I was catching up on Today in Parliament last night (thank you iTunes) and heard this absolute gem from Gordon Prentice:

“I want to alert the House and the people outside to what this is all about. It is about very rich people buying elections. We can listen to the exchanges between lawyers until we are blue in the face, but that is what it is about—multimillionaires who live abroad buying elections.”

In proper ex-CRD style, I source this to Hansard, 13 July 2009, col. 81. Or click here.

I have two things to say: Lord Sainsbury, Bernie Ecclestone & the trade unions. And if you can’t persuade people of the benefits of your programme sufficiently that some of them support you financially, I’d argue that your policy programme is probably not good enough for voters either.

Anyway, given what’s happened in recent months with MPs expenses, I was initially all for demanding stricter rules, independent oversight and stringent limits. Then I thought – is that really consistent with my belief in smaller government, transparency and wider participation?

I don’t think so.

When the proposals for more state funding for political parties were first made in early 2006, I had a lengthy (and ultimately pointless) argument about the merits or not of no donations. I wanted there to be less state funding (see above, point 2 to Gordon Prentice), with political parties able to take funding from absolutely any individual, of any amount, at any time – a total free for all with two important provisos. Firstly that no companies could donate so you always knew who the individual was. And secondly that every donation should be published within seven days.

I believe that the only way to ensure honest political funding is by being fully transparent. If a party wants to take money from someone – fine, but they need to be prepared to defend their involvement. And realistically if someone is determined to get round the rules, they will, despite the theory of the Governor’s eyebrow or the smell test. So I think the best way is to get it all out in the open, be honest and straightforward with people and to make sure that individuals are willing to take responsibility both for who they give donations to and who parties take donations from.

There’s a report in the Observer this morning about Andrew Mitchell’s draft policy proposals for international development. It concerns vouchers for schools and hospitals in developing countries. Like Andrew, I don’t have any qualms about whether access to health, education and other services are privately, publicly or third-sector provided. I do want them to be provided in a fair, sustainable and effective way.

I don’t have any inside track on what the proposals are, but I think it’s worth making a few things clear.

Number one – the 0.7% of GDP target for international development is not a “bid to promote compassionate Conservatism” – it’s an agreement that most developed countries around the world have signed up to. It was set in 1970 – nearly 40 years ago! Yet by 2005, only five countries met or exceeded this. If we don’t abide by international agreements, we have no right to expect others to do so.

It’s a drop in the ocean of government spending, and if properly targeted, spent and monitored could in fact reduce costs for developed countries’ governments. For example, I was watching Stephen Fry’s HIV & Me programme the other day (it’s EXCELLENT. Sad, but excellent). One woman from Uganda was featured; she came to the UK, was diagnosed HIV positive, and is now appealing against deportation because her visa has run out. She won’t get the drugs she needs in Uganda. I think she had appealed 4 or 5 times. If she goes back, she will probably die fairly soon after.

I don’t believe that we have any sort of case to send her back to die; I do believe that if aid money was properly spent and third-sector organisations such as Bill Clinton’s Foundation (which has negotiated agreements for developing countries to buy antiretro-viral drugs at cost price) were given proper support, she could return to Uganda safely. In short, we live in a global village, and what happens on the other side of the world can and does have a significant effect on us.

And finally, it’s a moral cause – it is disgusting that there are still children dying of malnutrition, dirty water and preventable diseases. We forget, living in Britain, just how appalling some people’s lives really are.

Aid is not the answer to everything. More important in the long-term are foreign investment and trade. But aid is a vital part of the development spectrum, and should not be cut for selfish reasons. Or if you have to think about it selfishly, at least understand that slashing aid now will lead to far greater problems for you at home in the future.

The BNP’s latest celebrity, Andrew Brons, has declared that he doesn’t believe that Kelly Holmes is fully British.  

I find the BNP’s beliefs revolting.  Their stated policy of barring non-whites from membership, their denial of the Holocaust, their support for ‘repatriation’ (whatever that means; if you’re British, you’re British as far as I’m concerned) and, to take them at their word, their socialist policies on state-ownership and trade barriers are absolute no-nos.

But you wouldn’t know much about their policies other than rumour and innuendo – because all the main political parties have a policy of not sharing a platform with the BNP.  

Yet people voted for the BNP. There are two democratically elected national representatives.  Of course the argument can be made that the BNP’s vote in numbers didn’t go up; it was other voters staying at home which increased their share of the vote… etc etc etc. You can make all the excuses you want. But the fact remains that Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons are now democratically elected representatives of Britons.  The reasons people vote for the BNP are, I’m sure, many and varied, just as they are for all other parties.  

