Power corrupts
Friday 15th May 2009, 10:21AM BST.
Okay, I admit the horse has bolted and attempting to close the stable door now is a bit pointless, but I think I’ve worked out how the MP’s expenses debacle could’ve been avoided, writes David Burrows.
With perfect 20:20 hindsight I have realised that had the House of Commons employed the accounting team from the Shropshire Star this would never have happened.
Journalists – despite what you may think – get paid a – how shall I put this – “unsubstantial” wage but can claim a few things back on expenses.
Sadly, unlike our democratically elected elite, these things do not include new bathrooms, elephant lamps (whatever they are) or swimming pool maintenance.
On a Sunday, however, us news editors have to read through all the Sunday papers and the cost of those we are allowed to claim back.
At the shop where I buy mine, a rival Sunday is not on one of their till buttons (which, if I was being corporate, I would say shows just how ‘popular’ that title is).
So, when the staff at that shop came to put that paper through they put it as the Sunday Mirror, which is the same price. Another paper that wasn’t on the till (Daily Star Sunday – say no more!) was put down, for some reason, as confectionery.
Upon putting my expenses through a phone call swiftly followed from our accounts department asking why on earth I thought the Shropshire Star should pay for two copies of the Sunday Mirror and 90p worth of pick and mix.
And this is why the expenses row has rumbled on for so long.
In the middle of a recession when millions of us are trying to make ends meet, we have to deal with red tape all the time.
My expenses looked wrong and were, quite correctly, queried.
Thousands of self-employed people have to trawl through their receipts with a fine tooth comb because they know if they claim even a couple of quid incorrectly the Inland Revenue will comedown on them like a ton of bricks.
People on benefits whose circumstances change have to jump through fiery hoops to make sure the powers that be are aware and, heaven forbid it should slip their minds, if they don’t they risk being hauled before the courts.
But our MPs – the people who, let’s not forget do NOT rule us but are supposed to represent us – can see nothing wrong with claiming for Farrow & Ball paint, gardeners, and fixing cracked pipes under tennis courts.
The arguments that everything they did fell within the rules is hollow in the extreme. Keeping within the rules of broken system is as bad as breaking the rules of one which works.
Actually, it’s worse. Because these people are paid to oversee those systems and speak out on our behalf if they don’t work, not sit there thinking: “Well, everyone else is doing it…”
What is it they say about power corrupts…?
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What absolute rubbish!
This country is full of people fiddling their expenses. As for Shropshire Star journalists being paid an unsubstantial wage, I guess you get paid what you are worth!
A nice try at trying to paint journalists as whiter than white though, how lucky we are to have such Journalists fighting our cause! (I notice that there is no name attributed to this article!)
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It is disappointing that not one party seems to have escaped the temptation to take something not earned. At the same time back in the 1980s we had no openess regarding contributions to political parties and a lot of changes started to be made to make MPs more answerable.
That 1980s decade saw many assets belonging to us all sold from under our noses, town centres to insurance companies, council housing to tenants, electricity supplies to France to name just a few and now we are paying a price for that period when the family silver was sold and we are now left with debt, debt and debt. Our local councillors voted for themselves to become Aldermen and voted themselves a big party,voted themselves a silver salver and voted their officers big redundancy packages.
We now have a ridiculous number of seats on a town council that is only responsible for very little.
We need to think very hard about who we vote for but that might have serious consequences if maverick parties who think the world problems are more simple than they really are get voted in.
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Yes, Power corrupts!
A strange comment as the Shropshire Star censors any comments which are critical of themselves!
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Perhaps we should see a similar system of expenses implemented by my previous employer. The very occasional minor error was accepted as long as it was corrected immediately it was noticed. There was only one outcome to those caught blatantly fiddling the system. They ended up looking for another job.
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This motley crew of hypocrites (Lab & Con) have been milking the public purse for years.
Lets face it, if the policy at the top is to fiddle then it is not suprising they let dole scroungers and social service layabouts take such liberties, it allows them to sleep better at night.
THEY SOULD ALL BE SACKED FORTHWITH AND INVESTIGATED THOROUGHLY.
Why haven’t the Police got involved?
