The politics of perks
By Tony Watts - Editor - 03/06/2009
Where to start? It’s no good talking about what’s already been reported. By the time this column goes live, it’s quite possible that the tidal wave of stories on politicians’ dodgy expenses will be topped by another, tsunami-like crest: ‘Minister claims trip to moon on expenses’. Followed by ‘Don’t come back’, pleads British public.
You couldn’t make it up. Well that’s not strictly true. If our MPs had put half as much ingenuity and genuinely creative thinking into their policies as they did into their expenses claims, we’d now be a very prosperous country.
But where does all this leave us? Well for a start, the long-argued debate about whose public standing was the lowest – politicians or journalists – has been resolved. At last there’s someone I can look down on. Nifty footwork, Daily Telegraph.
More seriously, we have – as a nation – finally given up our last vestiges of respect for the body politic. For years I’ve received letters from readers saying ‘all politicians are crooks’. I’ve always tried to balance that position by saying that a great many are actually decent, hardworking men and women who really do care about making positive social change. Honestly, I have met some. Now they are all tarred with the same brush. And it’s hard to see how they are going to regain the public confidence.
And only, I think, by major reform. One of our readers, Walter Bourne, has reminded me of the way Oliver Cromwell purged Parliament, some 350 years ago. “It is high time I put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
“Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get the grievances redressed, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, (the mace) and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”
Well said, that man. But we do need someone to represent us in Parliament. Hopefully the mood now for sweeping reform will allow us a fresh start. We need far fewer MPs – better paid but with realistic expenses and supported by skilled, professional people in their constituencies, appointed and paid centrally, to deal with constituents’ problems.
We need to encourage and enable more independents to stand – including those fighting campaigns of general concern. So alongside the fewer constituency MPs there should be a national allocation – of perhaps 20 – MPs voted in to represent groups such as older people, the disabled, young people, faith groups and so on.
MPs would be free to spend more time considering national policy – and be obliged to spend more time than at present either in the Chamber or in Committee. And we need to restore confidence that MPs vote with their consciences – so out would go three line party whips. And definitely out would go the Punch and Judy scenes from PMQs – they’re unseemly, unproductive and do nothing to advance democracy.
A parliament structured like that would – I believe – attract a far higher calibre of candidate, people who genuinely want to change things but hate the way politics is currently run. It would even tempt me. However, that would mean dropping down from the second most reviled career to the bottom of the pile…