... you could be prompted by a wish to serve your constituents that didn't naturally take you to being the minister of this or that.

I, I think this is, this is really quite important because there's always a, a tension, isn't there, between personal ambition, uh, and, um, the idea of service.

Um, the, the, the two are not incompatible, and it seems to me people of great ability, um, should be ambitious.

Um, uh, it's how you control your ambition which perhaps is important, uh, and how you, how you resolve the tension between ambition and the other.

And, and even some of the greatest po- politicians never entirely resolve this.

However, um, uh, I, I think that, um, uh, as I say, one of the difficulties of, of, of now is that, um, because the House of Commons is no, is no longer the, is no longer the apex of anybody's...

A- and why is that? I suspect it's because its reputation has declined, and its place of, as a place for authority and ultimate source of authority has declined.

Is it?