Regulation by trip wire

The Times ('not worth a pound') worked themselves into a lather today about (not again) MPs expenses.

It's a non-story. Many MPs had claims rejected. One was a claim for an office shredder - an essential for an MPs office where there is a legal obligation to shred mail. Hard to think of any situation in which such a claim should be disallowed. The regulation of expenses is by tripwire. MPs make entirely reasonable claims complete with receipts that are then rejected because the complete Byzantine rules have changed. 

The previous simple system divided expenses into four main headings. IPSA has about 150 headings that are far from logical. Claim on the wrong form and the claim is disallowed. A telephone receipt, even an original, is not allowed unless it includes all six pages or so of the bill. The only way MPs know about these rules is by breaking them, by falling over the tripwire.

There is no scandal. It's a ludicrously complex and expensive system that serves no one well. The Millionaire Tory MP who is pressing  for a simplified system deserved support. He makes no claims. Such is the public's contempt of MPs it's not possible to have a sensible conservation. Few MPs risk discussing the subject because of the inevitable media intrusion. The proposed change would involve a substantial loss of income to most MPs. 

But it is strongly supported. A simple system of allowances would be transparent, and avoid wasted hours of frustation grappling with the infuriating irrational bureaucracy that is IPSA.

Peerages denied

Politics is a cruel trade. The humiliation is often public.

David Cornock says that Kim Howells expected a peerage and said so. He writes:- "Dr Howells was one of the few retiring MPs to, how shall I put it, advertise his availability for the House of Lords after stepping down from the Commons last May".

Former Tory MP John Greenway told everyone that he was promised a call to ermine. Both have been denied. Don Touhig laughed when it was suggested that he would be ennobled. Then he was. Labour MP Doug Henderson was tipped for a place in the Lords. The call has not come.

One Labour MP for a Birmingham seat did a deal to abandon his seat shortly before an election in exchange for a peerage. He was deceived. The call never came. He was left to scratch around for another trade in his late fifties. My former neighbour the late Roy Hughes admitted that he exchanged his seat for a place in the Lords.

In the recent Labour list of new peers only one former Labour MP was included, Oona King. The lure of a political role without constituents is seductive to certain MPs.

Never me. I'm happy with the day job with added constituents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Kay Tie]

"It's a ludicrously complex and expensive system that serves no one well."

Although this is entirely believable, I don't have the slightest shred of sympathy. Particularly for Labour MPs. Because this is exactly the nature of dozens of systems your party (and you) imposed on the ordinary people of this country. The ISA. Child Tax Credit. CRB checks. The Student Loans system. And dozens and dozens more ill-thought out counterproductive systems with unintended consequences.

What you have with IPSA is a tiny taste, a wee sip of what you did to the country as a whole over the last decade. Think of it as penance and just accept your flagellation without complaint.

[D.G.]

I have some sympathy for the pain of wrestling with bureaucratic systems, but only 150 headings? Pfft. Thank your deity of choice that it didn't have to be SOX 404 compliant...

[Paul Flynn]

KayTie, memories are short. It was Peter Lillie who was resPonsible for thE CSA.

[Kay Tie]

"KayTie, memories are short. It was Peter Lillie who was resPonsible for thE CSA."

My memory is as sharp as ever: I didn't mention the CSA.

But now you have it's worth pointing out that it took Labour to turn something poorly conceived into a real fiasco. Let me challenge your memory and ask if you remember being on the government benches when purple powder was thrown?

[DG]

If there was any remaining doubt that David Milliband was damaged goods from his time in the Blair government, then this should remove it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cluster-bombs-britain

What the hell is wrong with our political elite? They seem to be strangers to honesty and integrity.

[rwendland]

This Cluster Bomb swerve is not first time we have manoeuvred diplomatically to allow the US to store special weapons in places Treaties would otherwise prevent.

We have refused to accept that Diego Garcia is covered by the Treaty of Pelindaba (African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty), despite accepting that other Chagos Islands are covered as they are diplomatically part of the African continent. This is to allow the US to store nuclear weapons on this British island.

This academic article covers this:

http://jel.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/1/113.full

and rather interestingly adds:

"In September 2003 for instance, over 100 US-made ‘Harpoon’ missiles were flown to Diego Garcia; Israel's three German-built ‘Dolphin’ submarines then made a port call at the atoll in October 2003 to be fitted with the missiles (which can carry a 200-kg nuclear warhead), before returning to the Gulf of Oman."

We moan when Russia or North Korea help Iran develop missiles (which we say will be delivery methods if/when Iran does ever develop compact nuclear weapons). But the West is perfectly happy to give or sell Israel advanced nuclear weapon delivery methods, when we know Israel already has nuclear weapons outside the NNPT. The highly advanced Dolphin submarines were made in Germany, and partly gifted to Israel. The US made Harpoon missiles were provided to Israel with US financial assistance. Even though our press rarely mentions this, others around the world notice and add another nail to the prospective NNPT coffin.