The House Of Commons - What A Joke....

[mosaix]

BBC NEWS | Politics | Bid to block MP expenses details

The Commons authorities - which include the Speaker and senior MPs from all the main parties - have spent years fighting calls to account for public money spent on expenses by MPs.

These people live in cloud-cuckoo land. The average man in the street has to submit expense claims to get a penny out of their employers but MPs can claim for practically anything and everything, spending our money and being accountable to no-one.

[Ragnar]

All MPs finincial interests should be a matter of public record. The public have a right to know how their taxes are being spent and exactly where an MPs money is coming from.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by mosaix

These people live in cloud-cuckoo land.

I quite agree. It isn't just businessmen and salesmen who need to account for their itemised expenses in detail. Local Government Officers have to do this to prevent any claims of improper influence being exerted, so why not MPs? The Police have to do it. I even had to do it when I was a School Governor, not that I was ever offered anything. School Teachers are even meant to account for every single apple a kid brings them at the end of term!

[Vladd67]

Also when I worked for HMRC if a satisfied customer (and we did get them) gave the office even a box of sweets it had to be recorded in a file. Also heaven help you if you made a small error on any expenses claim.

[Briareus Delta]

Corrupt, unaccountable government with shady election practices. Russia? Zimbabwe? No, it's the good old UK!

If the public are entitled to know anything, then surely it is how our elected representatives are spending our money. And if they have nothing to hide, why keep it a secret?

[Dave]

To be fair, they say they are actually objecting to details of the addresses of their second homes being made public for security reasons.

That doesn't prevent the expenses being made public though, and the addresses are already probably very well known anyway. There is so much information available now via the internet - 192.com has electoral roles, Ancestry.com has old BT phone books -and if the information is already held by the government somewhere, I'm surprised that they haven't lost it yet!

[SpaceShip]

Originally Posted by Dave

To be fair, they say they are actually objecting to details of the addresses of their second homes being made public for security reasons.

That doesn't prevent the expenses being made public though, and the addresses are already probably very well known anyway. There is so much information available now via the internet - 192.com has electoral roles, Ancestry.com has old BT phone books -and if the information is already held by the government somewhere, I'm surprised that they haven't lost it yet!

LOL! That's probably why they find they don't have to submit them - they're lost! Conveniently!

But - as always - it's one law for them and another one for us!

[Kissmequick]

I bet some of them just want to hide the fact they have second homes in the first place. ( if only from their wives!)

My local MP has at least one London home. Which would be understandable if we were in Cumbria. But as we are 1 hour from central London, it seems it bit much that taxpayers are funding him having a home there, when he could commute like everyone else.

[Urien]

It could be argued that the only people who shouldn't be politicians are those that want to be politicians.

I think there has been a decline in genuine cause politicians over the last forty years or so. Old Labour were committed individuals, determined to improve the lot of the average working person, sure they were ambitious, but improving the lot of the population was the primary aim. On the Conservative side a lot of the politicans had a public service ethos, doing their bit, sure they were patrician but there aims were generally good.

Now we have career politicians, many of whom have never worked outside of either direct political service (party researchers, organisers) or outside of state jobs. Power for power's sake. Unfortunately this can tend to lead to a disconnect with the population.

MPs are not paid a great deal, not by the standards available in other high professional jobs. This is tacitly recognised by the byzantine expense regime. Low pay and high publicity scares away a lot of folk who intellectually might be of a higher standard than our current lot. If we increased MP pay to say 200,000 pounds a year, and pretty much scraped the expenses, then we might get higher quality MPs.

But of course any increase in pay for MPs is condemned in the media, politicians know this, hence we get the murky world of expenses.

[mosaix]

I'm not against MPs being paid a fair days wage for a fair day's work. However I don't think a lot of them put in the work. Many of them are barristers, company directors and journalists.

Those of us that are writers know how long it takes to turn out a decent novel but Jeffery Archer and Edwina Currie managed to write novels whilst at the same time, supposedly, doing the full time job of representing their constituents - it just isn't possible if they are doing the job properly.

Let's pay them more by all means but only if they do the job full time - just like the rest of us.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by mosaix

Let's pay them more by all means but only if they do the job full time - just like the rest of us.

That would ultimately lead to even more career politicians - the kind of people who studied History and Political Science at University, and have never worked in any other kind of field. Instead we need more scientists, engineers, artists, shopkeepers...

As an example, in the current elections for the London Mayor (a post that controls a budget estimated in 2001/02 at £100 million a year and increasing rapidly, seemingly out of control) only one main candidate has any experience at running a business (and from all reports not very well.) (One is, refreshingly an ex-policeman though, and it seems there was a lot of shopping around by the other main party to at least to try to get a non-political candidate.)

Unfortunately, if we do not pay politicians a decent salary we will not get captains of industry into public service, and we will never see an end to these major public expenditure disasters that over-run, over-budget and fail to work as designed. We will not get scientists and technocrats who actually understand the very important debates that will shape the future.

[thaddeus6th]

Although expenses is a big issue, I'm more concerned about the widespread and difficult to detect electoral fraud now possible because of Labour's pathetic postal voting system.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

Although expenses is a big issue, I'm more concerned about the widespread and difficult to detect electoral fraud now possible because of Labour's pathetic postal voting system.

Nice, but thinly veiled, attempt to divert this into an anti-Labour thread

We need honest politicians first and foremost, regardless of party - how they get elected is the subject of another thread.

But nice try Thadd.

[Ursa major]

It's not entirely off-thread, Mosaix. If the government makes it easier for cheats to get themselves elected to the House of Commons, one might expect the behaviour of the House as a whole to deteriorate.

Okay, one might hope (in an odd sort of way) that it would, but then there is the following, which I read yesterday; it did not cheer me up at all.

MPs will wriggle and squeal but voters will take away that trough | Michael Portillo - Times Online

[TheEndIsNigh]

Originally Posted by mosaix

We need honest politicians first and foremost, regardless of party - how they get elected is the subject of another thread.

I'm not sure if this is the subject of another thread so I'll give it a whirl here till someone tells me off.

I had a thought recently that in the age of postal/computerised/text voting it would be nice if anyone could register to vote in any constituancy. The advantage being there would never be any more truly 'safe seats'.

If enough people really got miffed (toned down but you know what I mean) with a particular politition then they could register in his back yard and do something about it.

I also removes the wasted vote syndrome.

The bookies would be happy too.