Members Behaving Badly

Over the centuries, the House of Commons has been full of MPs standing up against tyranny; remarkable people doing remarkable things for the good of all. Yet there have been just as many cheats and liars who have played games, played the markets, and played the people who put trust in them. There have been abusers, kidnappers, and murderers, violent men doing violent deeds, often using parliament as a front and excuse.

From 1603 to 1945, Members Behaving Badly tells the story of our nation through 52 of these parliamentary rogues. These are the MPs who made history – for the wrong reasons.

From rake and poet Sir Charles Sedley, whose illicit partying while sozzled and stark naked on a tavern balcony caused a sensation even in Restoration London, to the stock-jobbing, flip-flopping Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, who proposed taxes that sparked a revolution, to David Lloyd George, Britain’s saviour during the First World War, but whose avarice, corruption, and abuse of honours ruined his political party forever, this is the story of the schemes and scandals of those members who behaved very badly indeed. It is a history of Britain – from bribery to biliousness to bottoms in the air – as you’ve never heard it before.