The ThunderDragon

MPs have to swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen when they take their seat in the House of Commons. But anti-monarchy campaigners want to challenge this requirement in the courts on human rights basis.

There is also an early day motion proposed by Lib Dem front bencher Norman Baker proposing an alternative oath, claiming that “some honourable members would prefer to swear an oath of allegiance to their constituents and the nation rather than the monarch”. It has so far been signed by 22 MPs - 14 Labour, 7 Lib Dems and one Conservative.

Frankly, it is ridiculous. The Queen is our Head of State. She is also a constitutional monarch, and so holds no real power in her own hands. That resides in the Prime Minister and in Parliament. The Queen is simply a unifying figurehead and symbol of our nation, and her entire family costs us just 66p each a year, for a more than full-time job.

The claim that the requirement to swear an oath of loyalty to the Queen discriminates against Catholics, Muslims, members of other religions and atheists by requiring them to swear allegiance to the head of the Church of England, and presumably against repoublicans by requiring them to swear an oath of loyalty to the monarchy, is stupid. The Queens role as Head of State is separate to that of Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

When it comes down to it, there are no human rights issues over this oath of loyalty. An MP can - like the Sinn Fein - not take their seats if they don’t want to make the oath. And other officials can not take the job.

In these oaths, although the wording references “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors”, the meaning is rather towards her position as Head of State. It isn’t a personal oath to Elizabeth II, but an oath to the nation she represents. If they can’t see that, then there are, frankly, big questions over their ability to take any office where this oath is required.

Women should be encourgaed to beome MPs. But I find the reasoning that some people employ to argue for them idiotic.

Commons Speaker Michael Martin is to hold a conference aimed at finding a way to ensure more women and people from ethnic minorities become MPs.

He said he would try to end “disparity” between society and Parliament.

Currently about one in five MPs is a woman, compared with approximately half the population. (BBC)

Parliament is not a reflection of society. MPs are not delegates. They are representatives. As such, that there is only 125 female MPs out of 646 is not an issue in and of itself.

The issue is only that women appear find it harder to get into Parliament. And this something for the parties to resolve internally - but it also perfectly possible that this lower number is simply down to a smaller number of women who want to become MPs.

Women should be encouraged to become MPs, but candidates should all be evaluated on the same basis - equality is essential. Gender should not make any difference. After all, if Parliament is meant to be entirely representative of society, why do we vote at all and not just pick people by lot?

I’m seriously impressed. This something that I called for just over a month ago, and they have produced it.

However, I do have some criticisms:

To start with, there is no summary of the full amount that each MP has claimed from the taxpayer under expenses. This makes a real comparison harder, though I’m sure that there are plenty of junior people at various national newspapers frantically adding the figures that they have together. Each section - staff, office, communication, additional costs alliance, and travel - should also really have their own total cost as well.

In the “Other” section, the level at which specific items are required to be reported must be lower - any individual item of over £100 should have to be declared.

Whilst the area for “additional notes” is good, it would instead be far better to require a more detailed breakdown of expenditures as the use of that area varies massively between MPs.

Also, I can see no reason for the names of every staff member employed by an MP to be declared in this return. All we need to know is how many employees they have and whether any of these are family members [and a definition of "family" would be helpful, too], and the total cost of all staff members.

Finally, this return should be a three-whipped activity. No Conservative MP should be allowed to not declare their expenses. If they miss two returns, they should lose the whip until they have made a full delcrartion. If this takes more than three months, they should be automatcially and formally deselected by the party. This seven should be ashamed of themselves.

This shows that the Conservatives truly are determined to tackle the expenses issue, and I am absolutely certain that this is the only way to go - but they definitively still have further to go. One thing that they should do now is produce an ethics manual for Tory MPs to abide by, firmly establishing the principles and specifics - and the Conservative party as determined to actually wipe out sleaze rather than just claim to be “whiter than white” without any evidence.

David Cameron’s statement that

Politicians need to do everything they can to regain the trust of the British people, and transparency has a key part to play in that process. We must show that we’re spending taxpayers money sensibly and correctly.

We are the first party to demand this information from our members, and our MPs are voluntarily revealing a much more detailed breakdown of their expenses than official rules require them to. I’m glad that we’re leading the way.

shows that he know the way forward. By making these declarations public, the Conservatives have shamed Labour and the Lib Dems. Labour’s response just highlights the difference.

