AG百家乐在线官网

Political columnist Paul Waugh said he felt it was "time to cease being a spectator and start being a player".

But after his failure to be selected as Labour's candidate in his home town of Rochdale, he'll have to watch from behind the touchline for little while longer.

Mr Waugh had been shortlisted by Labour alongside Azhar Ali, the leader of Lancashire County Council's Labour group, and councillor Nazia Rehman.

Waugh is the latest journalist to attempt to make the move from the press bench to the green benches of the House of Commons.

From Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson, Michael Foot to Michael Gove and now husband and wife Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, punditry to parliament is a well-trodden path.

Politics latest: Follow the latest developments

Waugh, 57, has been a political journalist for London's Evening Standard, The Independent, the Huffington Post website and the i newspaper and a regular BBC radio presenter.

And with a Labour majority of nearly 10,000 in Rochdale, had he been selected as the party's candidate, he would almost certainly have been on his way - back - to Westminster.

So who are the previous illustrious - and some not so high-profile - MPs who moved from Fleet Street to your street and swapped journalism for the House of Commons?

The first, who just about qualifies, was Winston Churchill, the Daily Telegraph war correspondent in India and then for the Morning Post in Sudan and in the Boer War, before becoming MP for Oldham in 1901.

Like Mr Churchill, his number one fan and biographer Boris Johnson also became prime minister. But that was after an up-and-down journalism career which included being sacked as a Times trainee for making up a quote.

Johnson then made his name as a controversial Brussels correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, as well as editor of The Spectator and a long career as a provocative Telegraph columnist, before becoming MP for Henley in 2001.

Labour's Michael Foot is the only MP who moved from the editor's chair to the cabinet table. He became editor of the Evening Standard during the Second World War, aged just 28, before succeeding Labour giant Aneurin Bevan as MP for Ebbw Vale in 1960.

Foot was a senior cabinet minister under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s and then embattled Labour leader from 1980 to 1983, up against Margaret Thatcher in her first term - and pomp - as prime minister.

Read more about politics:
Could Tory plot tempt Sunak into early general election?
The by-election battles of Rishi Sunak's premiership

Bill Deedes - to whom the spoof Denis Thatcher "Dear Bill" letters in Private Eye were supposedly written - moved in the opposite direction to Foot - a Tory cabinet minister in the early 1960s and The Daily Telegraph editor from 1974-86.

Nigel Lawson, regularly praised by Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt these days, was a journalist on the Financial Times and Sunday Telegraph and also edited The Spectator, before becoming chancellor of the exchequer from 1983-89.

Norman Fowler, a cabinet minister under Mrs Thatcher, was a trainee on The Times, before becoming home affairs correspondent and then covering the 1967 war in the Middle East from Beirut, Syria and Jordan.

Editing The Spectator has often been an apprenticeship for leading Tory politicians. Other former editors who became Tory cabinet ministers included Ian Gilmour and Iain Macleod. What are you waiting for, Fraser Nelson?

More recently, Michael Gove had a long and varied career in journalism before becoming MP for Surrey Heath in 2005. He's now in his sixth cabinet post, under four different prime ministers.

After a short stint on the Peterborough column of The Daily Telegraph, Gove was a trainee reporter at the Aberdeen Press and Journal and took part in a lengthy strike and was famously photographed on a picket line.

He was a reporter for Scottish Television and - briefly - Grampian Television, the BBC political programme On The Record and the Today programme before a long career at The Times.

Read more on Sky News:
How fiscal headroom has come to dominate Westminster
The election year dawns - and small boats are a key battle line

There he was comment editor, news editor, assistant editor and Saturday editor - and met his now ex-wife Sarah Vine who was arts editor at The Times and is now a Daily Mail columnist.

In recent years, Labour had two high profile ex-journalists among its MPs. The first was campaigning journalist Chris Mullin, who wrote a trilogy of brilliant diaries about his time as MP for Sunderland South and a minister under Tony Blair.

Austin Mitchell, presenter of Yorkshire Television's Calendar news programme, who famously chaired an explosive live TV clash between Briain Clough and Don Revie after Clough was sacked by Leeds United in 1974, succeeded Labour titan Anthony Crosland as MP for Great Grimsby in 1977.

Husband and wife Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper did some posh jobs in newspapers before becoming MPs. Ed - now a national treasure and breakfast TV presenter - was a Financial Times leader writer and Yvette, now shadow home secretary, was economics correspondent, leader writer and European economics editor on The Independent.

In the 1990s, former Telegraph political correspondent Julie Kirkbride moved downstairs from the Commons press gallery to the chamber itself when she became MP for Bromsgrove. She was later a casualty of the 2009 expenses scandal.

A year later, two Lib Dem ministers in David Cameron's coalition government had been journalists. A little-known fact about Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is that he worked on the FT. Chris Huhne covered economics for The Economist, The Guardian and The Independent.

But what of the BBC? Back in 1997 the distinguished war correspondent Martin Bell - "the man in the white suit" - became an anti-corruption candidate and MP for Tatton. Former BBC radio reporter Ben Bradshaw became MP for Exeter in the same year but is standing down at the next election at the relatively young age - for a retiring MP - of 63.

Currently, Cabinet Office minister Esther McVey is a former breakfast TV presenter and environment minister Rebecca Pow worked for HTV and the BBC, including - handily, given her present job - presenting Radio 4's Farming Today.

On the Tory back benches, Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely is a former foreign correspondent for The Times and The Washington Post, Richard Drax, MP for Dorset South, was a reporter for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and BBC and Devon East MP Simon Jupp is a former radio presenter.

So had he become MP for Rochdale, Paul Waugh would have been continuing a long tradition of career changes from press to politics. And, indeed, taking a gamble with his professional reputation.

A recent survey suggested that journalists were trusted to tell the truth by just 21% of respondents. Politicians, according to the survey, were trusted by… just 9%.

Still want to be an MP, Paul?