Elizabeth Filkin: A woman scorned

Last Sunday was not the happiest of days for Elizabeth Filkin, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards – and, it could be argued, for our democracy. Mrs Filkin opened The Sunday Times to find her job advertised in the Appointments section. The advert said she was due to complete her term of office in February 2002 and a firm of recruitment consultants had been asked by the House of Commons to help fill the post.

"Salary: negotiable," the advert read. "Principal duties: providing advice on a confidential basis to individual MPs and the Commons Select Committee on Standards and Privileges about the interpretation of the Code of Conduct; receiving and investigating complaints about the conduct of MPs and reporting the findings to the Committee; maintaining and monitoring the Register of Members' Interests; assisting new MPs with the operation of the Code; proposing possible changes to the Code. The appointment will initially be for three years with the possibility of extension by mutual agreement."

It is never pleasant for anyone to see their own job advertised. Worse, in the wording there was a more subtle blow for Mrs Filkin: "The possibility of extension by mutual agreement." For the incumbent there has been no such possibility. Mrs Filkin is coming to the end of her three years and no option to stay has been held out to her. There is no mutuality between Mrs Filkin and her bosses.

Of course, if she wants her job back she can apply like anyone else. She may do so (she has made up her mind as to her next move but is not saying what it is) although the chances of her being chosen are very slim. Mrs Filkin is not stupid; she knows if they wanted her to have the job they would have let her keep it.

Neither is the wish of Dr Tony Wright, the Labour backbencher and committed reformer of Parliament, likely to be fulfilled – that nobody should apply except Mrs Filkin, who then returns triumphant. "I think it's all wrong," Dr Wright said. "Because my experience of her, even before she came here, was to be impressed by her ability; she was very thorough and very capable of producing very difficult reports into very cases. Because the way she has been treated is shabby. Because it produces great discredit on Parliament."

Dr Wright is not alone. There are many MPs who feel she has been a great success and should be encouraged to accept a second term. Even Robin Cook, the Leader of the House and one of those who will select the new Commissioner, as a member of the Commons Commission (the administrative body which runs the Commons), acknowledges that she has "done a good job... and she would be assured a place on the shortlist if she were to reapply for a second term". The press, too, has lauded her.

But ranged against her are powerful voices who resent her prying and snooping, and who feel she has got too big for her boots and is too vindictive in cases she investigates. At Westminster, you are either for her or against her. As a rule, the younger, more radical members who would like to see the Commons shaken up think she's a good thing. Longer-serving politicians, more enamoured with the traditions and funny ways of the place, are opposed.

In her memoirs, Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker, calls Mrs Filkin, a "witch-hunter" and accuses the Commissioner of "speaking out of turn" to the press and putting MPs "in the dock" to answer unsubstantiated allegations. The Social Security minister Jeff Rooker said Mrs Filkin had exceeded her remit and "should stick to what she is extremely well paid and has been appointed to do, and that is to police the Register of Members' Interests". Tam Dalyell, the father of the house, said she had "overstepped the mark". Lord Hattersley has waded in, saying Mrs Filkin is in the business of "chasing shadows and all sorts of innocent people will be embarrassed as a result". John Major, too, has voiced severe reservations about her role.

Three years ago, it was all so different. The Commons, still sensitive about the "sleaze'' scandals that dogged the Major administration, was anxious to be seen to clean up its act. Under the new self-policing procedure introduced on the advice of the Nolan inquiry into parliamentary standards, Mrs Filkin was the second Commissioner. Her predecessor, Sir Gordon Downey, was a quiet, courteous figure respected by MPs but, while no pushover, not renowned for fierce interrogations. He was also low profile and little known, even in the Palace of Westminster.

Mrs Filkin has many of Sir Gordon's qualities. She is considerate, intellectually rigorous, measured and softly spoken. But she is more of a terrier, less respectful of MPs (she will say she is not, but she is), less inclined to take them at their word. She is also confident in dealing with the press, and enjoys sparring with journalists.

And she is a woman. It is hard to judge how much of her predicament stems from her gender. The Commons is a deeply sexist place; in the bars, tea rooms and cafeterias where predominantly male MPs gather, powerful and decisive men are heroes and powerful, decisive women are bitches. Self-important men do not take kindly to being hauled over the coals by a woman. They can't bully her, can't treat her as they would a man. An old-fashioned courtesy tells them to bite their lip, to comply. All the time they are seething, their macho pride deeply wounded.

