Customer Reviews
Independents 1... - By: ianrmillard, 25 May 2009 
Bell became the only Independentin Parliament after he beat the corrupt sitting MP, Neil Hamilton,in his "sage" Tatton (Cheshire) seatin the 1990's. He said he would only contest once & kept to that promise. A man of honour, it seems! So, inevitably, he is not nowin the corrupt LibLabCon-men's paradise & monkeyhouse called the House of Commons. He is not really part of The System, as Hitler & Goebbels called the similar Weimar Republic set-up.
Hamilton is admitted by Bell to have been an assiduous constituency MP. That is the mitigation now advanced for so many members of the Commons caught upin the 2009 expenses & allowances scandal (along with "within the rules which we drafted ourselves", "did nothing wrong", "an oversight", "an error" and, of course "I'll pay some back!"...).
The funny thing is that what Hamilton did was less culpable somehow than the present fiasco,in that he simply sold himself a bit...whereas the present ones are on a nonstop freeloading expedition. The disgusting Ed Balls even tried to claim for a November 11 poppy! Oh, Style, where have you gone?! And you have taken Decency with you!
Bell is also good on the black & white simplicites demanded by especially American TV viewers, which end up by not accurately portraying somewhere as tangled as Bosnia.
I was not quite sure what he meant by saying that Cheshire was like Surrey but with real people. Admittedly I know Surrey & not Cheshire (much), but I would say Surrey people are real while the Cheshire people I have met all seemed plastic nouveaux riche...maybe it just depends whom you meetin life...I still prefer Surrey!
As to his judgment, he liked Oona King, he says, she being the half-Jewish, half West-Indian Labour "Blair Babe" chucked out eventually by the votersin favour of a more independent candidate. Well, I can only say thatin every sense she would be the kind of politician I would detest: not English or even European, not well educated, saying little intelligent. Good riddance! So I cannot agree with all Bell saysin this book, for sure.
I feel he cares, though & if anyone should be an MP, supposedly representative of the public, he should.
too good to be true - By: Hayles, 23 Mar 2009 
Call me a total cynic but there is something too good about Bell's story of his rise from former-BBC journalist to MP. I know he built his political career on being whiter than white but reading this account of his rise to office you would think he had never had a selfish thoughtin his life (surely he had some negative thoughts about rivil Neil Hamilton & he must have hated his former BBC bosses for the way they treated him & not just been slightly disgruntled as this book suggests?) The book is well written (as you would expect from a journalist) & an easy read but I couldn't help thinking that I wasn't getting the whole truth. If you believe the pages about his debutin Parliament you would think he was more a scared schoolboy on his first day rather than a seasoned war correspondence. Worth a look but would have been so much better if Bell had opened up a bit more.
Interesting but just a little too smug - By: , 26 Aug 2001 
I looked forward to gaining a unique insight into life as a politician, free from mainstream party constraints & spin. But was disappointed by the lack of real detail regarding Mr. Bell's daily duties once elected & the real workings of the House of Commons. It spent too long detailing the build up to his winning the seat & his "battle" with the Hamiltons & then on a couple of individual episodes during his termin power (e.g. returning to the Balkans).
It seemed abit of a rushed job & inevitably suffered from an autobiography's tendency to paint it's subjectin only the best of lights. Still worth reading, but don't expect a political classic.
Informative, Interesting, Revealing. - By: , 09 Jun 2001 I found Martin Bell's 'An Accidental MP' a good read for a number of reasons. Primarily that Bell occupied a unique position within the 1997 Parliament as the the House of Commons only Independent MP. As he points outin the text, the first Independent for 47 years. It is especially worth reading his account of taking on a large Conservative machine defending a strong majority.
Dealing with constituents was a central part of the book, the many dramas that unfold within a town are well described. The most prominent of these MP-voter relations was the wayin which Bell dealt with the man he replaced, the now famous Neil Hamilton.
It is also revealing as a story of a man outside of the normal political processes of the Commons, he had no party, no activists, no funding & no natural supporters. I would reccommend 'An Accidental MP' to anyone interestedin the one off charactersin Parliament, but also anyone interestedin recent party political history-a place that Martin Bell now inhabits after his political death at the 2001 General Election.
A view from the political subs-bench - By: , 25 Oct 2000 Martin Bell has done it again: if you haven't read 'In Harm's Way' it is well worth the trouble as it provides a lot of the background for this fascinating account of lifein Westminster for the Independent MP for Tatton. From the acrimonious relationship with Neil Hamilton & his... wife, Christine, to representing the cause of Major Mike Stanley (Milos Stankovic) Bell portrays himself as an interested, but sadly powerless, observer on the inner workings of Parliament. I got to the end of the book feeling quite sorry for him: as if he'd been frog-marched into Westminster without the slightest idea what he was doing there & with little chance of pleasing anyone there or, ultimately, his constituents. The book raises many issues & links into many other books I would like to have the time to read. Excellent read.