I believe a key reason, however, is that some people feel abandoned and excluded by the main parties.  They feel that the world is against them.  The BNP uses that feeling of exclusion to win votes. And the way the main parties have dealt with the BNP up until now has played into their hands – ‘The main parties don’t listen to you, they don’t want us to tell you the truth’ etc.  

I want to be very clear.  I do not support the BNP.  They are prejudiced and they are wrong.  But given that these two bigots have been democratically elected, I believe we should let them speak freely; we should debate with them and argue our case against theirs. As Andrew Brons has already shown, they are unable to stop their true nature coming through, and they will quickly show themselves for what they are.

This is (hopefully) my last word on expenses.  The last week has been immeasurably damaging to MPs and to politics generally.  The Houses of Parliament have been shown to be full of people who are, at best, cavalier with taxpayers’ money, or, at worst, have defrauded us.

Norman Tebbit’s intervention was not particularly welcome – but what he said was unsurprising. Not, pace Dave, because he is always critical of David Cameron. But because in many ways, what he was saying is absolutely right. People are fed up of politics as usual, and particularly of politicians who live the high life at our expense.  It would not surprise me in the least if what Lord Tebbit was talking about happened – mass abstentions and fringe parties elected in the Euros almost certainly and in other elections as well.

But I don’t want to vote based on the past. I want to vote positively, I want to vote for something.  Calling a general election now would mean we probably elect a very odd mixture of MPs. While variety is a good thing, and a few single-issue campaigners to keep the rest of them honest wouldn’t go amiss, I don’t want a group of people governing whose sole thought is ‘mustn’t claim expenses’ – I want a government that does the right thing for as many people as possible, as much of the time as possible, and as fairly as possible. 

That will, as I have argued before, require some really unpopular decisions.  There will be pain ahead. But I want a government that learns from mistakes and moves forward, not one that spends all its time looking to the past. 

I want the Conservatives to make sure that every single current MP has their expenses checked. While most claims will no doubt be within the rules, I suspect a fair few will be outside the spirit of them.  Some should have the Whip withdrawn; lots will be asked to repay money. Others may be asked to stand down by their constituency associations, and others may decide to retire.  Once the new system is agreed and in place, that should be the end of it. 

After that, I want the Conservatives to get on with planning for government because it’s going to be a horrible first term and they need to make sure they are as ready as possible for what lies ahead.

In many ways, Fiona is quite right to be fed up of talking about politicians’ expenses, if only because it has been such a sordid, drawn-out saga. This country does indeed face severe challenges which require prompt and decisive resolution, many of them economic and brought on by Gordon Brown’s deplorable mismanagement of the country’s finances over the past decade. But that does not make it right to suggest that the ongoing expenses scandal, which has been extensively covered by a gamut of media outlets and nowhere better than Ben Brogan’s new blog at the Telegraph, is an inconvenient side-story that is merely distracting attention from the broader issues. Rather, it is like a cancer at the heart of our democracy, entirely tainting all actions and all parties of this discredited Parliament. How can our politicians believe they still have any form of mandate to govern a country that they appear to have been fleecing for years? How can anybody be expected to trust a Government drawn mostly from a Parliament infested by mercenary rogues, and believe it capable of acting in anything but self-interest?

I believe strongly that Parliament contains a core of upstanding Members of scrupulous honesty and strong moral fibre. I am heartbroken for these Members that they have, through no direct fault of their own, seen their role reduced to nothing by the deplorable behaviour of their colleagues. However, I am also disappointed that too many satisfied themselves merely with keeping their own houses in order instead of decrying loudly and often the corruption of an expenses system that should never have been constructed and, in effect, policed by its own beneficiaries.

Our political system – indeed our very democracy – has rarely had greater need of strong and decisive leadership than at this moment, and rarely has it been so notable by its absence. We need to hear far more from those individuals in the House who are, in no small way, also victims of this incredible shame, be they our party leaders or our honest MPs. They should stand up and cry that this was utterly and uncondonably wrong, and that the full wrath of the electorate, and where necessary the law, be brought immediately to bear on the wrongdoers. They must demand, and be granted, complete transparency of this Parliament’s expenses, a prompt general election, and the installation of an independent expenses scheme along the principles set out by Fiona below. For without a newly-elected Parliament in which voters can install at least a modicum of trust, Britain’s broken democracy will move ever closer to the abyss of fleckless pluralism, with elections serving only to hide the unbridgeable gulf between the corrupt ruling elites and the everyday citizens.

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Anthony McDonald