Something surely is rotten at the heart of Westminster these days, though perhaps it’s been this way for years, who knows? We surely don’t, nor will we ever fully understand the true scope of the MP expenses bonanza extravaganza. After all if it wasn’t for the FOIA and the courage shown by the Telegraph to bring us, the great unwashed, the unredacted, unsanitised truth, inviting us to make our own minds up, (yes politicians, even we, the great herd of vote cows have minds) none of this would have come to light. After all, just look at how hard they fought to remove their expenses claims from the scope of FOIA in the first place. Well done Norman Baker MP and others for making sure this particular jolly wheeze failed.
If you listen to any of those caught with their hands in the cookie jar that is MP’s expenses, they will all tell you the same thing:
"The expenses currently in question were claimed in full consultation with the Fees Office in the House of Commons, and I have always followed their guidance and stuck to the rules.” – Margaret Moran MP
“All Hazel Blears’ claims for allowances are in line with the rules, and have been approved by the fees office.” – Spokesperson for Hazel Blears MP, Communities Secretary
“All of his claims have been approved by the Fees Office as within the parliamentary rules” – Spokesman for Ben Bradshaw MP
“Everything I have claimed has been legitimate and approved by the fees office.” – Alan Duncan MP
And so it goes, on and on and on. Contrition…what contrition? Of course the system’s rotten but it’s THEIR system, they put it in place and they maintained the status quo throughout the last 30 odd years and it’s absolutely no good to say that one or two may be whiter than white if they too have kept schtum in regard to any changes to it.
Of course, the Lib Dems as a group may fare better than most (and the latest polls seem to bear that out somewhat) but they wont escape some individual criticism Im sure. They have after all, campaigned tirelessly for substantial changes to the system for years, but such is the imbalance in our political system that without the help of Joanna Lumley it seems Lib Dems victories will be few and far between for some time yet.
So now of course, as Parliament drowns in a sea of David Heathcoat-Amory’s horse manure (£388.80p cost to the tax payer over three years) instead of reaching for the hair shirts and humble pie (paid for out of their own pockets of course) they are seeking a scapegoat, a deflection, a smokescreen, anything to avoid taking responsibility for making rotten decisions under a system rotten to its very core.
Throughout the autopsy on the financial crisis it was Robert Peston who was to blame, the BBC, the FSA, the Americans, the bankers, especially that pantomime cad Sir (but maybe not for long) Fred “The Shred” Goodwin, the Press, the system, the philosophy, the shadow banking system, offshore tax havens… all of them, each and every one was to blame and true to form, just like Macavity no politician allowed their own fingerprints to be found at the scene. But rest assured all you citizens of these sceptered isles, lessons will be learned. I didn’t realise running this country was a YTS scheme, but I shouldn’t be too surprised.
True to form the scapegoating has begun again in regard to MP’s expenses. It’s the system, it’s the Press, it’s the Telegraph, it’s the person who leaked the documents, it’s Kate Hoey, it’s Norman Baker, it’s Sky News, it’s the Commons Fees Office. MP’s are surely just as much victims of the system as everyone else, no? The Common’s Fees Office didn’t need to sign off on Barbara Follett’s Chinese rug repairs (£528.75) after all and if only Norman Baker and his mates had just shut the hell up none of this would have ever come to light and MY GOD the Press… don’t they have a celebrity divorce to cover or something?
Of course all of this mess is having a terrible effect not only on the participants in politics but the process of government itself. At the time of writing, our great leader was delivering an “important” speech on crime… he was? Oh yes, he certainly was… or so I was informed… but no-one seemed to care…typical response to the utterances of Golden Brown you may say and I would be the very last person to disagree but this issue seems to be so pervasive that it threatens to if not de-rail then to side-track the business of running this country until the mess is sorted out.
We have very big problems in this country and we rely on our politicians to at least have some clue as to the process of sorting those problems out. If they don’t even have a clue as to how foaming at the mouth angry most people are at the arrogant “other planet dwellers” how the hell can they get a clue on anything else?
Some suggestions:
– House of Commons Commission should resign en mass
– All MP’s living within reasonable commuting distance to London should be denied any and all second home allowances
– MP’s within London should be paid a “London Weighting” allowance in addition to their basic salaries to recognise increased costs of things like transport within or to and from the capital
– Any MP receiving grace and favour accomodation should not be allowed to claim for any second home, anywhere
– Commons Fees Office should be replaced by a professional independent body of accountants and auditors with full FOIA obligations
– Any MP found found guilty of “flipping” to avoid taxes or to make a pecuniary gain at tax payers expense should be sacked from any ministerial position, have the whip removed and face possible deselection depending on the severity of the incident (s). Playing the property markets should not be a perk of the job.
Salaries should be linked to cost of living index and all matters of pay should be and should remain the remit of an independent body outside of Parliament
– All MP’s regardless of party or position must be forced to repeat 100 times before bedtime, the following, until they not only recognise the words but understand their meaning…
“Claims must only be made for expenditure that it was necessary for a Member to incur to ensure that he or she could properly perform his or her parliamentary duties.” – The Green Book p7
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