Watched Question Time tonight – really good with the politicians on the rack again but with the old party politics back in play. However some really interesting points tonight.
Recognition of the anger around the country at the MP’s expense row.
Acceptance that criminal proceedings should take place – deliberate fraud has occurred.
Each party has to clean up it’s act.
Martin Bell – each party faces a test which it will pass or fail – can it clean up it’s MP’s and not just the old guard and back benchers but also take action against cabinet and shadow cabinet members? Labour is messing this up right now and as the party in power should be doing a lot more than it is.
A general election now would elect a very different parliament.
Is it time for electoral reform?
Will celebrity MP’s become more common?
The part that was really interesting was around reform of parliament and election of independents. The panel was split between the need of established party politics so that effective government could take place against election of independents to shake up the parliament.
It got me thinking – could a People’s Party, a coalition of independents standing on the ticket of anti-sleaze become a dominant force? What if the independents weren’t just known faces like Martin Bell, Esther Rantzen et all but acknowledged business leaders and academics? How many of our current MP’s are actually fit to lead? I’m not measuring fitness based on the expenses scandal either. What qualifications do our current crop of MP’s actually have apart form going to the right schools and universities, joining their party branches at an early age, working for former MP’s as researchers etc. Where’s the business acumen, the proven leadership? Sadly lacking in many cases.
It was no surprise to see the larger parties saying that the only answer was for them to sort out their issues. They were the only way forward. William Hague dared to suggest that it was only the large parties that could take on issues like unemployment, financial crisis and defence. What a cheek. Neither party has covered itself in any glory in the last two decades. With the public not having much of a choice would it not be better to vote on qualified independents rather than a candidate chosen by the local party offices especially when the selection is made to satisfy a quota or is based on the candidates influence and background? Do we really need 1300 officials in parliament? How different would a slimmed down parliament with proportional representation look compared to today’s mess?
I can’t see electoral reform taking place in the short term but a coalition of independents with a ticket of anti-sleaze and a commitment to fight for electoral reform would win many many seats if there were an election in the next 6-8 weeks. Throw in a few respected celeb’s into the mix and there’s the potential to have many more seats and power than the Liberals while denting Conservatives and especially Labour. Sadly the chance of the election taking place this year are slim to non existent. By 2010 this could well be old news. Hysterical mass media will have moved onto the next big thing. Can you remember when swine flu and the credit crunch dominated the news? One things for sure – if issues like this don’t get people out voting, nothing will.
Over the last ten day’s or so there has been only one story in UK politics – MP’s and their expenses. A media storm has built up around the amount that MP’s have been claiming for. In fact it’s not just the amount that have annoyed people – it’s the content of these claims. Paying for moat cleaning, gardens, second homes farther away than your primary home to parliament, some outrageously high food bills – it just smacks of taking the system for a ride at the taxpayers expense. It’s not limited to one party either – Labour, Conservative, Liberals and the Others all have been exposed primarily by the Telegraph. The full list of their investigations make for sobering reading. The Telegraph have spun this story for all it’s worth, drip feeding a couple of new MP revelations each day to maximise the publicity and also to keep the pressure on MP’s and in particular the government.
Ultimately it’s the Labour government that is and will come out of this the worst. The first week of bad press was all reserved for the government and those MP’s that abused the system. Gordon Brown refusing to apologise was a critical error. With the Telegraph switching to the Conservatives, David Cameron, and it doesn’t fill me with glee writing this, played a master stroke by apologizing before anyone had really seen just how damaging some of the tory expense claims were. Moats, tennis courts and more examples of flipping. The whole flipping tag really winds me up as it’s a playful little tag for a disgraceful abuse of position. The whole point of the second home payments was to allow anyone to stand as an MP and ensure they weren’t disadvantaged by a lack of money. Instead many MP’s put expense claims in for one home, then flipped what they called their second home allowing them to put claims in for another property. Outrageous – how could this be allowable in the rules? Why did nobody until now think this wasn’t an issue?
