PITY THE poor MPs. The very suggestion would obviously invite a derisive snort (at best) from British taxpayers running the full gamut of emotions – from anger and astonishment, through incredulity and disbelief, back to cold fury and contempt – for a House of Commons mired in an expenses scandal and now likely to be remembered as "the moat" or "manure parliament", writes FRANK MILLAR, London Editor
The prevailing view of “Honourable” and “Right Honourable Members” on all sides is that they have had their collective nose in the Westminster trough. Sir Christopher Kelly’s independent review of the expenses scandal will decide if MPs have a case to address.
Members of parliament are not excessively paid, with a basic salary of £64,766 (€72,265). Successive governments have courted public popularity by ducking salary increases recommended by an independent pay-review panel, but their job requires them to have a base in London. This gave rise to an expenses system that has landed them all in the brown stuff.
MPs appear to have regarded the additional £23,083 (€25,754) allowed in expenses as a target rather than an upper limit. Some even “flipped” the designation of their main and second homes to maximise the benefit.
New Labour was elected as the anti-sleaze party on a wave of public revulsion in the last days of John Major’s government. It introduced with great fanfare the Freedom of Information Act, under which – after a protracted fight for exemption led by the fatally wounded speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin – all MPs’ expenses claims for the last four years were going to be published in July.
Even without this week's prior disclosures in the Daily Telegraph, MPs knew this moment of torment, shame and ridicule was coming. The astonishment is that the parties failed to anticipate and minimise the damage by agreeing reforms in advance. As Labour MP John Mann observed, some MPs' still seemed not to "get it", while the leaders of the three main parties continued to play for party advantage.
The result, Mann suggested, was that – far from winning a necessary new settlement on their salaries and allowances – all MPs might have to be seen to take “a financial hit” before summoning the courage to face voters in a general election that is drawing ever-closer.
Many of the current crop seem likely to be spared rejection by their electorates, because their parties will have to de-select them, even if it means forcing unwanted by-elections. Police investigations into suspected fraud could do this for others.
There could surely be no way back for Elliot Morley, the former Labour minister, who has been sacked after claiming more than £16,000 for a mortgage he had already paid off. Even if husband-and-wife team Andrew Mackay and Julie Kirkbride satisfy Cameron’s requirements by paying back a small fortune, voters are unlikely to be indulgent after their “error of judgment” in claiming their second-home allowances on two different properties.
Tory “grandees” Douglas Hogg and Michael Ancram reportedly still don’t entirely “get it” after the revelations about their claims – Hogg’s expenses claim paid to have his moat cleared and piano tuned, Ancram’s was for the cost of repairing his swimming-pool boiler. But defiance of Cameron’s “pay it back” ultimatum on unreasonable or disputed claims will surely see such MPs get their comeuppance from the voters.
Communities secretary Hazel Blears eulogises her Labour supporters in Salford, but will they still love her following her belated recognition that she should have paid tax on the profit of the sale of a London flat represented variously to the Commons authorities and the taxman as her primary and second home?
Maybe. And maybe transport secretary Jeff Hoon will survive scrutiny of his property portfolio and questions about the probity of ministers claiming any second-home allowance while living in a “grace and favour” residence provided by the taxpayer.
Ditto chancellor Alistair Darling – the man responsible for clamping down on any form of tax avoidance. It is surely troubling that the chancellor appeared to have such difficulty deciding where he lived that he changed the designation of his main home four times in as many years.
Justice secretary Jack Straw is a very nice man, and people in Burnley may well understand that accountancy is not his strong suit. But then they might remember that he wasn’t too busy to register that he was entitled to claim a discount on his second-home council tax, while mistakenly claiming for the full amount for four years.
As rival candidates in constituency after constituency will ensure, voters remember all the alleged sins of sitting members, large and small – from the chocolate biscuits to the tampons, the gardening bills, pergolas, planters, garden pots and horse manure, chandeliers, rocking chairs and scatter cushions, cleaners and domestic staff, not to mention John Prescott’s broken toilet seat and his mock-Tudor beams.
The mockery has degenerated into a cruel sport in which blood is being spilled. It is, as Tory MP Richard Shepherd says, now damaging “the mother of parliaments” at real and potentially long-lasting cost to healthy politics and to British democracy itself. It will eventually have to be repaired.
Yet as they face into another dark weekend, the current honourable and right honourable ladies and gentlemen have only the assurance that it will not be for a while yet, and that there is probably worse to come.
