David Purdy: The current hue and cry about MPs' expense claims is both grossly disproportionate and worryingly dangerous. The media, including the BBC, are engaged in their favourite activity of witch-hunting. Intentionally or not, the effect of the daily flow of revelations from the Daily Telegraph's cheque-book journalism is to displace public anger at the state of the country on to an issue which certainly needs to be sorted out and cleaned up, but is trivial by comparison with the effects of economic recession, social disintegration and environmental degradation.
I readily accept that the current rules governing expense claims for second homes rented or purchased by MPs are over-generous and under-scrutinised and that some MPs have blatantly abused the system. But the public needs to be reminded: (a) that MPs represneting constituencies outside Greater London or the home counties do have to have second homes and are entitled to something resembling a family life; (b) that arrangements to make this possible are not at all straightforward and that whatever is wrong with the current rules can hardly be put right instantly (which is one reason why Gordon Brown's appearance on You-Tube the other week was so crass, quite apart from his embarrassing rictus grin); and (c) that the underlying reason for abuses of the current system is that for many years MPs' salaries have lagged behind those of comparable occupational groups (such as business executives and senior civil servants), with whom they regularly interact..
The Telegraph and others are playing with populist fire. I can't believe they actually intend to boost the prospects of the BNP, UKIP and other motley right-wing parties with candidates in the forthcoming European elections, but that is what is likely to happen. So why are they doing it? I'm not sure. In the seventeeth century, witch-hunters actually believed the accusations they hurled at vulnerable women. Was it not James VI of Scotland and I of England who wrote the infamous manual on how to find and destroy witches? Presumably, something similar applies in this case. At all events, it dismays me to find people on the left joining in the hysteria. Saturday's Guardian published a letter from Willie Maley, who sometimes writes for Perspectives, having a go at Gordon Brown for the cleaning bill he shared with his brother and sister-in-law. When he reads the dignified response from Clare Brown in today's Guardian, I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of his rush to judgment.
I readily accept that the current rules governing expense claims for second homes rented or purchased by MPs are over-generous and under-scrutinised and that some MPs have blatantly abused the system. But the public needs to be reminded: (a) that MPs represneting constituencies outside Greater London or the home counties do have to have second homes and are entitled to something resembling a family life; (b) that arrangements to make this possible are not at all straightforward and that whatever is wrong with the current rules can hardly be put right instantly (which is one reason why Gordon Brown's appearance on You-Tube the other week was so crass, quite apart from his embarrassing rictus grin); and (c) that the underlying reason for abuses of the current system is that for many years MPs' salaries have lagged behind those of comparable occupational groups (such as business executives and senior civil servants), with whom they regularly interact..
The Telegraph and others are playing with populist fire. I can't believe they actually intend to boost the prospects of the BNP, UKIP and other motley right-wing parties with candidates in the forthcoming European elections, but that is what is likely to happen. So why are they doing it? I'm not sure. In the seventeeth century, witch-hunters actually believed the accusations they hurled at vulnerable women. Was it not James VI of Scotland and I of England who wrote the infamous manual on how to find and destroy witches? Presumably, something similar applies in this case. At all events, it dismays me to find people on the left joining in the hysteria. Saturday's Guardian published a letter from Willie Maley, who sometimes writes for Perspectives, having a go at Gordon Brown for the cleaning bill he shared with his brother and sister-in-law. When he reads the dignified response from Clare Brown in today's Guardian, I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of his rush to judgment.
I'm not known for defending the Labour government, but I do think the current furore is completely out of hand and I wish the government would fight back. The desperate remedies which are seriously being discussed by normally sane political commentators such as Jackie Ashley (either Gordon Brown should call an autumn election or Labour MPs should force him out in favour of Alan Johnosn or Ed Miliband) show that they too have succumbed to the mass hysteria that has spread through the country a million times faster than Mexican swine flu.
Gerry Hassan: 'The current hue and cry about MPs expenses is both grossly disproportionate and worryingly dangerous.'
Well you are right on the second, but way out of touch on the first. The MP gravy train is a symptom of the broken British political system - following on from cash for honours, the incorporation of the main parties into the post-democratic elite and the creation and incorporation of the post-Thatcherite consensus.
