Hooray. After weeks of holier than thou grandstanding at the Despatch Box and on air about MPs’ expenses and allowances, David Cameron is exposed as a junketeering freebie merchant accepting a jolly from the apartheid racists in South Africa. Or so said weekend headlines. But do I rejoice at the exposure of Mr Cameron’s youthful folly brought to us in a new biography written by James Hanning and Francis Elliot?
Frankly I don’t give a damn. There is no political statute of limitation for say the Jew-hating racists who control the BNP, but should we really care that 20 years ago Mr Cameron flirted with apartheid or should we list Labour bigwigs who once embraced Trotskyism, Stalinism or even worse, were Liberals in their youth?
I think not. Politicians are entitled to their history, their past life, and to making mistakes. Once they were also entitled to a private life as parents, lovers, drunks, gamblers, QCs, property owners, company directors, writers and broadcasters. Today however, there is a concerted effort to declare that politicians have no private life, no right to construct a home, a family, a way of serving constituents that allows them private space which other citizens whose income and expenses come from the public purse take for granted.
The argument is made, fairly, that MPs are in receipt of taxpayers’ money and therefore must reveal all to the public. We are what we spend, argue the press and public.
The fuss is made about someone watching smutty movies and it is paid for by the taxpayer. But all MPs’ income and expenses (unless like Mr Cameron an MP has great private wealth) is paid for by the public.
So too is the income and allowances of teachers, nurses, police officers, consultants who earn billions from Whitehall, every civil servant, all who work for the BBC, every town hall worker, and employees of the new agencies that deliver public goods but are funded by you and me as taxpayers.
Are we entitled to say that only those wholly in the private sector are entitled to some measure of privacy in this new lustration process that holds that all MPs are cheats, swindlers and must be pilloried?
In Poland, the right-wing Kawczynski brothers insisted that everyone who had worked in pre-1989 Poland reveal all their personal details to show that they had no connection to the old communist regime. The object was not historical but political – to deprive all except their own followers of any status as contemporary politicians. A great Pole, Bronislaw Geremek, refused to fill in his form even though he had suffered at the hands of the ancien regime.
Because the approach in South Africa of treating the former upholders of the apartheid regime as humans who had erred rather than criminals to be pilloried was a better way forward.
For David Cameron and Nick Clegg there is more pleasure and they hope political profit in trumpeting their self-righteousness than working constructively to find a solution.
Gordon Brown is not blameless as he refused to accept any of the pay awards made by the independent salary review bodies that have examined what MPs should be paid. For short-term headlines as the man who kept down the pay of politicians, he stored up deep resentments as MPs turned to the allowance system to be able to live decently in both constituency and London.
There are no winners and if there is a Solomon out there who can produce a fair system that covers 650 widely differing needs then please let him come forward.
But the loser in all this is the idea of parliamentary democracy which consists of men and women with their foibles and failings, past and present. They are selected by local party activists and are not asked if they have the personal means to sustain two homes in their constituency and London. They are now collectively under fire as the public in one of its periodic fits or moral hysteria wants to see MPs put in stocks. Destroy a political class however and you hand power over to those who never have to account for their income, allowances and expenses even if paid by the tax-payer.
There will be many new MPs in the Commons after the next election. They will join a Commons in the sourest atmosphere in parliament’s history. Whoever forms the next government will not want a Commons full of the rancour now being created as the private lives of MPs become a playing field for derision and scorn and hate.
What a lot of bull shit, parachuting people into safe seats are not exactly giving local a choice.
yes if your p*ssed out of your skull thats OK you can work oh yes.
paying for porn is OK yes out of your own money mate. You moan like hell about welfare and then tell us you have a private life.
I’m disabled so far my bank accounts have been checked, my benefits records lost, and the Labour party have called me everything under the sun from and including a Tax payers scrounger.
If you do not like the heat mate get out of the kitchen.
Getting back to the issues of allowances and expenses for MPs how about this:
An MPs motel is made available close to the House of Commons for ALL MPs and their immediate families and for any staff. It would include office facilities.
Every constituency to have a parliament owned MP “Manse” which would pass to successive MPs as they are elected. Boundary changes need not cause a serious problem.
Allowances for ALL Mps for any accomodation (apart from expenses for neccessary stays in other places) would be abolished.
Is that too radical or too rational?
