ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a systematic and comparative approach to the study of politicians’ routines and rhythms. It explores that rhythms should be taken seriously partly because they offer some stability and continuity for politicians, and even for the rest of us in a less pronounced way, in their chaotic, contradictory and shape shifting work. The rhythms of parliamentary life need an inquiry into seasons, diaries and appointments observable in offices, streets and parliamentary buildings. Rhythms organise people in political worlds by creating repetition in time and space but allowing for variation at the same time. Rhythms create continuity and disruption in the work of members of parliament and their importance is revealed by the considerable status of diary secretaries: the more important the politician, the more influential the diary secretary. Individual bodies and minds are not equally constrained or free; it is the rhythms of performance that reveal how the hierarchies affect the chair/members differently.
