Former Tory Minister Johnny Mercer: I Was A Terrible Politician But I Still Changed The Country
Johnny Mercer has unloaded on his former colleagues in a scathing book about his time in politics (Alamy)
3 min read
Johnny Mercer is scathing about virtually everyone he worked with during his nine years as an MP. In his new book charting his time in Parliament, he’s also critical of his own abilities as a politician.
The former Tory veterans minister spoke to this week's episode of The Rundown about what he describes as the broken Westminster system, being lied to by successive prime ministers, and how he eventually helped create the Office for Veterans Affairs, the mission he had set for himself after leaving the armed forces and entering the House of Commons in 2015.
Mercer, who lost his Plymouth seat to Labour in 2024, said he wrote No Way to Run a Country because he wants "better" people to pursue careers in British politics, saying he wished such a book existed when he first stood for election over a decade ago.
“I want them to know what it's like and learn from my mistakes, of which there were plenty”, Mercer told the podcast.
Asked if he felt he had been a bad politician, he replied: “Terrible. I was terrible. I didn't spend any time on relationships, and I wish I had because you get more done, and there's some good people in there.
"I was pretty straight all the time, and I don't think that's always helpful, and I didn't enjoy it. So no, I don't think I was a very good politician. But ultimately, I changed the country.”
After serving, and then resigning, from Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, he was the first person to serve as veterans minister at cabinet level in the summer of 2022, a position he then held for two years under Rishi Sunak.
Referring to himself as just “a very ordinary bloke”, he spoke with pride about creating a new department which spends millions of pounds a year on the UK's veterans community, and having "changed the law in this country on more than one occasion to better look after veterans”.
“If I can do that, imagine what someone who's actually vaguely good at this stuff could actually do," he said.
The former Conservative MP admitted he “torched relationships and friendships” during his time in Parliament, but said he found being a "pain in the arse" to be the most effective way of getting things done in Westminster.
“I'll always think, could I have got more done in a more collegiate way, but I did try that, and I tried that a lot, and the truth is I got a lot more done when I made myself a pain in the arse.
“Because if you work collegiately, and then people turn around and do the opposite thing that they've said they were going to do, what are you supposed to do?
“So no, I tried both, and one was far more successful than the other.”
The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced and edited by Lulu Goad and Ewan Cameron for Podot
- Click here to listen to the full conversation with Johnny Mercer on the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for 'PoliticsHome' wherever you get your podcasts.