Oh ok silly question.
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So this journalist asks “What is it they say about power corrupts…?”
Well that’s just what they say – power corrupts plus absolute power corrupts absolutely. So I can wait to see the Queen’s expenses claims!
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So now we need a town clerk on a £50,0000 + salary to administer the town council which started off at a suggested 6 to 12 councillors but has now magically evolved into 17 councillors.
More than 3 councillors per public toilet in Shrewsbury!
Do you think those town councillors need expenses to cover rubber gloves and the like and no doubt access to the Shropshire Council intranet?
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eva land said,
“That 1980s decade saw many assets belonging to us all sold from under our noses, town centres to insurance companies, council housing to tenants, electricity supplies to France to name just a few and now we are paying a price for that period when the family silver was sold and we are now left with debt, debt and debt”.
So, this unholy mess that Bliar, Brown and Co has got us into was due to the 1980s was it. There was no debt when Clarke handed over to Brown in 1997 so how come we are now paying the price for it. As for selling the “family silver”, make that “gold” and I will be able to believe part of what you are saying. Brown sold off all our Gold Reserves if you recall (or perhaps you don’t) when the price of gold was at it’s lowest on the international markets. In one feel swoop, he virtually wiped out our rainy day account and spent the proceeds of the gold sales on the public services – which have yet to show any improvement. Since then it has been borrow, borrow and borrow.
Sorry eva land, you appear to be another one that thinks the world is square and the force of gravity is upwards. As with the present economic disaster, listen to all the pundits and this latest bout of corruption and fiddling of expenses had it’s origins in the Blair era when the whole philosophy of his Government was spend, spend, spend and not one of them thought that they would be caught out, either personally or politically. The wheel has come off for this Labour decade of disaster good and proper, it brought about profound changes in every aspect of Parliament and our democracy, few of them any good. Now our institutions have to be rebuilt after the Bliar years.
Every last one of these fiddlers, irrespective of party should be sacked, police investigated and prosecuted. Sadly Blairs own records do not exist as do all the others.
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The desire to have power over others is as out of balance as it is unnatural, so it’s hardly surprising that those who seek it have turned out to be capable of exploiting an expense system in a borderline, if not outright, crooked way.
I’d disagree with Stuart though on the point that pundits see the rise of fiddling as being as recent as Blair’s era – many consider that there is more similarity between politicians of either side of the house than there is between politicians and the rest of the populous – the modern era of the political classes goes back further, back to the late seventies at least and they’re all a self-serving confederacy that deserve none of our votes, but since we’re stuck with a party political system, what’s to do. Maybe just do away with the whole lot and usher in a brave new world where the public vote on everything (if they’re interested) and forget electing unbalanced individuals to do our thinking for us. That would be democracy, so fat chance whilst there’s money in them there parliament seats.
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Indeed power does corrupt – I let ther indoors go out for a meal one weekend and now she is expecting to be wined and dined every night of the week. How true is the saying power corrupts.
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Y Mab: ‘Her indoors’ has not been corrupted by power!
You have merely let the budgie out of the cage and quite understandably its doesn’t want to go back in.
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Stuart,
If you don’t believe public services have improved in the past 12 years, you’ve clearly not set foot inside a hospital or a primary school in that time.
If you recall, during the time of the Thatcher Tory recession, whilst important public assets (utilities, housing stock, many public service jobs) were being sold off, the money was being spent on massive tax cuts for the wealthiest in society.
Many of the jobs sold off are now no longer UK jobs.
You are always very keen to blame our current US-led recession on the current government, but that really doesn’t explain the recession elsewhere in Europe, nor does it cover the 46% drop in output for Japan for example.
The problem has been caused by the wheels coming off the whole policy of market-based capitalism – the very system that Thatcher worshipped. New Labour have continued to follow these policies, follishly in my opinion, rather than returning to their true roots.
So my next vote will be based upon a few simple questions, and the ‘lesser of two evils’ scenario they present. They are:
Which party is most likely to return the banks to the private sector too quickly, before our debts are paid by their profits?
A: The Tories
Which party is most likely to damage public services with excessive cuts?