There is a direct relationship between the rise of a culture of self-aggandisement and living the good life funded at the public expense from MPs and the rise of the corporatised, bastardised neo-liberal state, the widening chasm of inequality and promotion of the blind celebration of wealth and money. The British state - which finds it beyond its competence to develop appropriate rules for MPs - and is of course predicably considering a reform and modernisation route involving the privatisation of the Fees Office so the political class could then continue free of scrutiny and transparency - is at the same time sucking up powers across the UK and continuing its authoritarian march - with last week plans announced for the extension of the DNA database and implementation of ID cards.
Aside from the grotesque indvidual stories - Geoff Hoon's £1.7 million pound property empire funded by us, Hazel Blears designation of different first and second properties to parliamentary and tax authorities - we need to have a real sense of anger and see this as both a tipping point and symptom of the wider crisis of our political system. The responses of the Blears, Vazs, Alan Duncans of this world - that everything was in 'the rules' and that it is the system that is at fault, not them as individuals - is scandalous. This is the state of public life in the UK - an absense of any sense of moral compass or what is right or wrong.
We are at a point combined with the wider economic crisis - when the old political system is broken and we are fast approaching a near-Italianisation of British politics - with endemic, systematic corruption. Where this leaves us is a UK with a diminished, collapsing Westminster, and other political centres: Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast - slowly slipping away. This is going to be in many respects messy and difficult, and yes given the venal nature of the system and mainstream parties it is likely that UKIP, BNP and other anti-system parties will do spectacularly well in the forthcoming Euro elections.
However, we should not put our heads in the sand and pretend this is not a fundamental, far-reaching crisis because it is going to have difficult circumstances. The anger reflected in the media by commentators such as Jackie Ashley, is only a pale imitation of how millions of voters feel up and down the UK - who are worried about their jobs, families and futures - and see a self-serving group of people looking after themselves in what can only be described as something close to a Swiftian tragedy.
Comments
I'm with Gerry on this one.
I listened to Michael Gove - an excrutiating little twerp at the best of times - explaining how his change of homes was not 'flipping' because he and his wife had decided to relocate their young children to Cambridge - so he had a good reason to move he said.
He may be one of the better ones but what sticks in the throat is the fact that whilst he may have a legitimate reason to flip homes he arrogantly expects the taxpayer to fund his "lifestyle change". If I decide to move homes I don't get taxpayer help, and like most people in this country I don't earn £65,000. Pay for your own "lifestyle change" you sponging ponce.
The whole thing smacks of complete arrogance, and if people turn to the BNP in their droves then we will know who to blame. If I hear another Labour politician predicting that this negative publicity 'might benefit the BNP' I may well go out and vote BNP myself. Every time voters hear some detestable Labour cretin telling people to 'vote Labour to stop the BNP' it only serves to remind people that a vote for the BNP is the best protest vote against Labour. But they're more interested in saving their own bacon than stopping the BNP, that's how hollow yet sanctamonious they are.
All they have left after twelve years of government is "Vote for us, corrupt and morally bankrupt though we may be, to stop the far-right". Oh purleeease.
I felt completely disenfranchised before all this. This grotesque soap-opera has just confirmed my opinion and made me detest the system and practically everyone in it even more. The whole rotten lot need to be kicked out. They won't reform themselves to my satisfaction and I don't want to permit them the chance. Kick them out.
Gerry and Toque are bang on. David Purdy is way off the mark here. The issues of "economic recession, social disintegration and environmental degradation" can't be divorced so easily from the corruption, venality and sheer contempt for democracy at the heart the system. This isn't some media fabrication; people are rightly disgusted.
In order to maintain this expenses system, the Commons voted to exempt themselves from normal taxation rules regarding benefit in kind and have attempted to exempt themselves from Freedom of Information legislation.
We need to see more ‘hue and cry’, not less, over a system which has turned our lawmakers into law breakers.
Well said Toque, and powerfully. I feel just the same. We have approached a real political crisis, I think. David Purdy's blase response to it is frightening. The system is certainly rotten, and it is crumbling. Not a bad thing in itself, actually, if it leads to some serious change, but I can't see politics being the same again in this country.
