Retiring MP criticises Commons 'madhouse'

The Leeds West MP, a former Minister who will stand down at the General Election, has spoken in an interview to mark his departure of how life in Parliament is "insane".

Outgoing Calder Valley MP Christine McCafferty has also said MPs rely on "a strong sense of the ridiculous" to get by because of job pressures.

Politicians may have found themselves tarred by the brush of the expenses scandal over recent month but their reflections offer a different perspective on life at Westminster.

Mr Battle, who served as a Foreign Office Minister under Tony Blair, said in an interview with Total Politics magazine: "I would say there is a real danger of it being a very lonely job for some people. I have seen it crush people. I have seen them disappear into the bar.

"The people I have met here, generally, if you really scrape them, are in it because they want to change the lives of people. And they are people people. The non-people people don't survive."

Mr Battle added: "This place is a madhouse. This place is insane."

Meanwhile Ms McCafferty, who won her seat in Labour's landslide victory in 1997 but has also decided to quit, said: "You can be like ships that pass in the night. And you suddenly find that someone you really liked has died and you didn't know.

"You feel incredibly guilty. But that's the pressure of the job. We all share by and large – Labour members anyway – a strong sense of the ridiculous."