MPs' expenses: Parliament must not be exempt from its own laws
Once again, we're losing sight of the bigger issue. The problem is not that MPs are fiddling their expenses. Unlike MEPs, they are reimbursed only on the basis of costs actually incurred, allowing little opportunity for profiteering. No, the real outrage is that they are opting out of a law that they have just imposed on the rest of us. Having passed the Freedom of Information Act, amid much self-congratulation, MPs are now proposing to exempt themselves from its provisions.
It was the same story when MPs topped up their pensions while taxing everyone else's. It was the same, again, when they passed rules on sex equality, only to derogate from their own rules when they wanted to impose all-women shortlists. "Ah, but we're a special case," say legislators. Lots of people could say the same thing; the only thing that makes MPs special is that they can tailor the law to suit their own convenience.
The very first proposal in Newt Gingrich's Contract with America was that Congress should be bound by the same laws as everyone else. Commentators wrote it off as an abstruse and recondite issue; but it struck a huge chord with the public, and returned the Republicans to a majority for the first time in 40 years. Douglas Carswell and I begin our manifesto with the same proposal, before going on to outline a much wider decentralisation and democratisation of power in Britain. But the first step, as Gingrich recognised, is to restore the moral authority of the legislature. Until parliamentarians are seen to have put their own affairs in order, they will not be trusted to assume charge of the nation's.
So long and thanks for all the clicks
November 30th, 2014 22:43
Ten observations about David Cameron's speech on immigration
November 28th, 2014 16:00
What does it mean to be conservative?
November 24th, 2014 8:17
Is the democratic Left finally turning against the EU?
November 20th, 2014 12:06
Wrong then, wrong now. Why do we keep listening to the Euro-fanatics?
November 14th, 2014 11:20