But MP’s did think there was something wrong with this. Heather Brookefirst asked for expenses to be made public in 2004. If it wasn’t for her fight to have the information made public we wouldn’t be seeing MP’s being brought to task today. If the expenses system was fair and the majority of MP’s weren’t abusing the system as the story is trying to be spun now, why did the house of commons try so hard to block moves to have expenses be made public, trying to overturn decisions that were made against them. Even recently we’ve seen Harriet Harman trying to defend MP’s and also say the problem with publishing receipts is that MP addresses are revealed. Tosh – you can publish expenses without revealing an address.
Another reason that Labour will suffer the most is that they could have made changes. They were in power. If it was such a serious issue they could have made changes within 24-48 hours. It’s been done before – why not now? They’ve also got the old guard still plugging away at these outrageous leaks. Michael Martin really isn’t fit to be speaker of the house. It’s nothing to do with snobbery as his cronies will spin to anyone who listens. He’s so out of touch with public feeling on this. They don’t want to see him get annoyed about the leaks – he should be taking the matter in hand and reacting to how the country feels. His reaction in parliament this week was of a man who’s had his dirty little secret revealed and he wasn’t about to go down without fighting it. Idiot. Then you have George Foulkes turning on a BBC presenter for daring to interrupt and question MP’s. The video is below.
Foulkes came across as a bully. I guess everyone’s reaction is that his time will come. The electorate will take care of him. Of course not. He’s now a Lord so quite easy for him to come out and say what he really thinks, not what the public want to hear. Another idiot. Going back to the claims itself it’s easy to see why there are shouts for police investigations. Flipping is bad enough. Claiming for a mortgage already paid off doesn’t sound like a simple error when it was £16,000 claimed for. Labour’s David Chaytor is also accused of claiming £13,000 for a mortgage on a house already paid for. Worse, it’s also claimed he flipped houses six times. Ridiculous. How could this ever be seen as being fair and reasonable? There’s other strange claims as well – Alex Salmond claiming £400 every month for food expenses yet he’s made just over 16% of the votes. A man with three jobs claiming the maximum amount for food each month. It stinks. It really sticks in the throat that so many MP’s stepped forward last week to hand back money. Reminds me of series one of The Wire – politicians happy to take money until found out all the while trying to influence the investigation. I wonder if the team at the Telegraph feel like McNulty and Co chasing the money.
The fear out of all of this is that democracy, in the short term at least, is under threat. All mainstream parties, in particular Labour will take a hit in the upcoming Euro elections. What I can’t figure out is whether people won’t bother to vote as a protest or will instead switch their vote. If they don’t vote then it’s a chance for smaller parties to gain power. In the Euro’s that means parties like the Greens, UKIP and the BNP. Worrying times.
So what next? Well out of all this reform that been talked about the one thing I want to see is a clear and open process in which all data is published and freely obtainable for all to see. For me that means RSS, XML or a web service so that MP expense claims can be used by anyone as they see fit. How many of these claims would have been made if they were to be made public within one month of being claimed? We certainly wouldn’t see the shit storm that we see now. The Conservatives are making a step in the right direction by publishing the expense claims of the shadow cabinet here, also available as an XML feed. Not ideal as it should really come from an independent body but it sets the tone and shows that action is being taken eventually.
One wonders though if all this could have been avoided while still providing access for everyone to stand as an MP. Build a hotel. One that could comfortably house all the MP’s and make sure it’s in walking distance of the Houses of Parliament. Food would be provided and an MP wouldn’t have to pay for anything. Wi-fi and those all essential TV services for Jacqui Smith would be provided – not a claim in sight! No need for expensive second home claims or all those costs to furnish a second home. Sounds all too sensible, no?
What a 72 hours on the stock market. Despite the turmoil and despite the year long decline I never though HBOS would be hammered as it was since Monday morning.
