FORMER LABOUR minister Margaret Beckett and the left-leaning Tory MP John Bercow are considered the front runners in Monday’s election for a new speaker of the House of Commons, despite each of them having drawn fire over their use of their parliamentary allowances.
Mr Bercow – who has repaid £6,500 (€7,670) in respect of capital gains on the sale of two properties, and is deeply unpopular on his own side of the Commons – is the preferred candidate of many Labour MPs seeking “revenge” for the forced resignation of speaker Michael Martin.
Ms Beckett – who tried to claim £600 for hanging baskets and pot plants, and is accused of spending “lavishly” on a second home while living in a grace-and-favour residence – appears to be attracting support from Conservative MPs determined to stop Mr Bercow.
Success for either, however, may only reinforce the sense that MPs still do not “get” the scale of public anger about the Westminster expenses scandal, reinforced by this week’s officially released and heavily censored versions of their expenses claims.
A fresh tide of condemnation swept over Westminster yesterday as newspapers blacked out much of their front pages in mockery of the belated – and in many cases simply meaningless and indecipherable – official disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act. Party leaders Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg – who have all committed to necessary reforms and a new age of transparency and accountancy – found themselves under renewed pressure with the realisation that, had it not been for the leak to the Daily Telegraph, the public would never have learned of the worst abuses of the system.
While the police are still considering an investigation into a limited number of cases – including MPs who claimed on “phantom mortgages”, that is, mortgages they had already paid off – more than 15 MPs have already signalled they will stand down at the next election, while no less than 183 MPs have repaid claims totalling more than £470,000.
The Telegraphturned a renewed spotlight on the expenses claims of the prime minister and the Conservative leader yesterday ahead of today's publication of a 68-page magazine supplement giving an uncensored version of the expenses files on all MPs.
On Thursday Mr Cameron confirmed he was paying back £947 after a “thorough review” of his claims, some of which, though perfectly in order, he now wished to withdraw.
It emerged, meanwhile, that the black boxes covering details of Mr Brown’s claims in the official record would have prevented people discovering that he had “flipped” the designation of his second home from London to Scotland shortly before he moved into 10 Downing Street.
In a critical editorial, the London Timessaid the heavily censored publication of MPs' expenses details showed MPs' "contempt for the public" and called on Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg to "lead the way" by now publishing their claims "unedited, unredacted, untarnished by black ink".
The Suncontrasted Westminster's approach to the question of disclosure about its own affairs with its approach to key issues of public policy, saying: "For the rest of us it's ID cards, databases, surveillance, spy bugs in our wheelie bins and Big Brother monitoring of our e-mails. For the Commons it's a cosy cult of secrecy that waves two fingers at the 'little people' who put them in office."
The Daily Mailsaid: " 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed on the world.' Yeats's poem perfectly describes the state of our political system in these, the dying days of New Labour's third term."