I think back to 1997, when we last had a rotten government and a crumbling system. Back then we had shiny young Blair to turn to, and I can still remember the excitement we felt when he got in. It looked like real change might be possible. Labour blew that chance and have left us, if anything, worse than before. Who do we have to turn to now? Cameron and his upper crust boobies, as corrupt as Labour, of whom the oleaginous Gove is such a disgusting example? Nick Griffin? UKIP? Talk about the death of hope.
I, for one, have decided I am not voting in any forthcoming elections, for any party, small or large. I won't put my name to any of this. I won't be the only one.
I'm with Gerry on this.
Politicians have been asleep at the wheel. They fail to hold the executive to account. They fail to react when the Executive does things without justification. They fail to shout loudly about the lack of action on the economy or climate change. That is because they are too focused on their expenses claims, and because they are afraid that they were lose their jobs if they join the "awkward squad" and ask too many questions.
It wouldn't be so bad if these politicians were actually doing what they are paid to do, which is to keep Ministers and the civil service on their toes. They appear to think that they are entitled to the same salary as a senior manager just for turning up and asking some soft questions or reading out the talking points given out by a spin doctor.
Douglas Hogg's expenses letter is incredible. No wonder it's been so difficult to reform our democracy when the people who are the guardians of that democracy have been milking the system to such an extent.
I suppose you might expect it from a Tory.
But a "socialist"? John Prescott clamed a yearly food allowance of £4,800, only £153 short of the basic state pension. Clearly he's a man with little shame, but surely even he must remove himself from public life now.
God bless cheque book journalism if he does.
And another thing ... I read Clare Brown’s response in the Guardian yesterday. Far from being ‘dignified’ it was a self-pitying whine which neglected to mention that Gordon Brown (as far as I can make out) chose to continue to occupy and claim for a London flat when grace and favour accommodation was available to him.
As Guy Aitchison says “the issues of economic recession, social disintegration and environmental degradation can't be divorced so easily from the corruption, venality and sheer contempt for democracy at the heart the system.” This, to my mind, is evidence of how much the attitude, borne of Thatcherism, of “take what you can, when you can” has infected our politics just as much as our banking and business. She also saw to the demise of the public service ethos. What we need is a long overdue show-down with this pernicious political philosophy.
Paul Kingsnorth's abstentionist despair, while entirely understandable, is effectively merely a negative protest vote. It's because politically informed or indifferent people have stopped voting that the mainstream parties can get away with governing on such a ludicrously low base of public support (only 22% of the electorate voting Labour in 2005), effectively making them unaccountable to the people.
What's interesting about the European elections is of course that they are carried out using a highly proportionate voting system. And that's why people who do vote at them feel so liberated to either vote for the party they actually support, or to make a protest vote: because their vote does count. Political accountability can come only if the popular vote is taken into account. No wonder the Westminster elite has resisted any form of electoral reform for UK-parliamentary elections for so long. If a decent PR system was introduced (multi-member STV being the best), they'd be bricking themselves: they could be wiped out in UK elections and not just the European sideshow.
I seriously believe that electoral reform is the only way to salvage UK-parliamentary democracy; although whether I would actually want to salvage a system that is even more undemocratic and unfair towards the people of England than it is to the other nations of the UK is debatable. One thing for sure is that an English Parliament would be elected using PR; and that fact again is a major reason why the main parties are opposed to it: no chance of either Labour or the Tories gaining a disproportionate parliamentary majority in England, whether the members of the English Parliament were either entirely separate from or integrated within the UK Parliament.
According to the Times Populus poll last week, 41% of respondents in England and Wales (therefore, one assumes, a higher percentage in England alone) want an English Parliament. Similarly, at the last general election, roughly 39% of the electorate didn't bother to vote (compared with 22% that voted for the majority Labour government). By my book, this makes the 'English Parliament Party' or the 'Abstention Party' the leading parties in England and the UK. Isn't it time to channel this silent large minority into an electoral movement that can force the established parties to carry out root-and-branch reform of the system, including an English Parliament (if the majority in a referendum want it) and PR? Maybe this is the way forward: something like an Obama-esque 'Change Party' to fight the next general election and to stand on a simple platform of major constitutional reform, including as a minimum PR and a referendum on an English Parliament, after which new elections would be held.
Who knows - this might even bring about the very English revolution that is surely needed to create a parliament that is once more accountable to the people. I'd certainly be willing to be a founder member if a party along these lines were to take shape. What do people think?
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