The chart above shows today’s activity alone. How many people made a killing on HBOS today? How many made a killing that helped to manufacture the situation. Something stinks about this really.
So it looks like a Lloyds TSB takeover of HBOS. It will no doubt be dressed as a merger but it’s anything but, no? Be interesting to see what affect it has on HBOS services as I use it for some of my accounts. Which bank next? Are mergers the way forward for the next six months?
“The missing information contains details of all Child Benefit recipients: records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families. “
That quote was from Alistair Darling and it’s the first time I’ve heard gasps from the House of Commons. Grand theatre or genuine shock it matters not – this was an amazing statement to be making from a government who are hell bent on forcing through an ID card system that is costly, hard to justify and one wonders just how secure it will be. Type of data missing…only:
National insurance number
Name, address and birth date
Partner’s details
Names, sex and age of children
Bank/savings account details
Enough to rip off your identity, have a good old stab at you security details on many online accounts and websites and generally ruin a lot of peoples life’s if the details fall into the wrong hands. Biggest shock of all is that this data was sent via TNT on a couple of password protected disks. What?!? It was sent on the 18th of October but senior management didn’t know it was missing until November 8th and the Chancellor on November 10th. Why has it taken so long for this to become public? That is an absolute disgrace.
It’s for the delay and also the Northern Rock fiasco which could cost taxpayers a lot of money that Darling really should step down. He’s a lame duck chancellor and he looks defeated every time he speaks in parliament now. In some ways it’s a shame as I thought he was fairly competent but not now. In fact when I hear his name I just think Blackadder.
Darling: Good luck, Blackadder.
Blackadder: Why, thank you, Darling. And what’s your big job here today? Straightening chairs?
Terrorist attacks always seemed pretty remote, even when they were in the UK. I guess there was always a sense of ‘it’s London’ and ‘it won’t happen up here’. Today’s terrorist attack on Glasgow airport disproves that totally. Like the London cars that were found on Friday, the car that drove into Glasgow airport had propane gas and also petrol on board. Thankfully no one seems to be badly injured apart from one of the two people in the car. They were described as Asian with an eye witness stating that one guy was shouting Allah as he was pulled from the car.
Most disturbing was that one of the terrorists who has suffered 90% burns was wearing a suicide belt. The belt was only found on the suspect when he was in hospital. It’s shocking to think what damage he could have done.
Even more shocking is that this looks like a botched attack. What would have happened if the propane had gone up or the suicide belt detonated? How many innocents would have died? Or was the plan to ever kill lots of people? Was it just to disrupt, cause panic and fear, unsettle the public? I guess no one really knows at the moment. All we can do is keep vigilant for anything suspicious. Who knows where these guys were staying, worked or who they were friends with.
So the Scottish elections have come and gone and the new session of the parliament will resume looking very different. Some quick highs and low for me:
Highs
Bye bye Tommy Sheridan. No doubt he’ll write a book – Tommy:The Real PinBall Wizard.
It was also goodbye to the SSP. No real loss methinks and their implosion last year coupled with lack of impact was their undoing.
STV system allowed me to rank the tories at the bottom. Puerile but oh so funny.
Lows
Having two votes on the same day with two different voting systems was a disaster. Easy to say with hindsight but someone has to take responsibility for this.
Over 100,000 spoiled ballot papers. Lot’s of people mocked American elections and how Bush got it – are we any better?
Having Alex Salmond for First Minister Scottish National Party on the regional list vote was a great trick by the SNP and undoubtedly won them some votes but I think added to the confusion. In future only party names should be allowed in the regional list vote or we’ll end up with stunts to make sure parties come first in the list.
Alex Salmond…first minister? His smugness could reach unprecedented levels.
Independents almost wiped out. It was good to hear a voice that wasn’t tied to party lines.
