The effect on children when a parent loses a parliamentary election

Matthew Spender's book A House in St John's Wood is a portrait of his father, the poet Stephen Spender.

Stephen's father was Harold Spender and the Michael mentioned below is Stephen's brother Michael Spender. The third brother was Humphrey Spender – they were very much a family of Wikipedia entries.

Early in his book, Matthew Spender writes:

When Stephen was twelve, Harold stood as a Liberal candidate in a general election. My father remembered being hauled around Bath in a pony-carriage with his two brothers, each with a placard round his neck saying "Vote for Daddy". Harold lost and the effect on Michael and Stephen was traumatic.

Michael said: "When they are very young, the children of a public man worship their father for being famous – a kind of god: but it's extraordinary how soon they get to realise if he's a public failure." Michael developed a stammer. He decided that his father was "inefficient", which in eyes was the worst thing a man could be. 

Stephen, instead, just couldn't stop crying. It confirmed his suspicion that his father was a windbag whose exhortations of "on and ever on" were meaningless.