How To Be An MP, By Paul Flynn

It's easy to get lost within the corridors of power

This wry, sardonic account of the life of an MP by the veteran parliamentarian Paul Flynn, reveals that MPs must have the most arcane, illogical, inefficient, unreasonable and capricious set of rules governing their working lives of any job in the world. To master all the procedures one needs a copy of "Erskine-May" – but MPs aren't issued with it and it costs £267. You have to join a queue of hundreds to take the oath of loyalty, and if you miss it your salary will be delayed for months; getting your own office depends on cunning and persistence; the procedures for voting are such that it's ridiculously easy to miss a crucial vote, or even vote on the wrong side. It's a wonder that government works at all.