I’ve quoted your post Mike but I’ll also address Russ’s posts here as well.
@Rascal , I do agree with you. There is an element of brazenness about this government that needs to be sorted out. We have real issues that need real solutions not them spending time defending or denying shit like this. We don’t pay them to be on the take and we don’t pay them to spend their time defending it.
I’m not blinkered. There is good and bad in all our politics irrespective of them being “left” or “right”, that’s good people and good policies. I doubt any of us can look at the parties we vote for and say yeah I agree 100% with everything and they’ve not missed anything off the list. I certainly can’t and it makes the case for proportional representation (to be fair I voted against that but do regret not considering it more robustly now).
So let’s agree that their are bad apples in politics - naturally the light falls primarily on the tories and labour as the largest parties over the years but I bet if we went digging we’d find others including the SNP. But these bad apples are breeching the rules - they know what they are doing is wrong they just hope they don’t get caught. Perhaps MPs and members of the Lords should be forced to open their bank accounts to scrutiny so any payments must be seen - and it should carry a custodial sentence if they hide anything. Right now they seem to get what a 30 day ban? which is a joke of a deterrent and really says to me they’ve never been serious about fixing the problem.
Next (and the story currently breaking) is those that earn (sometimes vast amounts) doing something they are (they claim) entitled to do under the rules. This is much harder, should Teresa May not be able to earn £80k a speech? Should Jess Phillips not have earned well in excess of £100k for two books? Let’s face it neither of these two would be earning that if they were regular folk - no one would be interested in what they had to say or write; so the fact they are a politician and former PM has allowed them to earn more. Then we look at the murky world of “consultancy” - again these people are only being employed for 2 reasons, firstly (and most likely) to give some guidance on how to get things done to business (again nothing wrong with this) and secondly for kudos. On the first point is there much wrong with this? I muted putting in an application for an extension, I was matey with one of the guys on the planning committee and I happened to mention it when they were round one night (just for conversation - honestly). He then told me the sort of things I need to include to have any chance of success. In the end I didn’t go ahead and it a bit of a grey area in my mind. It’s not like he said bung me £5k and I’ll get it sorted but he did provide advice that I’d not have known about otherwise. There is of course the third option of influencing policy which is much rarer but that goes back to my earlier point that it should be a criminal offence with time in the big house. Of course the focus is going to be on Cox because of the vast sums involved - good I say, scrutinise him.
So what can we do? If we decide to put a blanket ban on having any outside paid work then that stops Kier Starmer being able to claim fair expenses for the free work he has done, or the doctor needing to keep her registration up. To allow it they’ll create loopholes in the legislation and that will be exploited by people who will say “but I’ve not broken the rules” and we are back to square one.
Expenses are still a scandal in my eyes. Just looking at Jess Philips again (and only because I’d found this when looking for her book earnings, I will easily be able to find similar for any number of MPs). She employs her husband on a chunky salary, a year or so ago was claiming she can’t afford a printer and so puts in £4K of travel expenses which will include going to her mother in laws to print stuff because that is where the printer is she uses. I mean come on!!! Like I say it’s not a bash Jess day it’s that despite the furore on expenses some are still up to their necks in it.
We deserve better and there are good MPs out there or do everything by the book so we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water we just need them to get their own houses in order - hopefully we will shine a light on it all and some real/ meaningful change will happen not the lip service we’ve had in the past. I won’t hold my breath mind, the tories will hope this will all go away so will dither and there will be some notable silence from the opposition benches.
And in the meantime, on here, it will continue be tories this and tories that like theirs is the only shit that smells.
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