dc | And about bloody time!

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And about bloody time!

Martin is going!

[ETA: Meanwhile Gordon Brown said no Labour MP who broke expenses rules would stand at the next election. — is that the most meaningless commitment ever, given that breaking the rules isn't exactly the issue?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know what you mean by it being a meaningless commitment.

But the problem is that it's a bit difficult to sack (for want of another term) someone who has kept to the rules, but hasn't kept inside a more stringent line which is defined much later.

There would be a massive up-roar if the Inland Revenue changed the rules retrospectively for, say, Tax Credits and severely punished anyone who claimed one before the rule change which broke that rule.

Yes; however, someone claiming tax credits is not likely to have been a member of the body which devised the tax credits system. MPs who seek to run the country and who are able to set their own standards should be held to account if they set standards in place which allow practices no one could reasonably consider to be legitimate. Cameron's approach (as far as I understand it) is: pay it back if we say you should or face removal of the whip, and constituency parties should deselect MPs they are unhappy with. That seems more appropriate than Gordon Brown's havering comments.

I found it interesting when I recently found out that the current expenses system was set in place under the last Conservative government (not sure if that was under Major or Thatcher), and it hasn't been changed by the MPs since then. That means that the majority of the current MPs haven't been involved in setting the expenses standards.

It was under Thatcher, as far as I know. They didn't have the nerve to actually set up a proper system of remunerating MPs through reasonable pay awards, so they effectively used the expenses system to top up MPs pay.

However, current MPs are not blameless. (Ignoring the fact that some of them have been there for a long time; Martin was Healey's PPS.) They are the people who make the laws in the country, and they have been responsible for regulating their own remuneration. If the system wasn't right, it doesn't matter that they didn't set up: they are responsible for not doing anything to change it.

You are quite right. I suspect that in practical terms most of them didn't realise the need to reform it and thus it wasn't on their radar. Those who would have had the seniority to think of such things probably had what seemed like more important things to deal with.

I'm not seeking to excuse them, merely explain the situation.

Anyway, they are now all paying the price for not attempting to do anything to change it.

Yes, aren't they just?

I agree with the idea that the speaker has become the fall-guy, based on what I know (which isn't a lot.) Yet the issue doesn't concern blame. It goes deeper than that, yet MPs won't wan tto change a system that benefits them. It's all bluster. After all I thought expenses were for claims that helped you perform your job, not eg clean moats (how exactly does that aid an MP in his constituency, or in London??)

I don't think I would agree he's the fall guy. He has at no stage aided transparency; when a journalist was trying to investigate MPs' expenses, he was one of the people who actively blocked her efforts (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/15/mps-expenses-heather-brooke-foi). After reading that, any thoughts I might have had he was being unfairly targeted vanished.

Ah ha, but tis all a conspiracy dontcharknow?
Lets say, for the sake of conspiracy that I'm backing the speaker... If he is the guy who signs MPs expenses claims, and assuming that the MPs who make the claims like making claims, they are not exactly going to want to stop making them. So they are going to say to the speaker, 'don't reveal anything about our claims. If a dirty story should appear in the press we'll ensure you lose your job'

(I think Spitting Image had more of an effect on my young mind than I'd ever previously realised.)

*snort*

But have you seen the footage of him slapping down MPs who were wanting transparency and change?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And about bloody time!

Breaking the expenses rules

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