A Very British Revolution...

A Very British Revolution: The Expenses Scandal And How To Save Our Democracy

 
Without doubt, despite the increasing unpopularity of the current Government, the biggest scandal of modern times is the exposure of the expenses policy of the Houses of Parliament and our MP's lackadaisical attitude to spending taxpayers money.  It's not the fact that MP's require to claim expenses during their careers in Westminister that's the issue, it's the fact that there appears to be zero accountability and widespread abuse. 
 
Martin Bell first came to our attention as a war correspondent for the BBC and then successfully entered the House of Commons in 1997 after defeating disgraced Conservative MP Neil Hamilton on an anti-sleaze ticket whilst wearing the symbolic white suit that signified the clean up of British Politics that Tony Blair promised after the sleaze-ridden decay of John Major's Government.  Bell not only served as an independent MP but was also a member of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, a group that is supposed to help in the self-regulation of Parliament.  Except it didn't.
 
With an increasing array of allowable expenses being introduced to circumvent public anger at proposed increases of salary for our MP's, it was almost certainly inevitable that this would at some point become a huge public issue.  Timing is everything and the fact is that the issue broke during an unprecedented global recession with a total UK debt that is said to be higher than that incurred during World War II and certainly the highest since recording of this commenced in 1974.  At the very time that everyone in the UK was being warned by our politicians to tighten our belts and prepare to pay of this debt over the next couple of decades, it came to light that some of our MP's were abusing the expenses system and not tightening their own belts. 
 
We've had bath plugs, duck islands, flipping houses and non-existent mortgages amongst the many claims published by the Daily Telegraph and no party was spared from the spotlight.  Inevitably more focus fell on the present Government due to them having the majority of MP's in the House, but MP's from all the major parties were exposed in clinical if not sometimes unjustified fashion.  Such was the public anger over this that MP's whose claims would have been deemed reasonable were sometimes singled out for undeserved criticism.  Some MP's tried to brazen it out, only to find themselves hounded within their own constituencies.  Others paid money back in an attempt to absolve themselves and deflect public anger, whilst others complained that they were only acting within the rules; the only problem being that the MP's themselves wrote the rules and regulated them.
 
Martin Bell's book is published on a tide of public anger over expenses where we've seen the start of a rise of independent candidates to pit themselves against the worst offenders during next year's General Election.  In the meantime all three major parties have attempted to put measures into place in order to clean up their images and stem the criticism.  Parliament too has also put measures into place after successive years of attempting to block details of expenses via Freedom of Information requests that eventually led to the forced resignation of the Speaker of the House, an unprecedented event in Parliamentary history.  It is true as well that the scandal was very much a British one, or certainly the reaction to it.  We're used to talking about foreign Governments being financially corrupt and when stories like these break in other countries, there are generally demonstrations or uprisings with violence and damage part of the story.  Not here though, here we witnessed massive simmering public anger that shocked our politicians to the core when attempting to defend themselves on programmes such as Question Time.  Even political heavyweights found themselves on the end of abuse and scorn, despite their justifications or pontifications.
 
The book is an easy read and documents both Bell's experiences and a vast array of expense claims that seem beyond the pale.  Bell is pretty even-handed in his criticisms and also gives credit where it is due.  He also states that this scandal will continue to resonate and become a huge issue during the next election.  I'll be honest, I had my doubts on that, as generally stories in the media have a maximum shelf-life of a few weeks, but found myself reading yet another story about expenses on the BBC website this morning - so there's no way this story has petered out just yet.
 
At the conclusion of the book, Bell provides 6 solutions that he believes can enable Parliament to show that they have cleaned up their act.  I don't disagree with what he has to say but feel that he has missed a glaring solution to one of the biggest issues with the expenses scandal; the property market.  MP's are entitled to a second home, whether they work in a constituency outside their home town or a place to stay in London whilst attending Parliament.  The overriding issue has been over mortgage payments or the flipping of these homes in order to avoid Capital Gains tax when selling them, with the profit going to the MP's.  For me, the simplest solution is to still allow the second homes but have the properties registered as the property of Her Majesty's Government.  This way the home is paid for by the Government, upkeep is paid in the same way and then when the MP finishes his term of office the property can then be used by another MP or sold with the money going back into Government coffers.  Simple really.
 
It's been an interesting few months for our MP's and I suspect that if they had taken earlier warnings about the state of expenses and backed Dame Elizabeth Filkin instead of sacking her, then the worst of this scandal could have been avoided.  On the other hand, maybe this was what was required in order to focus the minds of our politicians and clean up the expenses system properly.