Parliament is a serious place, and the Palace of Westminster and constituency offices are filled with hard-working, dedicated professionals engaged in the important business of running the country.  Yet even the most committed need time for rest and recuperation, space to kick back and unwind, and opportunities to take a sideways look at their workplace, employers and even their political masters.

This is the place for staff who are looking for something less serious and rather more entertaining than the average guide to best practice.

We hope you enjoy these guides as much as we do.

The Guides

• Dean Trench’s Guides
  • How Your Boss Will Celebrate Bonfire Night
  • Seven Resolutions All Bag-Carriers Make In October
  • “Somebody will show you where the filing cabinet is.”
  • Bag Carriers On Strike!
  • What Kind of Intern Are You?
  • Bag Carriers Translated
  • Ten Phrases Every Bag-carrier Needs to Fear
  • Dropping a Clanger
  • Tips and Hints for Recess
  • The Conference Season Cometh
  • The Six Stages of Bag-Carrying
  • He’s Just Not That Into You
  • The Top Ten Most Annoying Things Your MP Will Do
  • Where Angels Fear to Tread
  • The Ten Commandments – If they were written by bag-carriers for MPs
  • Handling the Media
  • What Kind of MP Do You Work For? A reference guide for bag-carriers
  • You May Be in a Political Drama If…
  • How to Carry Bags at Party Conference
  • Dean Trench (1979 – 2010)
  • Dean Trench Revisited
  • A Useful ‘Member of Parliament’ Translator
• Favourite Parliamentary Moment of the Year – 2011
• Hoby Cartoons on w4mp
  • Hoby Cartoons 2008-2012
• Parliamentary Assistant – The Truth Will Out!
• Twelve Months in a Constituency Office: In a Cupboard with Snow-Shoes, Street-Lights and Election Frenzy
• Sally’s Diary
  • Don’t panic! – Sally’s guide to taking your MP out for the day
  • A cuckoo in the duck island
• Ten things you should never let your MP do
  • Part 1: ‘Helping’ out with things that are clearly beyond them.
  • Part 2: Your MP’s brilliant ideas to raise their profile – what every bag-carrier needs to fear.
  • Part 3: The things that are just mad, bad and wrong!
• Livia’s Diary
  • Chapter One: Trench Warfare
  • Chapter Two: Who You Gonna Call?
  • Chapter Three: The Valentine’s Day Massacre
  • Chapter Four: May the Pasty Be With You
• Harper Pepperswitch’s Guides
  • Protesters, Pugin and Port: Harper’s first day in Parliament
  • Parliamentary Events: what to do and how not to do it
  • Seven Symptoms Of Recess
  • Harper Pepperswitch’s 2010 Conference Diary
  • To the constituency and beyond. The revenge of Jim Poole MP?
• Correspondence from Jenny
  • A Lords Love Story….and Monorail
  • A quiet Christmas wish.
  • Food glorious….how much?!
  • Murder Mystery Hangover
  • Researchers Should Be Seen and Not Heard
  • Something strange in the constituency.
• The Wild and the Wilful: other alt.guides
  • Party Games by EJ Greenway
  • A Researcher’s Guide to Speechwriting
• 12 months at Westminster – the obstacle course

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Got your own ideas?

If you’d care to add to the pile of stuff to read, do get in touch.

 

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This page was last updated on 1 May 2012