Priviledge to who

So the three MP's are claiming Parliamentary immunity as a defence for their alleged infidelity with expenses.

They will invoke the Bill of Rights 1689 (which provides for parliamentary privilege) as the basis for disputing the jurisdiction of the courts to even hear the cases brought by the Crown.

A brave move,well possibly but as the Telegraph says

The significance of these criminal charges, irrespective of the guilt or innocence of those facing them, is that the scandal now officially transcends the internal workings of the Palace of Westminster

If they manage to waggle themselves out of this predicament using priviledge then it is will difficult for Parliament to show its new found transparency.

Maybe it will lead to reform of the 1689 act and the Reform Act of 1832.

3 MP's and a Lord

As expected,Labour's David Chaytor and Jim Devine and Elliot Morley as well as Tory Lord Hanningfield face criminal charges over expenses claims.

Morley is accused of claiming £16,800 for a mortgage that had already been paid off, Morley apologised for what he said was a "genuine mistake" but will be standing down at the next election.

Bury North's Chaytor is also accused of the same and will also be standing down at the next election.

Devine was Robin Cook's election agent and, following his death ,succeeded him as MP for Livingston.He has been charged on six counts of false accounting relating to claiming a total of more than £8,000 for cleaning services and stationery using false invoices.

Lord Hanningfield faces charges on six counts for allegedly claiming overnight expenses he was not entitled to. He has now resigned his position as as shadow business spokesman, and the party has said they have removed the Conservative whip from him.

They have also incurred the wrath of Gordon Brown who told Sky News that he was“very angry about what’s happened.”

Quote of the day

I have long argued that the corruptions of politics are not occasional and particular but widespread and endemic; but I had never believed them to be practised on quite this scale. It is now known that 390 MPs, more than half the total, claimed and received public money that they are now required to pay back.

Martin Bell in the Times

Legg's out

So the best unkept secret of the politics world is out.

There is a full Pdf file here to download all 241 pages of it for your bedtime reading.

It has a blow by blow account of each MP but the highlights make grim reading.

390 MPs will be repaying a total of £1.3m in expenses, with £1.12m of that claimed through second home allowances. With Barbara Follett, Labour MP for Stevanage being asked to make the biggest single repayment of £42,458, which included £34,776.30 for mobile security patrols at her second home.

Gordon Brown has been ordered to pay back £12,888.03 mostly for cleaning costs.Both Cameron and Clegg have to make repayments under £1000 and a total of 75 MPs have appealed expenses decisions, with 44 of those wholly or partially upheld.

However Legg has come under fire.Sir Paul Kennedy who has looked into the MP's appeals has questioned the retrospective nature of Legg's process

Dale is right

It is definitely my day for agreeing with Tory writers

Many MPs will be very displeased by the contents of the leak of some of Sir Christopher Kelly's proposals. However, the public are in no mood to listen to what they will see as self-interested bleatings. I think, therefore, they probably have little alternative but to go along with them. That doesn't make them 100 per cent right, though

Via Iain Dale

Gordon to repay £12,415.10

Meanwhile news coming in that Gordon Brown is to repay £12,415.10 overclaimed between 2004 and 2009 after recieving the dreaded letter this morning from Sir Thomas Legg.

Brown incorrectly claimed for

£10,716.60 for cleaning;

£302.50 for gardening;

£1,396 for painting and decorating.

Acording to the BBC

The claims were within the rules but auditor Sir Thomas Legg has said £2,000 a year for cleaning and £1,000 for gardening was sufficient.

Haven't they learnt anything?

I have very little to say about the overhyped puublication of the details of MP's expenses this morning,other than this.

What a complete waste of time and money-Haven't they learnt anything yet?

Martin goes down with guns blazing

It was,to say the least,rather strange to see MP's falling over themselves to pay tribute to the speaker only weeks after hounding him out of his chair.

Nick Clegg,having been the only party leader to have publicly asked him to step down must have been in particular in a rather difficult position.

However Michael Martin was determined to go down with guns blazing.Effectively pointing the trigger at the party leaders,he maintained that if they had listened to him in July of last year,all the current furore could have been avoided.

"I wish with all my heart that those recommendations had won the confidence of the House last July and I wish that party leaders would have shown then some of the leadership which they have shown now,he said in his bowing out speech adding that

The response from this House was deeply disappointing. Half of the members did not attend to vote and more than half of those who did vote rejected the proposals.

Maybe that final fling was aimed at Gordon Brown? Benedict Brogan reminds us that

Gordon Brown, it should be remembered, allowed his allies to vote against reform, and didn't turn up for the vote.