Note: My day job is in compliance and dealing with this sort of return.

Matt Wardman has tagged me in a meme to name “the best £200k waste of public money you can think of” in response to Tom Harris MP’s post bemoaning the £200,000 spent on the Haltemprice and Howden by-election.

Despite the question being a bit of a contradicion in terms ["best waste"? Matt!] I’m going to do my best to continue it.

To start with, what Tom Harris is suggesting is that £200,000 of our money should not be spent on allowing us to cast our votes. [£200,000 is little to pay for a bit of democracy, Tom. Maybe you and your party would like to give us all a chance to cast our votes...? Thought not.]

And how great a percentage is £200,000 of what the government spends every single day? A thousandth? A millionth? At any rate, not very much. I’m sure if we wanted, we could come up with Daily Mail style list of what £200,000 could have bought… such as ‘two hospitals, 5,000 hip operations, twelve nurses, nine police officers…’ etc**. But that is just stupid. Because the money wouldn’t have been used for that.

Matt’s suggestions for the “most monumental waste of 200k” are:

But I ask just one simple question: How much does it cost for one MP in the House of Commons for one parliament?

Let’s be generous and say a salary of just £60,000 and expenses of only £20,000 per year - and a parliament of four years. So, £80,000 times by four = £320,000. And by the time we’ve added on any other costs they that encur to us, we’re bound to be nearing £400,000. And if we add in the cost of running their office as well…

I’ve got an idea! Let’s abolish one MP [since you're so concerned about our financial situation, are you going to offer, Tom?] and use that money to hold two - or even three! - surprise by-elections per parliament, with an MPs name picked out of a hat completely at random. This will cost us no extra money and give us a greater say over our democracy.

What, you mean they won’t go for that? I wonder why…

Seriously though, £200,000 is pennies to the government. I am absolutely certain that they waste way more than £200,000 of our money pretty much every day in one way or another. Be it on white elephants like the Dome, on IT fiascos, or on making polcemen fill in paperwork rather than patrolling the streets and many others.

The simple fact is, whatever you think of David Davis’ resignation in order to spark a by-election, you can’t call it a “waste of money” unless you think all elections are. If you think that, go live in Zimbabwe.

It is our money - something Tom Harris seems to have forgotten - and there are certainly many many worse uses that it can be put to than on an exercise in democracy.

I tag: Devil’s Kitchen, Steve Green, Ian_QT, Tony Sharp, Croydonian, and Trixy.

* The cost of one MP over a parliament

** Please note that these examples have no basis in fact just like the Daily Mail’s

Sam Coates at the Times‘ Red Box blog asks “is your MP on the roll of shame?” He is, of course, referring to the list of MPs who voted to keep their exploitative and expensive [to us] expense system.

That list of MPs can be seen here, containing 146 (of 172) Labour MPs, of which 33 are ministers - including Cabinet members Jacqui Smith and Andy Burnham.

To answer the question, yes my MP is on the list:

… Claire Ward (Watford) …

Which is why I am out delivering leaflets today, to remove her from Watford and to make Ian Oakley, who is by far the best parliamentary candidate of the three main parties. Both for Watford and for the country.

Even as they vote to restrict their salaries to a below-inflation rise [and send the blogosphere into shock] - presumably to get some good headlines - they are refusing to overhaul their expenses system:

MPs threw out plans to overhaul their expenses, insisting on their right to buy kitchens, televisions and sofas on the taxpayer.

Plans for rigorous external audits, a reduction of the threshold of receipts from £25 to zero and a ban on furniture or home improvements were all thrown out by MPs who voted against the proposals by a majority of 28…

The vast majority of MPs — 146 of the 172 — who voted to keep the “John Lewis list” were Labour, including 33 ministers. (The Times)

Disgusting.

Rather than vote for proper reforms, MPs have gone down the route of lower salary and exploiting expenses instead.

Their expenses must be fully reformed. If they want to be respected, they must ensure that their expenses are clear. It is a sad time when the members of the unelected House of Lords are more respected than thopse who supposedly have a democratic mandate to lead us.

