Wednesday 20 May 2009

Gordon Brown proves he is out of touch on expenses.

Gordon Brown proves he is out of touch on expenses. I'm not the first to write about this and I probably won't be the last. I'm a bit late to the party, but nevertheless I need to add my small voice to the throng in the hope the David Cameron will take notice.

Gordon Brown's idea to put the running of MPs expenses into the hands of an independent body is just pathetic. What he is in fact saying is "We are far too crooked to run our own system". Is that what we want from the people we trust to represent us? The rules announced by the Speaker last night were most welcome (if far too late for him) and a great start down the road to the recovery of parliament's reputation. However we don't need another Quango to check that those rules are being kept to. Now that MPs have to publish their expenses we can quickly see who is abusing the new system - and just as smartly call for their heads.

The old system was open to abuse because it was designed on trust. The new system will be similar to the ones we all operate under - it will assume that individuals can't be trusted. But that doesn't mean that Westminster can't be trusted to oversee the new system. The new system will have outside regulation - me, you and the media. Never again will they be able to line their pockets and claim that they have obeyed the rules.

So I hope Cameron sees sense and rejects Brown's plan to create yet another pointless and expensive Quango. We don't need it because WE will be watching very closely from now on.

UPDATE: I've just had an anonymous comment that I thought I should share with you:

Am I alone in being worried by MPs who say 'we can't be trusted with our expenses' but then want to spend 100's of billions and run our national debt into trillions

1 comment:

Sean Lynch said...

Let us hope the next speaker is a decent fair minded individual, not an unpleasant, intransigient, uncouth oaf like the scumbag that just quit.
Honestly, elevating him to the Lords is another sickening indictment of our so called parliamentary "democracy".
Are they so far removed from reality that they think this will placate the public who are sick of sleaze and degenerate politicians being rewarded for abject failure with a free ticket to ride on the gravy boat for the rest of their parasitic lives.
Everyone apart from Labour knows that BROWN IS THE PROBLEM, not the solution.