David Purdy and Gerry Hassan disagree on the significance of recent revelations about MPs expenses.
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'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.