Something like this has undoubtedly occurred in the Commons. MPs will not admit it, but there is no doubt her sex has not helped. Mrs Filkin has succeeded, where Sir Gordon did not, in antagonising a large body of MPs. "She's more thorough than Gordon Downey but Downey had something she hasn't got – political nous,'' said one former member of the Standards and Privileges Committee.

A curious loyalty binds MPs together. From different parties and different parts of the country with different agendas, they can share a siege mentality, intensely defensive about the institution they have joined. A collective "us and them'' attitude prevails in the Commons, with the press and by extension the public on the outside, uncomprehending and uncaring of the difficulties they face. (That the public elect them, and that the hardships of being an MP are nothing against those of many of their constituents, are forgotten.)

MPs wanted to appear to embrace Nolan. Publicly, they recognised the need for change – but privately, not too much, and in their own way. Fundamentally, they believed, there was not much wrong. Generally, they thought, the public did not understand that overall they were well behaved and did not see a seat at Westminster as a licence to print money. Sir Gordon judged their mood just right – he saw they did not want the dirt attracting too much attention, except when it was unavoidable, as in the case of Neil Hamilton.

Mrs Filkin's attitude was less sympathetic. Where Sir Gordon might take no for an answer, she would not. She interpreted her remit strictly, and if she thought the code had been breached, she investigated. This led to cases which, while they made great copy in the press, inflamed the old guard – such as the saga of William Hague using Lord Archer's private gym for his judo sessions and not declaring it.

You do not have to be a genius to see that this was a dream for cartoonists and headline writers, nor that it was a trivial matter: Mr Hague was Leader of the Opposition, and given a choice between using a private gym or one in the full gaze of the public, it is obvious which he would prefer.

Instead of rejecting the complaint as beneath her, she decided to launch the might of her office against Mr Hague's judo bouts, generating plenty of column inches and infuriating the Tories. She found that Mr Hague had broken the rules, that the value of the use of the gym in central London was more than the threshold of £235 and should have been declared.

She fell into a trap, not for the last time. The use of the gym had already been aired in the press, with speculation that it was all part of an attempt by Lord Archer to curry favour with Mr Hague in his campaign to become Mayor of London. A Labour MP, Fraser Kemp, could not resist making political capital and complained to the Commissioner, who duly gave him what he wanted by investigating. It is this lack of political awareness that has done Mrs Filkin down. Too often, say her critics, press stories have appeared that have been made the subject of a formal complaint to her, which she has then agreed to examine, thereby giving legs to something trivial and demeaning to Parliament.

In her defence, it must be said, the catalysts of such stories are often MPs themselves. Yes, Mrs Filkin has become used by the press, but yes, she has also been used by MPs keen to score political points.

To some extent she is her own worst enemy. On the one hand, her supporters moan about her lack of resources; they claim her office has been deliberately understaffed and underfunded. On the other, she has taken on cases, some of which, on the face of it, are not worth investigating.

Her critics say she enjoys too much discretion, deciding for herself what to take on. She agrees she is pretty much her own mistress, provided she believes a case fails within the rules. Nine-tenths of complaints made to her are not investigated. Often, though, her refusal to investigate goes unnoticed. Her office has become part of a great game: an MP says they're making a complaint, the press reports it, Mrs Filkin decides not to investigate – too late, the story has already run and her rejection of the complaint is not reported.

There is not much she or her successor can do about this. The Commons may be a club, but its members take great delight in watching their colleagues squirm (the fact that the end result is a further diminution in the standing of the Commons does not seem to resonate).

She is a victim of her own success. Where Sir Gordon might back off, Mrs Filkin keeps on going. She is a brilliant investigator: in two cases – Teresa Gorman and Geoffrey Robinson – she found that serious breaches had occurred. Sir Gordon had looked into both of them and been unable to make any headway.

It is scandals like those that Mrs Filkin should be remembered for and which should guarantee her a second term. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen. She will probably apply – so she cannot be accused of not applying – and then accept one of the substantial offers for her memoirs. MPs have only themselves to blame.