A: The Tories
Which party is most likely to concentrate on tax cuts for the wealthy (e.g. corporation tax, inheritance tax), whilst a the same time questioning the need for a minimum wage?
A: The Tories
So on that basis, my vote still go to New Labour. They’re far from ideal – but much better than the alternative.
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Have our Shropshire MPs fully disclosed their expenses?
I for one will not consider voting for an existing MP unless they disclose what is clearly a matter the electorate wish to know about.
Clearly my stance give the advantage to a prospective candidate, but then what have the existing MP’s got to hide?
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Quote:[As with the present economic disaster, listen to all the pundits and this latest bout of corruption and fiddling of expenses had it’s origins in the Blair era when the whole philosophy of his Government was spend, spend, spend and not one of them thought that they would be caught out, either personally or politically]
Nonsense Staurt, BTW do you realise that you are spelling Blair wrong or is it supposed to be a little joke?
Why is it that so many Tories of that era ended up in prison, never mind those that got away with their scams?
Was our Derek Conway a Labour politician?
There does seem to be a glorification of the Thatcher era at the moment, mainly by those who did not remember that corrupt and dismal era and the BNP seem set to gain by it.
Victorian values is what John Major espoused, when we all know the Victorians had no morals except when it came to covering up the curvy legs of furniture!!! On the otherhand all the self serving greedy MPs getting a taste the birch sounds like justice!
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Peter
You must be on the Labour payroll!
Things are far worse now and getting worse by the day.
No party can save us from the last 12 year Labour disaster.
My Mother is a teacher and can’t wait to leave and my sister is a nurse who could not take anymore and two years ago said enough and now lives and works in Cyprus and loves it.
Spin, lies, wars, waste, tax, tax, tax!
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At the last count (yesterday, Sunday) the proportion of a very reputable poll was Tories 42%, Labour 20%. In another one they were on a par with UKIP at 17%.
This says it all, the days of spin, smoke and mirrors, fantasy and all the rest of the nonsense from Labour are over, Bliar (yes, eva land I use that deliberately the same as everyone else who recognises what he was, remember Iraq) Brown and co have brought this country to it’s knees. Shortly if things carry on we will have no parliament worth talking about.
Peter, your vote would go to Labour if the whole sorry mess were behind bars, deselected or kicked out. You and those like you are those that they rely on to indoctrinate the ignorant masses who can see no further than their front door. The really intelligent have deserted Labour.
I don’t intend to comment on yours at 12 – there is not one single fact in it but pure conjecture.
As for eva land, again, gross exagerations, I will stand corrected two went to Prison, neither for political offences – both for perjury if I recall without looking it up. As for Derek Conway, come on man, what he did pails into total insignificance compared to what this current lot are up to. Yes he did wrong but he did no more than Labour Home Secretary Jacqi Smith who employed her husband for £40,000 a year. Neither Smith or Conway committed an offence, on the contrary, the rules allowed it. Notwithstanding that, Conway was booted out by Cameron.
Now, shall we start talking about the 3 Labour MPs who have been claiming for their mortgages long after their mortgages had been paid off. Compare them with Conway, let’s keep an eye on this little trio shall we because methinks we will see much more of these.
Come back Thatcher, your country needs you.
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eva land, what do you think of the power that the BNP derive from spreading cynicism, mistrust and hatred of others?
Does that power corrupt?
Or is that power corrupt already because it is purely negative and has nothing constructive to offer society?
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Stuart, you said we need Mrs Thatcher back.
In this debate http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/01/23/britain-enters-recession/#comment-61195 I pointed out to you (#26) that the de-regulation which has got us into this mess was STARTED by Mrs Thatcher (and Ronald Reagan and continued by New Labour).
How would Mrs Thatcher help the country now?
Re-introduce Hayekian economic principles? Liberate banks from red tape and regulation?
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Re #17, we are all awaiting Eva’s answer with baited breath.
Meanwhile, here’s my two-penneth. It seems to me that with such low poll rating, a vote for labour is a wasted vote, so if we want to influence politics, we must vote for someone that has a realistic chance of being elected. This may be a choice of the better of two evils, but thats the current lots fault and the electorates fault for not taking minority views seriously – very reminiscent of 1930′s Germany. It seems that history repeats itself.
