Alternative careers no.1: politician - a hobby?

By DINA MEDLAND

Is being a politician really a job?

There is no set workload, no fixed hours, a loose and volatile management structure. Surely it is more an overblown hobby or curious way of life?

"It becomes a way of life," says Tessa Jowell, member of parliament and the Labour party’s shadow minister for Cabinet Office, as well as shadow minister for the Olympics.

"If you’re lucky enough to do a job that is a vocation and also be able to express what you believe in and feel passionately about, then you are blessed. It’s much, much tougher when you’re in opposition, though."

She quotes "a very dear friend who was in the Cabinet with me and standing down. When I asked what she would miss the most she said: ‘the freedom, and having the time to do what you like’."

Concepts such as "freedom" and "having the time to do what you like" are mostly alien in the normal world of work. This prompts her to list the constraints: "As a backbench politician," she says, "it’s a paradox.

There are many constraints on your time – including the whipping (the whips are party managers) and having to be in parliament to vote.

"But you also have the freedom to develop your own workload. You have to be a good self-starter and not daunted by constructing a week with reference to nobody except what you think is important, what your constituents want and expect, and your own political ideas.

"And if you’re in government, every second of every day is programmed and your ministerial diary is a list of engagements from morning to night."

She agrees that being in politics can be like having two different jobs – depending on whether or not your party is in power. But Ms Jowell is also clear: "You don’t do it for the money. You do it for all the incalculable satisfactions that being the representative of 80,000 people brings. Every single day that I walk through parliament is a thrill, and I’ve been doing it for 19 years. "I believe passionately in the power of politics to do good," she adds.