Ugh
April 27th, 2009 | This post was written by Fiona MelvilleUgh.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
I am fed up of talking about MPs’ expenses.
It’s damaging all politicians. It’s damaging our democracy. In the immediate term, most importantly, faffing around with MPs’ expenses means that no-one is concentrating on what should be done about more important things – like the fact that we look like we’re about to go bankrupt.
Reading some of the horror stories that are rumoured to be contained in July’s publication batch of claims (though I’m slightly wondering if some of the more outlandish ones might not be red herrings to make the real claims seem less bad?), I hope that the fear of by-elections proves right. If this list in today’s Daily Mail is correct, all the MPs who claimed these things should stand down. I don’t care what party they belong to – they are breaking the law; these expenses were not ‘incurred wholly, necessarily and exclusively in the performance of their Parliamentary duties.’
So rather than returning to the specifics of what changes should be made, here are some prerequisites that I think must be agreed before anything is done:
- Anything MPs claim expenses for must be fully supported by receipts which will be published
- Staff costs should be administered centrally, and measured against a Civil Service equivalency scale
- The same tax regime should apply to MPs as to the rest of us
- Anyone who fiddles their expenses must be subject to an outside body in the same way as the rest of us – I’m no longer satisfied with this ‘parliament is sovereign’ argument. No it’s not – it’s accountable to us. And frankly it’s proving itself unworthier of our trust by the day.
- In return, we as voters should understand the differences between salary, expenses and office costs.
A final point – my internet browser keeps telling me ‘oops! Link broken’ when I try to acess the Parliament website’s pages on Members’ Allowances, the Green Book and Members’ Pay. Maybe it’s too many people trying to access them, but the first step to transparency would be to get access to these pages fixed.
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Tags: Accountability, Ethics, Voters
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April 30th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Everyone knows that having a relationship with someone at work is a risky business, particularly if your boss finds out!
And doing it while you’re married to someone else really is not appropriate behaviour. We’re not French!
But then charging that to expenses paid for by the tax-payer is simply not acceptable. We’re not Italian!
To be fair though, I want to kick a hole through my TV screen every time I see Gordon Brown appear – so maybe four televisions in four years is not unreasonable for someone who actually has to work with him?
April 30th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Ben Brogan suggests, as I did, that there may be an element of expectation management in the more outrageous claims, such as those included in this article in the Mail.