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Absolutely nothing was open in Mrs Thatcher’s government. We now have scrutiny of money laundering, openness about where party donations come from and not one of the main parties has been able to escape the scrutiny and embarrassment of this expenses scandal.
[two went to Prison, neither for political offences - both for perjury if I recall without looking it up.]
Oh that’s alright then , what a relief there was me thinking prison was for serious crimes!
Derek Conway paid for his son as an employee but his son was at university and did no work it was shown. I believe Daniel’s wife is employed as his secretary.
In answer to you Huw, the philosophy of the BNP is self,self,self very much like the Tory stance.
I remember Mrs Thatcher saying, ‘time is money.’ This immediately undervalued every parent in the country who were struggling to pay 15% interest rates and could not afford childcare as she had done. No wonder we had record home repossessions and marriage breakdowns. Caring for the family has lways been the Tory mantra but never did a decade do so much damage as hers.
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Huw, I fundamentally disagree with you on your assertion that Thatcher started deregulation, the deregulation that gave rise to this present calamity was started by Bliar and Brown. It was they that started the FSA, took all regulatory functions from the Bank of England and then told the FSA to only regulate with a “light touch”. (We have been through this so many times it is getting old hat now.) I reject totally the “over worn”, minority populist, anti Thatcherite rhetoric which you appear to have swallowed. I have not.
This country is in desperate straights under a Government which, a few minutes ago on Sky News was labelled, “a Government of total shame and corruption”. The few shady dealing under the Tories was under John Major – not Thatcher.
Margaret Thatcher lifted the moral of decent people in this country to the heavens after years of bleak Labour rule. At present there is nobody to match her on the political scene – I for one, can but hope that one will emerge.
Sorry Huw, it must be difficult for the Green’s to find something bad to say about all and sundry, but there is temporary hope for your party in the EU elections yet, the electorate are so thoroughly demoralized, powerless and angry that they will vote for the fringe parties rather than the three who have had their sticky fingers in the sweet jar. The winners I predict will be – in no particular order, UKIP, Greens and the BNP.
Out of the three, and I hold no brief for the BNP, I would think the Green’s would come last though I could be wildly wrong and merely “guess”.
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Stuart: What well resoned comment.
If I may add to Sky’s ‘Government of total shame and corruption’ post. For several days now, my European friends have been telling me that they are looking at our political breakdown with disbelief.
I really do feel that people don’t appeciate just how serious this is and Thatcher knocking is not going to do anything about it.
I quite agree with you re Thatcher. Like her or loathe her, she was formidable nevertheless and stood up to those Europeans.
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[Huw, I fundamentally disagree with you on your assertion that Thatcher started deregulation,]
How do you disagree with fact Stuart?
No,Lucy, Thatcher was not a person one could admire, she bought her votes by selling off anything she could get her hands on.
She was like a malignant tumour that even her own party could not control.
I suppose I could grudgingly admit she was good at management speake, ‘If you tell people how great you are then some will believe it.’
[Margaret Thatcher lifted the moral of decent people in this country to the heavens]
I suppose miners were the sort of underclass that you wouldn’t consider to be decent, moral people Stuart?
I do know a teacher who was a police inspector back in those days and who left the force because of the manner in which Thatcher used the police as her own private army in order to defeat the miners.
I have experienced the corruption of local politics from both parties in Shrewsbury so voting is not going to be an easy decision and hence the aptness of the title of this article.
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eva land. sarcasm seems to be your forte’. It appears though that you cannot grasp the thrust of a comment. You implied that the imprisoned Tory MPS were done for corruption or political offences – NO THEY WERE NOT, they were done for perjury which is neither.
Derek Conway, for all that he did, I REPEAT,JUST IN CASE YOU CAN’T GRASP THIS ASPECT ALSO – he did not commit a criminal offence. What he did was “within the rules” which immediately nullified criminal action. Now argue that.
Now, silly you – that’s as polite as i can put it, you appear to be arguing that divorce and marriage breakdown was higher under Thatcher than now. When can you argue on an intellectual plane. This is kid’s stuff. Are there any marriages under Labour (just as daft don’t you think).