So what now? To get a majority in the Scottish Parliament you need 65 seats. SNP plus the Liberals equals 63 putting the Greens in a very strong position as potential coalition partners. I always favoured the way the parliament was setup as I thought it would encourage politics that represent a wider range of viewpoints rather than one party controlling everything. But now the Greens could get a disproportionate say in the running of Scotland, especially as they polled only 0.2% of the constituency vote (although they only stood in Glasgow Kelvin so this percentage isn’t representative) and 4% of the regional vote. Is that fair? 4% of people have voted for policies that could soon be passed in parliament. I guess it depends on the deals that are done over the next few days.
Despite these failings at least interest in politics has risen, or has it? Lost amongst the voting issues was that turnout was again very low at 51.8%. Just 2.5% higher than four years ago but given the large amount of spoiled papers it can be argued that those elected have the smallest public mandate in modern times. Considering how keenly fought this election was that is disappointing.
Still…interesting and potentially very different times ahead.
This Thursday sees Scottish Parliament Elections and Local Council Elections and for the first time in ages the elections are actually interesting and forecasting a shift in power or at the very least a very close fight between SNP and Labour.
The SNP have run a great campaign. Removing the independence question, slickening up the campaign and ‘hiding’ some of the more dubious members of the party and their views has certainly helped their cause. Alex Salmond has also turned down the cheek and smarm that I often associate with him – he’s looked like someone who could run the country which I’ve never thought before. I struggle to see how they’ll pay for their promises – the maths are still an issue for me.
The SNP campaign has also been relatively positive in total contrast to Labour. On the back of Iraq and sleaze they were always going to have a tough time but the repeated bashing of SNP rather than focussing on their own achievements and future plans, apart from education, is annoying and patronising. A poll tonight shows them neck and neck with the SNP but in so many ways they don’t deserve a third term. I’ve generally been a Labour voter but in reviewing what the parties are offering that’s in real doubt.
Lib Dems…anonymous and an almost public embarrassment at using Menzies Campbell. Charles Kennedy was seen and heard more than their leader. Nicol Stephen hasn’t done anything wrong but he appears a bit timid, quiet and he really has to drop the word passionate, especially when it’s said with so little conviction.
Tories. A party I’ll never vote for due to their actions in the past but hats off to Annabel Goldie who I think has done really well. Appears to answer questions honestly, to the point and at least they aren’t plotting a power share before the election has even taken place. Still, like the photo, I can only see them slipping down the polls.
I’ve also had so much propaganda through the front door, not just from the mainstream parties but also some I’ve never heard off. The 9% Growth party? Scottish Christian Party?
No matter who wins on Thursday (although I reckon it will take days to sort out) the shape of the parliament will be very different to the last four years and I’m looking forward to the next few days and how it all shakes out. I just hope the turnout is a lot higher – one vote could make a big difference.
Glad to see that a tribunal has ruled that there was no discrimination shown by a school in suspending a classroom assistant who insisted on wearing a veil. While I’m against any sort of veil ban as has been suggested elsewhere, the wearing of a veil in a classroom shouldn’t be tolerated. Not a racist view, or denying anyone their rights…just common sense in my book. I would be uncomfortable seeing any teacher wearing any sort of face cover while teaching kids no matter what religion or beliefs they had. it should also be remembered that it was the kids that complained that the assistant couldn’t be heard that brought the matter to the authorities attention.
The fact that the wearing of the veil (niqab) is debated by Muslim religious leaders makes the issue even more clear cut for me. Unfortunately the assistant at the centre of the controversy is appealing the decision, hence dragging this one issue on a little further. I am concerned about how polarized the debate has become, something touched upon by Roy but surely it’s more important to debate and discuss the issues than brush them under the carpet and hope they never rear their ugly head, no? The main political parties staying away from race and integration issues have only aided the lies spread by parties like the BNP.
Great video of Clinton being interviewed on the Fox network. The links on the page also show the Fox network interviews with the current US administration – a bit of a contrast. Nice to see an (ex) politician not letting journalists of the hook…pity more journalists don’t return the favour.
