On expenses

Posted on May 29, 2009
Filed Under A Progressive Viewpoint | Leave a Comment

Time to break the long silence.

I’ve got very mixed feelings about the current expenses furore. I’ve said before on this blog that not all of the expenses scandals that have come up before the Telegraph started its massive campaign of exposure have really excited my indignation particularly. Some have been trivial (e.g. Mr Jacqui Smith’s porno film), some have been understandable if not excusable (Caroline Spelman’s nanny-cum-secretary), some have been outrageous (Derek Conway and his offspring).

As then, so now. With so many MPs now implicated in this mess, it is hard to judge individual cases because they are all so different, and yet the same: MPs are all judged to have their snouts in the trough, and therefore every expense claim is regarded as an abuse of the taxpayer, whether we are talking about a 5p carrier bag or however many thousand pounds it was to clean Douglas Hogg’s moat, or to procure an island refuge for Peter Viggers’ ducks.

Some MPs, therefore, have reason to feel harshly treated. Iain Dale has a point in relation to Julie Kirkbride: it’s tricky being a member of parliament and a mum at the same time. Compromises have to be made. Backs have to bend backwards. Caroline Spelman’s situation seems to me broadly similar to Julie Kirkbride’s. The last few days have hardly been encouraging for women thinking of a political career.

Having said all that, this explosion of public outrage has been coming for a while. Apathy can only continue for so long before it is either assuaged or allowed to morph into anger. The growing vote for the BNP in certain areas in recent years is evidence of this on a local level. We are now seeing a similar phenomenon on a national scale, from which, thankfully, the BNP does not seem to be profiting particularly. The political parties have recognised this (they could hardly miss it) and are responding with a noisy determination to “clean up politics”, even as allegations continue to emerge day by day. A head of steam is now building up around the need for parliamentary and constitutional reform…

Good. At last.

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