A sickening stench of corruption is in the air. It is a scandal that Conservative MPs yesterday ripped up the parliamentary standards regime simply to save a colleague who had been found guilty of breaching rules. Their vote drags down the reputation of MPs and Parliament in the eyes of the public.
From ‘cash for questions’ in the 1990s to the expenses scandal in the 2000s and the recent bullying and harassment cases in Parliament, it is blindingly obvious that we need firm processes to scrutinise MPs’ activities. But after the Tories’ actions yesterday, Parliament has no process at all.
The Conservatives acted on their own to create a new standards body without consulting the opposition. Labour and the Scottish National Party were right to boycott it. Today this seems to have forced an embarrassing U-turn, which leaves the government’s position murkier than ever, and led to Owen Paterson’s resignation as a Tory MP.
