Are you bewildered by the latest developments in the MP expenses scandal?
You needn't be. It's all really very simple.
Sir Thomas has asked around half of MPs to give money back - because, even if they followed the rules, the rules were wrong.
This evil-looking creature is Barbara Follett MP --a Labour MP (and wife of a millionaire author) -- who has
been ordered to repay £40,000. £40,000!
But Sir Paul says that Sir Thomas is being too harsh and that the rules were the rules.
Neither Sir Thomas nor Sir Paul writes the rules for MPs; that's the job of Sir Christopher - except, actually, Sir Ian is the man who really writes them.
Now Sir Ian is consulting on new rules that are different from the new rules which Sir Christopher wrote.
Sir Christopher has written to Sir Ian to say that he doesn't agree with the rules, but has no complaint about the way Sir Ian has done his job.
This is "Sir" Alan Haselhurst MP. Not the biggestoffender -- he's been ordered to repay "just"
£11,000 of, er, mistakes -- but he is also
(wait for this) Deputy Speaker.
It is difficult to know what to think.
Meanwhile, Sir Stuart hints that Sir Ian and Sir Paul are right and that Sir Thomas and Sir Christopher are wrong.
Anyway, all you need to know - according to Sir Stuart - is that the Commons is putting its house in order.
I hope that's now clear. And it might be funny if it were not so serious. The expenses scandal has undermined the standing of Parliament, it has devastated the reputations of many individual politicians, and it has led to the largest number of retirements from the Commons since World War II - and still counting.
Today should have been a day when people could say "at least they are sorting out the mess". I fear that, as on so many other similar days, that is not how it will feel.
This charming couple -- husband and wife MPsAndrew McKay and Julie Kirkbride -- have
been given pig noses by The Sun. I hate The Sun, but
in this case the noses are deserved. The two
of them claimed £60,000 to which they were
not entitled.
Yeah, that's how we do things in "The Mother of All Parliaments", the "world's oldest surviving democracy", the "cradle of democratic civilisation", etc, etc.
Oh, and we find out tomorrow which, if any, of the six MPs (and Lords) subject to a police investigation will face prosecution. We already know that none of the creatures pictured above will be on the list.
2 comments:
Our equivalent in the US is Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House from San Francisco, who runs up astonishing tabs flying herself and her ninety-odd retinue around the world. Her hotel bill for the climate conference in Copenhagen alone exceeded $400,000.
Actually, I don't think that's the equivalent at all. Pelosi may cost a lot of money because she chooses to take a lot of staff on a business meeting: but those are legitimate business expenses which are being reimbursed.
The British MPs were claiming for their own personal benefit -- bills for having their gardens made beautiful, or for buying new ropes for their own flagpoles (!), and for claiming the cost of mortgage payments on their homes (that they then sold tax-free, keeping all the profits for themselves). Some of them, it turns out, were claiming for mortgage payments on properties that had no mortgages. I call that theft -- we'll see if the courts agree.
Whatever you might think about Pelosi's politics, she is not a thief. Can I suggest you get your "news" from somewhere other than the Fox Channel...? And if you're really worried about abuse of public funds, how about doing something to smash the culture of corporate funding and lobbying -- that abuse really does cost the US tax-payer a staggering sum of money, besides which Pelosi's office expenses look like the peanuts they are.
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