May 2009 21

A little less talk, a lot more action7

Harriet Harman is quoted in today's Telegraph saying that a reform of the MPs' expenses must not lead to "a millionaires' Parliament". It's very unusual that I agree with anything Ms Harman says, but I have found we have common ground here.

The last thing we want, and the worst option for democracy, is to go back to the days when you could only afford to be an MP if you were independently wealthy or had Trade Union backing. In a way, that's what has made the recent revelations of abuse of the MPs' expenses system all the more annoying. The expenses system does a very important job in that it allows MPs from all different backgrounds to come to Westminster and represent their constituents. It doesn't matter if you are a bin man or a billionaire, if the people vote for you, you can do the job. This is the machinery of democracy, but it has been massively degraded in the eyes of the public because it hasn't had a sniff of reform for too long, and too many MPs have used it to feather their nests.

The trouble is that the machinery has become rusty, broken and dangerous. It has taken on a life of its own and is threatening to destroy the very system it is supposed to enable. And the reason it is in such a state of disrepair is down to MPs like Ms Harman. It bears repetition that at every stage in the last couple of weeks when MPs in her party have been found to be shamelessly ripping off taxpayers, Harman has rode to their defence, mouthing the words "these claims are within the rules" even before she has been asked to defend them. She has maintained the status quo and only when politicians of all stripes, including her own floundering leader, had recognised that there would be pitchforks outside Parliament did she acknowledge the need for reform and that some MPs may have been a bit naughty.

She has defended the Speaker this week, too. Despite the fact that he was the most awful and incompetent speaker we have seen in a very long time, and that he sought at every stage to keep from taxpayers how MPs were abusing their cash, and thus brought the House into disrepute and ultimately disorder. 

This would be bad enough in any MP, but Ms Harman is supposed to be the Leader of the House. The clue is in the title – she should have been protecting the reputation of Parliament, and instead has done everything to slow the process of coming clean with the public about how our money is being spent. 

So she's right that we need full and level-headed reform of the MPs' expenses system, and we don't want knee jerk stupidity that will leave us unfairly represented. It would sound better though, if it weren't coming from someone who could have been instrumental in sorting out this mess some time ago, had she only been willing to spend political capital and a bit of courage.  

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  • Hardeep Singh

    This “Millionaire’s Parliament” talk is nothing more than preparing the ground in order to trap incoming Conservatives who ‘may’ be richer than their Labour counterparts. This is due to many of them having had some exposure to industry and trade and thus over the years accumulated wealth.
    Even with all the current news clippings of Labour MPs and Ministers living it up the public doesn’t associate Labour personnel as being rich, though many of them are (hands in the till anyone?). By the time these ideas are implemented the poor old Labour MPs will be able to howl and cry foul that so many of Conservative MPs seem to be better off than opposition Labour MPs. They are deliberately trying to confuse the public’s perception of welath through ‘self appointed’ income and welath accumulated through a professional capacity.
    Harriet Harman along with Ed Balls really are an example of nasty, venomous work. They can’t govern very well but are experts at vengeful and scheming attacks.

  • Colin

    Oh good grief …. are we saying Tory rich good, Labour poor bad? Accumulated wealth that allowed you to go to Eton i suppose?

  • Graeme Pirie

    What rubbish this lot come out with. Has anyone EVER seen a poor MP of any persuasion?
    We’re talking about slashing the greed called expenses, but whatever happens no-one expects MPs to pay for essential travel or accomodation themselves.
    So we come back to the salary – £65K is not a pittance. Whether or not it’s the right salary is not the question – but even if it were slashed to £30K it’s still enough to attract the binman!
    There absolutely no question of pricing “poor” people out of politics.

  • Jack Dworkin

    The £65k salary goes up to £110k+ when you include MP’s lavish pensions. And there will always quite reasonably be expenses. They just need to be fair, transparent and independently audited like normal taxpayers.
    Harperson in this case is just playing class politics because they’ve lost any morals they used to have and her party is hopefully in for a hiding.
    Why anyone would want to vote for her discriminatory politics surprises me.

  • Denise Watson

    Whilst on the subject of barrister Harman, what was the result of her assertion on a recent Andrew Marr show, that Fred Goodwin would not benfit from that huge bonus for “services to banking”? “There is such a thing as the bar of public opinion” she said in self-righteous tones… Have I missed something?

  • Bill Edmunds

    I remember that you were going to cooperate with the Daily Mail on prosecuting Expense Cheats. Could we have a progress report on how this is going? Is Andrew Mackay who allegedly claimed for a non-existent second home in his constituency on your list?

  • Peter Birkett

    Hello Everyone,
    This is an attempt to send a song around the world.
    Peter Birkett is an English writer with a song to sing, and maybe a thing or two to say.
    The English Parliament is corrupt – we will find out soon (if we didn’t know already) that the European and US Parliaments are as bad; then that the whole world of Government is “on the take” from their people.
    Pass this email on (with its link to the song on You Tube) to those in your address book. It was sent to 45 people originally, if you send it to 20, and everyone else does too, then it will reach over 100 million in five steps…. well, we can dream…
    It has also been sent to MPs, who will probably not want to see it, and who won’t pass it on. Feel free to send a copy on to your own MP.
    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=%22Peter+Birkett%22&aq=f
    That’s the general link to all four of the songs, but here’s “Those Bastards in Their Mansions” – the one we want to go all around the country.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzA0ZYcyq3M
    Thank you in advance for your help,
    Peter Birkett