Every MP who voted against the expenses reforms must be punished at the ballot box.

It’s amazing. MPs have voted against awarding themselves an above-inflation pay rise.

And yet I haven’t seen a single blog post on this piece of news by any non-journalist come through my RSS reader.

The blogosphere must be in shock.

This is not the sort of thing that MPs should say:

Labour’s fight to regain the support of the electorate took a less conventional turn this week as David Clelland began an epistolary battle with one dissatisfied voter.

Mr Clelland, who has represented the people of Tyne Bridge in Newcastle for 23 years, has written to one resident informing him that he had no desire for his vote in the future.

“I accept your offer not to vote for me again,” he wrote, in bold defiance of the usual conventions that exist in communications between elected representatives and their electorate. “I do not want your vote so you can stick it wherever best pleases you.” (The Times)

We are your bosses - and your customers - you arrogant shithead. You only do your job and have your responsibilities at our discretion.

As for anyone who works in a service role, there is one simple rule: be polite. Disagree with people all you like, but be polite about it. What you certainly don’t do is tell them to “stick” anything anywhere. And I feel no sympathy for him. Want to vent? No problem. Just do it in private.

MPs should not write anything that they do not mind being published. They should reply to constituents letters telling them why they agree of disagree with them, and try to win them over - even if they have no chance of actually doing so. After all, if they can’t justify what they do, they damn well shouldn’t be doing it.

Let’s just hope that David Clelland MP is told “stick your job” by his constituents.

Image: David Clelland

Stating the bloody obvious:

The proposed changes to the way MPs claim expenses may fail to allay public concern about misconduct, Whitehall’s standards watchdog has warned. (The Guardian)

Seriously, what prize idiot would think that MPs deciding their own expenses arrangements and salary would be a good idea? All it does is entrench corruption - or the perception of corruption - in the political classes.

MPs expenses must be tightened properly, not half-heartedly. That cannot be done by MPs themselves, but must be done instead by independents. MPs must have no say over their pay and expense levels. And their expenses must be completely transparent - we must now how much they have claimed and why. Right down to the last penny.

A storm has risen up over MPs having investments in Zimbabwe. Or, rather, as the facts actually are, in companies which have a presence in Zimbabwe.

The Independent On Sunday proclaims that:

Three of David Cameron’s frontbenchers are among six Conservatives – and one Liberal Democrat – with investments together worth more than £1m in firms trading in Zimbabwe. The revelations will embarrass the Tory leader, who has sought to take the moral high ground over the crisis in Zimbabwe.

Except the firms involved are major international firms, such as Shell, Barclays, BP, and Tesco. These investments are not investments in Zimbabwe, but investments in a major company - something which is hardly inappropriate, so long as it is properly reported.

By referring to these investments as “blood money”, the Independent is in effect trying to criminalise anyone who has investments with or uses the services of any of those companies, as there is little real difference between these two things in reality - as plenty of choice exists in both.

If I banked with Barclays, shopped at Tesco and filled up my car at a Shell garage, the Independent is in effect claiming that I am also “propping up Robert Mugabe’s regime”.

What is most ironic with the Indy’s faux outrage at this story is this fact dredged up by Guido:

Hypocritically, the Indy’s parent company, Independent News & Media PLC, owns 100% of CCI, which according to the corporation’s own website “is the largest and fastest-growing outdoor advertising company in South Africa, with significant operations in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”

So the Independent is “propping up Robert Mugabe’s regime”. And to a far greater extent than any individual shareholder.

Then there is the hypocrisy a member of the government, John Mann MP (PPS to Tessa Jowell) saying:

Politicians profiting from the blood of the Zimbabwean people need to consider their position. What this shows is that greed for money supersedes moral responsibility.

Then why don’t you go and talk to the Chacellor of the Exchequer, John, and ask him why Northern Rock - the bank he nationalised - is active in Zimbabwe? Or is it only politicians from parties that aren’t Labour who need to “consider their position” when they profit [or not, as the case may be] from “the blood of the Zimbabwean people”?

The current situation in Zimbabwe is reprehensible, and whether or not a few MPs hold shares in a multi-national that just happens to have a presence in Zimbabwe means nothing. The situation in Zimbabwe is one that needs to be rectified - but can’t until the African leaders want to.