Denis appears to misunderstand the issue about MPs expenses in a way which is rather worrying.
The difference between MPs and ordinary employees is that MPs have been placed there by the electorate and there is an expectation (surely justified) that MPs do not resort to fiddling the system in a way that in other walks of life would result in people being disciplined or losing their jobs.
Benefits recipients who seek to sustain a reasonable standard of living by bending the rules would most likely be prosecuted.
Contrary to Denis’ assertion, it does not require the judgement of Solomon to put in place a fair system.
An expenses system (a system of fair recompense for reasonable out of pocket expenses) – operates perfectly well in most legitimate, ethical businesses and within the public sector.
The solution to any allegations of improper use of such expenses is simple – an assumption that the MP will seek re-election and thereby be accountable to voters for their actions.
I agree with Robin Turner’s suggestion, and administration of the London/Constituency ‘manse’ idea should be straightforward. It was not so long ago that Circuit Judges were put up in ‘Judges’ lodgings’ owned by the Crown and without ‘profit’ to the Judges who used them. It seems outrageous that ‘2nd homes’ can be mortgaged at the cost of the Taxpayer and any profit on sale is not available to the Taxpayer first.
Denis struggles to articulate a paradoxical principle in a demotic age – that holders of power should be allowed to operate in private. And of course he’s right that government, especially democratic government, has to have a private, ‘invisible’ dimension. But where was that thinking when Freedom of Information was (so glibly) legislated? Behind the attack on MPs’ expenses lies an anti political (anti politics) attitude. We need to ask why that reflex should be so powerful now, after 12 years of Labour government. To reply ‘it’s inevitable’ after 12 years invites the obvious response, that Labour’s tenure should now end. A more interesting answer has to do with the conduct of politics during the Blair-Brown era. Denis asks, plaintively, for Solomonic wisdom about what to do about the practicalities of expenses and allowances. Aren’t we entitled, in response, to ask him and other MPs what they think they are doing – politics or technocratic administration?
“They are selected by local party activists and are not asked if they have the personal means to sustain two homes in their constituency and London.”
Cow excrement.
Self serving rubbish.. What can we expect? Sense?
No one forces people to be MPs. They know what is required of them.
While I have time for Denis and believe in Labour values, it is with regret that I say that Labour has lost it’s moral compass and authority. In 1997 Labour came in clearly claiming a break with Tory sleaze, the feeling that Tories were taking people and power for granted and Labour was going to be different. The last few years have truly been a test of the most loyal endurance. The 10p tax rate fiasco (who didn’t get that the lowest paid in society would be worst off by this?); the perception of ministers gorging on expenses (no good saying they acted “within the rules”-the bar is always higher for Labour than Tories on this-the rules are a sham and any MP should know the difference between what is “within the rules” and what is morally acceptable); the recent e-mail smearing; the failure in moral leadership on the Gurkhas; the sheer panic of attendance allowances for MPs something this Govt abolished (rightly) for cllrs 10 yrs ago; and much more besides; all demonstrate how far things have fallen. It’s simply no good any more saying how bad things would be given alternatives, that just gets Labour to 32% in an election. The electors in marginals are leaving in droves and this Governing Party (which I support) has the look of a Party that is simply incapable of being renewed in Office.
‘They are selected by local party activists and are not asked if they have the personal means to sustain two homes in their constituency and London.’
That’s perhaps because they don’t actually need two homes,ever heard of hotels?I suppose it might be a bit degrading for a non London MP to do what thousands of business people do every week when staying away from their homes.
Or is it the presenting of a hotel receipt that bothers you?
Please understand that nobody repeat nobody is forcing an MP to do this job,they are all free to tout their talents in the open job market,what no volunteers ? But please be aware that there are thousands of people in the real world that would be delighted to take your place and enjoy your salaries,conditions and extensive freebiees.
Please wake up and smell the coffee!
‘”They are selected by local party activists and are not asked if they have the personal means to sustain two homes in their constituency and London.”
In Erith & Thamesmead the selection appears to be by the New Labour Aristocray.
Where is the integrity demonstrated in MP’s acting within the rules, but ensuring their snouts are in the trough first?
How can Ms Smith take £240,000 for herself and her husband in salary and still claim £120,000 housing costs and other expenses.
She has shown her priority, herself, why is Gordon protecting her, her time at the Home Office has been and continues to be painful
How much are Likud paying this muppet?