What sort of people are MPs and what is the job that they do? Are they, in spite of being 'celebrities in their own constituencies, well-known, respected, indeed the voice of government', once again, on their return to Westminster 'only minnows, one of the five hundred-odd backbenchers with no special status or rights other than to be lobby-fodder for their party'? Are they workaholics 'preoccupied with endless meetings, ceaseless letters, interminable constituency problems...on a treadmill of late nights and early mornings'? Or is this frenetic activity more often than not self-induced and unnecessary? What does the future hold for the backbench job into the twenty-first century? These and other crucial questions are examined in this new and completely revised edition of the successful and revealing analysis of the job of the backbencher.