You appear to be one of those that I said Peter gives instruction to, there is much that could be said about past and present home repossessions but you appear not to understand the finer points of issues, rather the parrot like utterances of a party now in utter disgrace and freefall.
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Stuart and eva land, in 1975 Thatcher famously said of Friedrich von Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty, ‘This is what we believe’.
Hayek was a free-market economist.
‘Thatcherism’ is shorthand for deregulation.
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Thatcherism has 11 letters and deregulation has 12.
One letter less is hardly shorthand is it?
Honestly *tut*
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Now, we have the utmost pear of wisdom from an economist of the highest order that puts all us thickies into the long grass. If we are expected to accept the reasoning in this alleged quote by Huw Peach then we must take with a pinch of salt everything else that he say’s.
New’s, shout it from the rooftops, it has just been announced that Thatcher was a believer in “a free market economy”. Whoa, we did not know that, did we. Now, if we hold our breathe, very shortly we will be told which leaders of all the other liberal western democracies were not.
So there we have it, Thatcher was on her own, believing in something so totally alien to other intelligent leaders that we have to have our attention drawn to the fact that she was on her own and, not only that, but because one believes in a free market economy, one also has to slavishly follow all the other ingredients that one normally associates with such a principle, ie deregulation, UTTER RUBBISH.
I find it boring to continually refer to Bliar and Brown altering the whole system of bank and economic regulation when they took office in 1997, to argue otherwise is to distort the truth to such an extent that it puts into question everything else you say on other topics.
Thatcher handed over a highly regulated, clean and ordered economy to Major and Clarke handed over the same to Brown – then the fun and games started and we are now picking up the shreds of what is left after 12 years of Chancellor/PM Brown.
I don’t believe in silly arguing. Count me out.
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Stuart said “I don’t believe in silly arguing. Count me out.”
But you can count me in ;o)
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eva, would you not agree that the BNP (who you said in #14 are likely to gain from corrupt practices in Westminster) are MUCH more dangerous than ‘self,self,self’, as you put it in #20?
After all, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, was convicted in 1998 for spreading material likely to incite racial hatred, and at the trial he denied the Holocaust.
On the front cover of this month’s Searchlight magazine, deputy BNP leader Simon Darby is seen giving a Nazi salute to European neo-Nazis at a recent meeting on the continent.
Would you not agree that the BNP’s message is MUCH more sinister than ‘self,self,self’, as you put it?
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Stuart, you said you fundamentally disagree with me on my assertion that ‘Thatcher started deregulation, the deregulation which caused the current calamity…’. All the problems started, in your opinion, with Blair and Brown.
However, this is a shaky argument to maintain and I can understand why you don’t want to pursue it, because it under-estimates the revolution in economic thinking, which Margaret Thatcher (alone among European leaders at the time) ushered in.
This big watershed change saw her fighting members of her own party and Keynesian economists, as well as the opposition parties.
Like her or loathe her, she is remembered because she changed the political wind, and her policy changes -combined with similar policy changes in Ronald Reagan’s USA – made de-regulation the new international, economic orthodoxy -an orthodoxy which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown continued.
You are right to say that I am not ‘an economist of the highest order’, Stuart, and perhaps you are right to mock me if my tone is wrong. Sorry.
However, as I pointed out to you in this debate http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/01/23/britain-enters-recession/ (which you also left early) Ann Pettifor IS an economist, who is worth listening to, because she predicted the current financial and economic crisis.
Ann Pettifor, who is one of the authors of the Green New Deal, predicted the current debt crisis in an article called ‘The coming first world debt crisis’ on 1st September 2003.
In Ann Pettifor’s book of the same title (published in 2006), she analyses the impact that Thatcher and Reagan’s de-regulatory policies had on the world economy and on the lives of people living in the poorer parts of the world.
And she predicted the coming storm, just as she is now predicting and suggesting constructive solutions to the colliding storms of climate change and rising energy prices.
I think Ann Pettifor’s ideas need to be discussed, because people vindicated by events, have a lot to contribute to our democracy.
I’m sorry if you think this is ‘silly arguing’.
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