MPs' Expenses: Politicians Used to Be Better, Wiser - and Older
THE TELEGRAPH: Only those who have worked outside politics can truly represent the people, says David Young.

It was at my fifth Cabinet meeting that, sitting back and idly glancing around the table, a thought struck me. Of the 21 of us in attendance, 11 had at one time started their own business. In today's House, it is hard to find Members with much outside experience at all, let alone that of working for themselves.

When Gordon Brown introduced Members' outside earnings into his review of expenses, he was continuing the process of discouraging MPs from having other interests. Politics is increasingly described as a full-time occupation, even a profession. Today, the traditional route to the House has become school, university political society, think tank and then Member; this achieves an almost total insulation from the life of their constituents.

The hours of the Commons have changed so that, instead of starting after lunch and sitting into the night, they sit in the day, finishing most days at 7pm. Politics has gone from a vocation to just another occupation. How did this come about and why?

More than 100 years ago, Parliament was a part-time affair, sitting from February to mid- August. The vast majority of Members had outside interests, there were no women and they were unpaid. That seemingly amateurish arrangement sufficed for running the largest empire the world has known.

After the First World War, the widening of suffrage allowed the entry of women and Labour replaced the Liberals. At the time of the post-war Labour government of 1945, Parliament was still part-time. Senior silks who were MPs would finish in the courts at 4pm and go down to the House. Many others were leading lights in the City or industry, in management and the unions. The Commons commanded vast experience, much of it disinterested. >>> By David Young* | Friday, May 22, 2009

*Lord Young was a minister in Margaret Thatcher's government

MPs' Expenses Whistleblower: 'I Wanted to Expose the System to Its Rotten Core'
MAIL Online: The man behind the sale of MPs' expenses claims broke his silence last night to reveal he wanted to expose the system to its 'rotten core'.

John Wick, a former SAS officer, said he was proud of his role as a whistleblower.

He claimed that he acted because campaigners were being frustrated in their attempts to access full details of how taxpayers' money was being spent.

And so much of the information which Parliament was preparing to release this summer was redacted that many of the worse scams and claims would have gone undetected.

Mr Wick – who commanded a British anti-terrorism team during his ten-year military service – is now the head of a corporate intelligence company which specialises in negotiating the release of hostages in foreign war zones.

Suggesting he had been motivated by the growth of the surveillance society, he said: 'We’ve reached a stage where they want to know everything about us – I think we're entitled to know about them.' >>> By Michael Lea | Saturday, May 23, 2009

Melanie Phillips: Our Democracy's Going Down the Plughole with the Home Secretary's Dirty Bathwater
Luton South MP Margaret Moran claimed £22,500 of taxpayers' money for treating dry rot in a house in Southampton, many miles from her constituency or Westminster. Photo courtesy of MailOnline
MAIL Online: They still just don't get it, do they. With details continuing to pour out about the epic abuse of Parliamentary expenses, MPs are displaying about as much ethical sensibility as the lumps of meat they have charred on their ill-gotten barbecues.

The details and scale of what they were up to are beyond belief.

'Flipping' the designation of their main and second homes to manipulate the expenses system to their advantage and to avoid paying various taxes.

Claiming help with mortgage payments for houses that were already paid for.

Getting the taxpayer to reimburse them for eyeliner, plastic bags, nappies, mock Tudor beams, Maltesers, nail polish, plasma TVs, Christmas tree decorations, horse manure, bath plugs; and on and surreally on.

Yet in the face of such baroque dishonesty, MPs claim that the real villain is the media for publishing the leaked details. So they've set the police on to probing the disclosures. But if the police should be investigating anyone, it's surely the MPs themselves.

Outrageous

Not, it seems, in the parallel universe of Westminster. According to MPs, none of them has behaved immorally. Not one. None of them should be censured or lose the party whip, let alone be prosecuted.

Instead, utterly deaf to the mounting public fury this is causing, they are coming up with one excuse after another.

Apparently, something called 'the system' - which, it seems, has nothing to do with them - is to blame. But the 'system' is simply what the MPs themselves devised.

Like sheep, they all went along with these scams, so that's supposed to make them all right. 'It wasn't my fault, m'lud, that I claimed for a barbecue - it was the system.' Sounds awfully like 'I was only obeying orders' in another era.

In a kind of spivs' chorus, they whine in unison that it was all 'within the rules'. But rules can be manipulated for corrupt or otherwise indefensible ends.

Luton South MP Margaret Moran claimed £22,500 of taxpayers' money for treating dry rot in a house in Southampton, many miles from her constituency or Westminster. She justifies this on the outrageous grounds that her partner works in Southampton and it is 'her right' to have a family life with him.

Her right?