We are being distracted from the real issues

Employers are becoming alarmed that measures to fight the recession are being neglected as Westminster’s focus turns inwards.

writes Jean Eaglesham in the FT this morning.

It is a very important point and more so that it seems that our political leaders are more concerned with constitutional change than tackling the economy

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have been forced to prioritise plans to overhaul the Commons and discipline errant MPs, forcing economic and public policy on to the backburner.

says the paper and perhaps more worryingly is that we may have a new Chancellor by the end of the week.

The papers are full of rumours that Ed Balls will take over from Alistair Darling who now finds himself embroiled in expenses controversy.

That would be a tragedy.Darling for me has done a good job despite extremely difficult times and his boss looking over his shoulder.

Balls lacks respect in the party and more importantly in the business community.To sacrifice his Chancellor for purely political motive would be a disastrous move by the Prime Minister

Only 400 to go

Sky's Joey Jones gets a snippet of information concerning the Telegraph's continuing exposure of MP's expenses now entering its fourth week

I was doing something for French radio with Ben Brogan yesterday - he was asked how much longer the paper might continue exposing MPs.
He explained the newspaper has got a team as much as forty-strong working on the story, and so far they've managed to get through around 200 MPs. That's about a third! - Could be a long summer....

Wilby on why reform is for anoraks

Those who quote Cromwell’s “In the name of God, go!” miss an important point: Cromwell replaced the Rump Parliament with an assembly of nominated placemen, setting himself on the road to dictatorship.

writes Peter Wilby in this week's New Statesman and adds that

both Houses of Parliament are already composed very largely of nominees, with democracy providing just a veneer of legitimacy. Membership of the House of Commons is heavily determined by the parties’ lists of “approved candidates”, with neither party members nor voters in general having much of a say unless they strain themselves to make trouble.

It is an interesting perspective and as he continues,the trouble with Parliament is that it was simply not designed to do the job for which it is now supposed to do

MPs originally ensured that governments didn’t raise taxes without good cause or adequate account of how the money was spent. Their function as intermediaries between constituents and central government – sorting out the myriad ways in which each now makes demands on the other – is almost entirely a development of the past 50 years. That explains why MPs think they are overworked and require two homes.

Kenny's comments should be followed carefully

Paul Kenny's comments that up to 50 labour MP's should stand ought to worry the party.

The general secretary of the GMB, said he would be "amazed" if the controversy over expenses did not result in more than 20 per cent of all MPs either standing down, retiring or losing their seats at the next election.

Kenny is a lifelong Labour Party member and a strong supporter of the links between the Labour Party and the trade unions.

He also warned Gordon Brown speaking on the World at one that he must ensure that Cabinet ministers who have abused the expenses system should be treated just as severely as backbench MPs.

Many will think that the comment was aimed at Hazel Blears,the cabinet minister under most pressure over the expenses scandal.It is unlikely that the head of one of the main funders of the party will be ignored

Tale of the toilet seat.

John Prescott tries to explain the strange case of the toilet sear

I bought ONE toilet seat (and NEVER claimed for it) but because it was an old Victorian toilet and the seat was modern, it didn't fit properly. If you're really interested, the seat was a metric measurement, the toilet was imperial.
So in December 2004, a plumber charged £210.79 for repairs to soil pipework and leaking water taps in the toilet. Whilst he was repairing the old Victorian toilet, he also refitted the seat. In 2006 we had to get new taps in the bathroom. But whilst the plumber was there, he refixed the same seat as it kept getting loose. The total repair bill, which was mostly for the bathroom work, was £112.52.
In fact it never really solved the problem. So I finally I chose to completely refurbish the bathroom and the toilets. All paid for by myself, without a penny charged back to the taxpayer.

Public anger at MacKay

I am sure that many bloggers have poicked up on this clip posted on Conservative Home.

It is an edited version of Andrew MacKay getting the once over from his constituents and if nothing lese it show the public anger over MP's expenses

Back in the land of blighty

Well a week can be a long time in politics.

I tried to keep away from the news whilst on holiday,managing to aviod the internet but not be able to resist the newspapers,although a day late.

So are we on the cusp of a new political future?

The speaker is on his way out.There is talk of sweeeping away the archiac structures of parliament,we may even be replacing ourt first part the post electoral system and will there be an election in October?

Exciting times lie ahead for the next few months

Expenses-would we all not do the same?

There is a good post by Bill Jones who sums up the pros and cons in the MP's expenses scandal.

