than a week after leaving the Government.

Chris Bryant has great expectations. Actually, he doesn’t. His engaging, thoughtful, powerful and funny book is just arguing for what are every day, run-of-the-mill, par-for-the-course, ordinary expectations. And his easy, warm, inclusive, engaging and honest writing style mirrors the man. It wasn’t just the church’s homophobia that was a problem. He felt the advice he was handing out to parishioners was at odds with his lifestyle. “I was a young gay man who feared commitment but was advising people on marriage and how to parent.” Did you feel a hypocrite? “No, I felt inadequate. I thought, I’ve come from a broken family, and I’ve only just worked out I’m gay, and I’m telling you how to live life.” But there is something rotten in the state of Westminster. Bryant believes we live in dangerous times (he uses the word 19 times) and things deteriorated execrably under Boris Johnson. Indeed we are processing more shit than even Parliament’s pneumatic sewage ejector (which so impresses Bryant) could ever hope to cope with – let alone sort. For example he cites the questionable links between party donors, cronies and lobbyists to honours, public appointments and PPE contracts. Bloomsbury has snapped up Code of Conduct, a "rousing" and "essential" exploration of misconduct in parliament by Labour MP Chris Bryant. Kathryn Stone OBE was parliamentary commissioner for standards from January 2018 until December 2022

He has nothing bad to say about Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, despite the undeniable fact that he has presided over this mess. I am afraid his repeated failure to stand up for high standardswill be judged with a mixture of despair and contempt by historians. If a football team gets relegated, the manager takes much of the blame. Bryant lets him off.

The extraordinary turmoil we have seen in British politics in the last few years has set records. We have had the fastest turnover of ministers in our history and more MPs suspended from the House than ever. Rules have been flouted repeatedly, sometimes in plain sight. The government seems unable to escape the brush of sleaze. And just when we think it’s all going to calm down a bit, another scandal breaks. More promisingly, however, Bryant tells me with some satisfaction how the recommendations he spearheaded on All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) are now in force. (Thanks to the graft of the standards committee these sometimes-shadowy groupings need a quorum of eight MPs for their formation, not five as previously). From leading MP Chris Bryant, the inside story of misconduct in parliament – and how we can help solve it. Bryant’s book does not simply expose the shortcomings of parliament; it’s a manifesto for reform. It lays out everything he thinks must change: the government of the day’s power must be reduced (he quotes Abba this time – “The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall”); second jobs must be restricted; MPs must be sanctioned for lying and not correcting inaccuracies; the disparate disciplinary organisations must be united into a single standards committee run by a non-MP; and on it goes. The suggestions are sensible and would doubtless result in a parliament less susceptible to abuse, sexual harassment and corruption.

The ideas presented are sensible and could make a major difference to restoring faith in how our political system works. Interestingly, the committee does not make any recommendations seeking to curtailthe amount of time MPs spend on second jobs, as the inquiry was set up mainly to focus on the types of outside interests members have, not how they operate them. At least now victims have somewhere to turn – the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme was set up in 2018 after a string of #MeToo-style revelations – but as the author notes, it has not gone far enough to change the culture. The book advocates proper HR training for MPs, some of whom will never have directly employed anyone before, and an end to MPs hiring family members (on the grounds that it’s very difficult to complain to the office manager about a lecherous boss if that office manager happens to be married to him). MPs who get through suspiciously large numbers of staff, meanwhile, should get extra support and monitoring. The Palace of Westminster might be a special place, Bryant writes, but “it is not so special or unique that it cannot enter the modern era in its working practices”.

Bryant is never partisan, citing good and bad examples of MPs’ behaviour from across the House, and stressing the importance of collegiate working. This is particularly clear in committees, where so much of Parliament’s work is done – something that was more apparent than usual this year in the report of the privileges committee, where Conservative MPs hold a majority of seats, into the behaviour of Boris Johnson. Whoever does form the next government, they should take more than a few lessons from this book, for the sake of Parliament itself and us all. Later, I ask whether a Starmer-fronted supermajority would be good for standards in Westminster; it comes after one recent poll showed Labour could have as many as 460 seats after the next election. It prompts Bryant’s longest pause of the interview. I sense he may be torn between his instincts as parliamentary policeman and party politician. This claim was rejected by the Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone, but the committee is saying this rule must now be clarified to “make clearer the risks of conflicts of interests and put an end to this being used as a loophole”. One Register A few years ago, Bryant saw a therapist. He said he was the least depressed person he’d ever met, telling him, “You’re just pissed off because you lost the election.” Over the two sessions, he claims he made only one other observation: “‘Is it about fathers?’” He can’t remember what it was in reference to, but thinks he had a point. “A lot of things are about fathers, aren’t they? Wanting to please them, make them proud of you, all that.”

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Democracy in Danger The newspaper’s extensive reporting and analysis of the various threats to democracy from populism, oligarchy, dark money and online disinformation.