Word: backbenches
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...legendary 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once snapped at a backbench MP, agonizing over whether to vote to support the government, “damn your principles; stick to your party.” He was eloquently but utterly wrong. Developing one’s own principles and ideals is infinitely more important than supporting rigid party allegiances whose sole purpose is getting individuals elected who share one’s outlook. That the Harvard Democrats currently stand prepared to campaign for anyone who pins a donkey button to their lapel is, appropriately enough, asinine...
...ethical bounds. It touched off a furious row in Britain's Parliament, where a formal inquiry was launched into how the government could have let itself be used by an American highflyer at such cost to its treasury. Protested Sir William Clark, chairman of the Conservative Party's backbench finance committee: "This is absolutely monstrous; it shows that to pump public money into businesses merely to create jobs can be disastrous...
Last year's budget was rated the most unpopular in 30 years, so Howe had only to be fairly moderate and evenhanded to come out ahead. In fact, his modest proposal for a $2.35 billion expansion of the economy managed to win approval from business leaders and even backbench conservatives who have been critical of Thatcher's harsh economic policies. "This will be a budget for industry, and so a budget for jobs," Howe declared in his address to the Commons. "But it will be a budget for people as well...
King Arthur, as London's Monty Python troupe imagines him, is really an awfully sensible, decent chap. Played by Graham Chapman, he is the kind of tweedy fellow who should be sitting on the Tory party backbench in modern Britain rather than running around 6th century England forming Round Tables and looking for holy grails...
...mute party conflicts. Calling at his Wilton Street house-still under repair after a pre-Christmas I.R.A. bomb blast-she renewed her invitation to have him join her as shadow Foreign Secretary. As she knew in advance that he would, he declined, stating a preference for a less conspicuous backbench perch-perhaps in the hope that if things go badly for Mrs. Thatcher he will be recalled to party leadership...