But one question is does ask is would we all have done the same?

To expect MPs not to claim is ingenuous and unrealistic. Anyone in a job with a culture of generous expenses will inevitably behave like anyone else. I recall people I knew in the media during the 1970s eagerly collecting restaurant receipts from friends in order to submit them as their own expenses. Being wholly honest, how many of us would not have joined in this free for all expenses culture had we had the chance?

News of the World's snap poll on expenses

Anthony Wells is reporting a snap poll which will appear in the News of the World tomorrow in which 68% said that their opinion of Gordon Brown himself had been damaged following the expense revelations.

The poll must be taken with a pinch of salt,only 500 people were sampled in it but maybe MP's should take note of some of its findings

69% thought claiming travel expenses was okay and 59% thought staff costs were fine. Only 29% thought that allowances for a second home were acceptable, around 20% said they should be able to claim for food, 14% house repairs and 11% furniture.

Ht-James Forsyth

Pigs in a trough- a round up

Having been out of circulation yesterday I missed out on the explosion in the blogosphere of comments about the expenses revelations.

Quite why Parliament now thinks that it is necessary to have an enquiry over who leaked the information is quite beyond me and will only add to the public's revulsion over the swathes of information hitting the headlines of which there will surely be more.

Here though are some of the comments that I have noted

The fate of nations, of monarchs and of the British people have been sealed in the Commons.
Yet now the reputation of the mother of all parliaments has been brought low by rules written and exploited here by claims for a kitkat, a tin of pet food and a bottle of shampoo... for TVs, furnishings and mortgages for the second homes of those who represent us.

says Nick Robinson

James Forsyth on Coffee House gets it spot on

I suspect that the story about Brown paying his brother £6,000 for cleaning services could be as damaging to the Prime Minister outside the Westminster Village as the McBride story was to him inside. One of the few remaining things Brown had going for him was the idea that whatever you thought of him he didn’t appear to be a politician on the make and on the take. Headlines about paying his brother £6,000 for cleaning blow away the image of him as a frugal Son of the Manse. It makes him appear just as bad as the rest of them.

Iain Dale who after ploughing through all the information says

You get the impression with one or two of the Cabinet Ministers that a story has been manufactured out of very little. But for most of them, there are questions which need to be answered, and I am afraid that the stock answer of "It was approved by the Fees Office" or "It's within the rules" is simply not good enough.

Guido who notes that

Clegg and Cameron seem quiet today don’t they? The usual attack dogs seem strangely muzzled. Chris Grayling isn’t growling. Norman Baker isn’t barking into broadcaster’s microphones. Wonder why? Could it be because no matter what their party, they are all at it?

The rumours incidentally are that the next installment will feature the shadow cabinet,possibly on Monday

Iain Martin says that

Members of Parliament have only themselves to blame for all this. They should have realised years ago that the game was up. From the moment in the early 1990s that sleaze scandals relating to the behaviour of MPs broke, they should have been on notice that anything they did that was less than honourable would out in the end.

Harriet Harman has it right when she says that people are angry - and that people are probably right to be angry - despite the fact that n one of these MPs were breaking any actual rules. says Susan Press

Paul Waugh reminds us that

none of this would have come to light without the tireless work of freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke. Heather fought for 4 years to get the ruling that eventually resulted the receipts being gathered for publication. MPs and the Commons and the Speaker fought tooth and nail to stymie her.Three cheers for Heather - she puts some hacks to shame.

Bagehot who writes that

The various scams and ruses documented in the Telegraph aren't really corruption, at least not in the worst sense; they don't involve ministers taking money that influences their decisions, or to turn a blind eye, etc. They are more akin to theft. But they will still, I expect, be very damaging.

but adds that

Financial sleaze always looks worse for Labour politicians in a way, because they sell themselves more on their noble motives than the Tories.

Now there is a thought

I am watching what is really quite a pointless debate on MP's expenses now that Gordon Brown has decreed that it will go fully to the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Iain Dale has a theory why though

"Remind me, what is the Commons debating today? And whose idea was it to have a vote on expenses today? And didn't Number 10 know that today was the day of British troops withdrawal when they decided that MPs should spend the whole day talking about expenses?"

And another gaffe outside No 10

It has happened again.

This tine Hazel Blears is snapped by the zoom lens turning off for a cabinet meeting carrying Gordon's proposals on MP's expenses.

The community minister was lucky that the plans were not spotted until the anouncement had alrerady been made.

According to Blear's office she is feeling "understandably sheepish".