UK politics

Only the principle that it’s only fair we should see what we paid for, the new shiny technological Telegraph has published a Google Earth gallery of what MP’s bought with their expenses.

Totnes MP Anthony Steen, for example, claimed more than £80,000 from the taxpayer over four years for work on his Devon estate:

To well-off Tories like Steen the allowances scheme must’ve seemed like just another wizard tax wheeze, just like all those other little wizard tax wheezes Tories’d been using from time immemorial to avoid their full tax obligation and maximise their income stream; just business as usual.

But it’s getting quite hot for some MPs now That we know exactly what kind of lavish lifestyles the taxpayers have been funding all this time, and less well-off Tory Nadine Dorries, whose expenses are also being questioned, has been expressing concern that the media pressure and invasion of privacy may lead to a suicide in Westminster:

“People are constantly checking to see if others are OK. Everyone fears a suicide. If someone isn’t seen, offices are called and checked.”

If MPs want to kill themselves, well, that’s their choice – but far from being suicidal, Steen’s openly defiant. We’re all “Just jealous” (I’m sure he meant envious, but whatever) he says, a view I suspect is shared by many MPs of both parties.

One thing I don’t understand. MPs are just as subject to envy as anyone and Labour members are better at it at than most, so why did none of them ever publicly question the lifestyle their colleagues were suddenly living? MPs are acutely status conscious, always checking out their colleagues to see they aren’t one-upped in some way. Why did no-one object to the sudden acquisition of wealth?

I can only conclude that Labour regarded expenses as the licensed union scheme to beat all licensed union schemes, all the Christmases and birthdays of a lifetime rolled into one. At last former civil servants, union officers and junior lecturers could have the lifestyle they always felt they deserved. Qualms? What qualms? The public voted for them, the public must have wanted them to have the money, QED. Besides, the public would probably never know. As usual few Labour MPs considered the long-term effect of their own legislation.

Now their greed’s been exposed, MPs are threatening suicide. I certainly don’t want anyone to die, for heaven’s sake, but I find it hard to have any sympathy for the poor suffering members. They must have known the voters would think what they were doing was greedy and wrong, but they still chose to do it; and those colleagues who said nothing about the suddenly comfortable lifestyles of formerly cash-strapped MPs condoned the wrongdoing by their silence. What else do they expect? Applause?

It’s no use Dorries trying to blame the media for the pressure MPs are under either. She may have some justification; journalists have always known the allowances scheme was a cover, she says, and for the media to be whipping up outrage now is hypocritical, which is true, and it has been common knowledge that MPs were on the make, witness Alan Duncan’s complicit smirk to camera and response of “Great, isn’t it?’ when tackled by Ian Hislop about excessive MPs expenses on Have I Got News For You.

But ‘everyone knew’ is no excuse: journalists couldn’t publish such wide-rangingly explosive accusations without the actual evidence to back it up and MPs fought tooth and nail not to be forced to reveal that evidence to journalists. So rumour was not substantiated. Nowthe evidence is beginning to be revealed and we all know now, not just a coterie of Westminster insiders.That’s where the pressure coming from, not the media, the voters. No complicit smirks from the voters.

MPs have only themselves to blame: they chose to claim what they did because they thought they wouldn’t be found out. What MPs choose to do now is their choice too: they should stop theatrically threatening suicide like a spoiled teenager who’s had their allowance stopped, and act like responsible adults for once, vote no confidence in the current government and force a general election. Maybe then we might let them leave this discredited parliament with a tiny little bit of respect left.