Show Notes
A fake job in Buckinghamshire, a £500 deposit and a ballot paper over a metre long. Is this really how Britain replaces an MP?
By-elections used to be rare. Now they arrive every few months, and everyone looks to the result to see how the government is doing. A single constituency votes, results can signal the national mood, and sometimes a Prime Minister is gone within weeks. Before any of that can happen, though, something genuinely odd has to take place: a sitting MP has to be given a job that does not really exist, because the rules say they are not allowed to resign.
Robert Buckland knows the experience from the inside. He fought a by-election in Islwyn in 1995 against Screaming Lord Sutch, held a press conference every morning, and lost his deposit. Alun Evans has spent a career watching from Whitehall, and has the longer memory of which by-elections quietly changed the course of British politics. Between them they explain the mechanics, the costs, the strange offices of profit under the Crown, and why voters forgive some by-elections and punish others. They do not agree on whether the whole resignation ritual deserves to survive.
This episode of Hidden Wiring is UK politics explained without the shouting or the speculation. If you have ever wanted to know how UK government works behind the scenes, or how politics actually works when one constituency can decide the fate of a government, this is a clear, first-hand account from a former cabinet minister and a former senior civil servant.
In this episode, Robert and Alun discuss:
- Why an MP is not allowed simply to resign
- The Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead explained
- Who formally hands out these offices of profit
- Who can stand in a by-election
- Candidate inflation and a ballot paper over a metre long
- Makerfield, Andy Burnham and the fastest route to Number 10
- Should the resignation ritual survive?
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Hidden Wiring is the UK politics podcast that explains how UK government works, from the inside. Taking listeners behind the scenes of UK government, each episode reveals the mechanics of power most people never see: cabinet reshuffles, ministerial appointments, Treasury spending rounds, devolution, the civil service, Parliament and the relationship between Downing Street and the Palace. This isn’t weekly political commentary. It’s a clear account of how politics actually works in Britain.
Get answers to the questions politicians rarely address: how Parliament works, what happens inside Number 10, how ministers are appointed and how decisions move through the British state. With Westminster explained clearly and accessibly, the show is designed for politically curious listeners, students and anyone wanting to understand the ins and outs of British politics.
Hidden Wiring is presented by Robert Buckland, former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, and Alun Evans, a former senior civil servant with more than thirty years of experience across Whitehall and Downing Street. Together, they examine one part of the British political system per episode, comparing how government is designed to operate with how it works in practice.
Sir Robert Buckland KBE KC served as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary from 2019 to 2021, Solicitor General from 2014 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Wales in 2022. A practising barrister and former Conservative MP, he brings three decades of experience spanning law, Parliament and ministerial government. He is also a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Visiting Professor at LSE Law School.
Dr Alun Evans CBE spent over thirty years in the UK civil service, including as principal private secretary to three secretaries of state, head of strategic communications at No 10 Downing Street and director of the Scotland Office at the time of the 2014 independence referendum. His PhD on ministerial private offices was recently published as a book - The Intimacy of Power.
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