Members Behaving Badly

Speaker: Debbie Kilroy

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 their trust in them.

Debbie Kilroy, author of Members Behaving Badly, tells the story of our nation from 1603 to 1945 through some of these parliamentary villains: abusers, kidnappers and murderers, violent men doing violent deeds, often using parliament as a front and excuse. These are the MPs who made history - for all the wrong reasons.

There’s 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; the stock-jobbing, flip-flopping chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, who proposed taxes that sparked a revolution; David Lloyd George, Britain’s saviour during the First World War, but whose avarice, corruption and abuse of honours ruined his political party forever; and many more.

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You can buy copies of many of our speakers’ books from Fox Lane Books, a local independent bookseller and Festival partner. In some cases, author signed bookplates are available too.

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