Other people cope with this kind of messy situation every day, paying for it out of their own pocket. Why should Ms Moran imagine it is her right to be paid for doing the same thing? >>> Melanie Phillips | Monday, May 11, 2009

THE TELEGRAPH: Alan Duncan Claimed Thousands for Gardening: MPs' Expenses

Alan Duncan, the senior Conservative MP who oversees the party’s policy on MPs’ expenses, claimed thousands of pounds for his garden – but stopped after agreeing with the fees office that his expenditure “could be considered excessive”.


Mr Duncan’s gardening claims raise serious questions about whether expenses by some MPs can be justified as entirely necessary for their parliamentary work. In a three-year period, he recouped more than £4,000. He has not been asked to repay the money despite later concerns over the garden claims.

The bill for £3,194 for gardening in March 2007 was not paid by the fees office, which wrote to Mr Duncan suggesting that the claim might not be “within the spirit” of the rules.

However, by then the multi-millionaire MP for Rutland and Melton had claimed £4,000 of gardening costs that were approved. In a letter to the MP, the office said that it expected gardening costs “to cover only basic essentials such as grass cutting”. Mr Duncan submitted receipts showing that his gardener was being paid £6 an hour for up to 16 hours a week in grounds of less than an acre.

In March 2007, Mr Duncan claimed £598 to overhaul a ride-on lawn-mower and then a further £41 to fix a puncture a month later.

Mr Duncan also claimed £1,400 a month for his mortgage interest on his home in Rutland. He bought the large detached house without taking out a mortgage on the property itself in January 1992, shortly before he was elected to parliament.

However, it was not until January 2004 that a mortgage was secured against the property. >>> By Holly Watt | Sunday, May 10, 2009

THE SPECTATOR: A Parliament of Thieves

Like any sensible person I've been thoroughly amused and appalled by the scandal of MPs expenses. Appalled because the extent of MPs' avarice is sufficient to shock even an iron-souled cynic; amused because watching MPs try to justify their gluttonous appetite for taxpayer-funded freebies affords a certain pleasure that one might consider vindictive if only it weren't so entirely merited. This isn't a tragedy, it's a stinking farce.

The dreary pretense - duly repeated by every sticky-fingered parliamentarian - that it is all ok because "no rules were broken" could hardly be more priceless. Nor could it do more to underline the essential fact that these people are fools who in turn treat the public as though they are fools themselves. Only the blindest dolt would think that boasting of obeying the rules might minimise the public's entirely-justified sense of outrage (a wrath that is, I suspect, under-appreciated at Westminster and in the media) when it is the laxness of the rules themselves that occasions so much incredulity and anger.

For it is now clear, if it weren't before, that we are governed by a parliament of thieves for whom no expense is too small or too trivial to be borne by the taxpayer. These knaves and charlatans are strangers to shame and decency. Astonishingly, they make journalists and estate agents seem paragons of probity by comparison. Who'd have thunk that possible? >>> Alex Massie | Monday, May 11, 2009

Ronald Reagan's Address to the British Parliament
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”A Victory for the Muslim Community”
ASSOCIATED PRESS OF PAKISTAN: LONDON‑The British Parliament has cancelled the showing of a controversial film “Fitna” by the right‑win Dutch MP Geert Wilders following vociferous protest by the Muslim community.

The screening was to take place on January 29 at the House of Lords.

The decision to cancel the showing was taken on Friday when Lord Nazir Ahmed had a meeting with the Government Chief Whip of the House of Lords and Leader of the House of Lords, together with representatives from the Muslim Council of Britain, British Muslim Forum and other representatives from the British Muslim community. British Parliament Calls Off Screening of Controversial Film >>> APP | Friday, January 23, 2009

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Parliamentarians Take Leave of Their Senses!
THE INDEPENDENT: Plans to end the dominance of the Anglican faith at the daily opening of Parliament and have multi-faith prayers modelled on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day are to be considered by the House of Lords' procedure committee.

The change could lead to a rotational approach to daily prayers, where different faiths are represented on a particular day, in the way the Today programme gives a voice to different religions throughout the week. Multi-faith Prayers to Be Considered for Parliament >>> By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor | November 1, 2008

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MPs Reject Call for EU Membership Referendum
Photo of EU flags courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: MPs voted today overwhelmingly against the idea of having a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union.

Labour and the Conservatives joined forces to vote down the Liberal Democrat proposal, which was rejected in the Commons by 471 votes to 68, a majority of 403.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, claimed the Lib Dem proposal was a "fig leaf", designed to disguise the fact that Nick Clegg's party was breaking a promise it made at the last election to support a referendum on the proposed EU constitution.

Today's vote was on a technical motion, and a Lib Dem win would not automatically have led to the holding of a referendum on Britain's EU membership.

But their defeat means that the issue is highly unlikely to be put to a vote again while the European Union (amendment) bill, the legislation ratifying the Lisbon treaty, goes through parliament. MPs reject call for EU membership referendum >>> By Andrew Sparrow, senior political correspondent | Tuesday March 4 2008

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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