Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected
Dictatorship
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Spin, not
face-to-face confrontations with the voters, is the Government's
chosen method of communication. Ordinary
people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question
which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member
might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like
us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she
might tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September
16, 2004
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I was
tempted to run into the gallery to shout 'liars'!
Quentin
Letts - Yesterday in Parliament - Daily Mail, Thursday November
4, 2004
Well,
a disgusting day. Disgusting not only because MPs spent the afternoon
talking about their expenses and demanding with pipe-voiced, hand-on-hip
outrage, huge sums of public money. They talked about their right
to 'staff' as though they had an entitlement to banks of assistants,
fanning out over Europe like Allied HQ subalterns after the Normandy
landings.
It
was a disgusting day not only because Tony Blair, at Prime Minister's
Questions, expressed fake outrage at a suggestion from Michael
Howard that there could be corruption inside the Department of
Culture. Mr Howard raised an e-mail allegedly sent by some Whitehall
operative to Amercan gambling interests. The tone of it was not
so much Sir Humphrey as billet doux.
| I
was fascinated by Cherie Blair's speech on how she was the
bread-winner and her husband was the prince who became the
scullery maid, looking after the children so she could get
on with her career. It was lucky he had an accomodating boss
- but then he was MP for Sedgfield, claiming his wages plus
expenses. I wonder how many more MPs are doing the job part-time.
Letter
to Daily Mail, Nov 4, 2004 from P. Giles, Manchester
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Mr
Blair was shocked, appalled, outraged, horrified, amazed that
Mr Howard should in any way choose to question the probity of
theBritish Civil Service. It was 'completely absurd!' to cast
such slurs, he yelled. 'It really is ridiculous! It's utterly
absurd!' The greater the scorn, the less convincing the denial.
All
this, though dire, was not the reason for my queasiness. So let
me tell you why yesterday was disgusting. Let me explain why,
on my return from a goodish lunch in Soho, I felt like off-loading
all my taxable chattels to the Bahamas, why I was tempted to run
into the Commons press gallery to shout 'liars', and why, re-reading
Mr Blair's defence of British public life, I question every assumption
he made.
I
had returned to find a message from a woman we shall call Patricia.
I recognised her as an MP's secretary who had tried to contact
me in the summer, when she left a message saying she was unhappy
about her boss's expenses claims. In the summer she had second
thoughts about telling me any more. Yesterday she was sufficiently
upset to disclose a few more details.
Patricia
is middle-aged and works part-time for an English MP, although
she does not particularly support his political party. She has
always seen herself as an office professional, discreet and capable.
For
a few years now her employer has been paying his wife a salary
of about £30,000 from his parliamentary allowance. The wife
has not been seen in the constituency office more than perhaps
a couple of times in the past four years.
"The
other day we learned that she had been given a £4,450 bonus,"
said Patricia yesterday. "That money is being paid by the
taxpayer, but all of us in the office know she does nothing to
earn it. She doesn't look after his diary. She doesn't answer
his letters. She doesn't do his accounts, because no one does.
We're always being chased for late bills."
The
MP's wife does not even answer his telephone at home. "It's
always on the answering machine," said Patricia, hollow with
disenchantment.
Patricia
thought of reporting the matter to Mr Speaker. Then she read that
Speaker Martin has a few issues of his own regarding expenses.
Not quite the man, therefore. She thought, next, about going to
Parliament's Fees Office, and even rang it anonymously. She was
told she would have to go public. That frightened Patricia.
The
local newspaper? Hmmmm. Could get messy. she doesn't want to make
life difficult, not at her stage in life. And it doesn't quite
seem a police matter. so she took the matter to the MP's Chief
Whip. Her complaint was heard with apparent seriousness, but nothing
has been done. The chief Whip is grannying about.
So
there she is, working for a man who is raiding the public purse.
There she is, a law-abiding subject of the Crown, expected to
connive in apparent fraud. Yet she can go to no one, because in
modern Britain there is no trustworthy, friendly official she
can approach without bringing hell and fury all about her.
Still
sure about that corruption, Prime Minister?
|
David
Hughes, Political Editor, Daily Mail - November 5, 2004,
writes:-
An
MP embroiled in an embarrassing sex scandal is facing a
Commons investigation over allegations that he pays his
wife up to £30,000/year for non-existent secretarial
duties. Liberal Democrat, Paul Marsden, is accused of giving
his wife Shelly a full secretarial salary even though she
does no work. The payments are said to go back at least
four years, which would mean more than £100,000 has
been paid out.
The
allegations have been made by a House of Commons Secretary
angered by the 'misuse of taxpayers money'. The secretary
has raised the issue with Liberal Democrat chief whip Andrew
Stunnell, who is looking into the claims. A complaint has
also been lodged with the House of Commons Fees Office,
which administers MPs' finances.
The
official list of MPs' allowances shows that Mr Marsden was
the highest claiming MP in the West Midlands. Last year
he claimed a total of £136,869 on top of his £57,485
MP's salary. The biggest single element in his claim was
£68,023 for paying his staff.
The
Commons whistle-blower who lodged the protest has not made
a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner
because that would require her to make her identity public.
The secretary said it was 'scandalous' that complaints could
be made anonymously to the police or Inland Revenue but
not the Commons watchdog. All I'm trying to do is save taxpayer's
money," the secretary said. "This has been going
on for four years to my knowledge. When I raised it with
the Fees Office they said that all details of an MP's payroll
were confidential. They said there was little they could
do unless a formal complaint is made to the Standards Commissioner.
All we want is for someone to investigate this."
The
secretary's experience will fuel suspicions that the rules
governing MP's allowances make rigorous monitoring impossible.
A
Mail investigation last year revealed that more than 50
MPs, the majority of them Labour, have family members working
for them at Westminster or in their constituencies.
Official
Commons registers revealed that MPs were employing wives,
husbands, sons, and daughters on the public payroll. Under
Commons rules, MPs are allowed to spend up to £75,000/year
to employ a maximum of three researchers and secretaries.
Critics
say there are no checks on the workloads of these employees
and that the system is wide open to abuse.
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For
the health of our democracy, we, the people of the United Kingdom,
must find a way to force Mr Blair to resign
Such
defiance of the democratic process and the will of the majority
of we people of the UK, must be exposed by voters as a matter
or urgency, and not just in the two by-elections we have had this
July and the European elections in June 2004. But how can this
be done?
The
most effective way of getting our deceitful PM to resign would
be to mobilise the army of Labour MPs currently in the House of
Commons and get them to demand it, the loss of their seat to be
a penalty if they did not. All voters in Labour-held constituencies
need to write a letter along these lines to their local Labour
MPs:
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Dear
Despite
his absolute and unequivocal assurances over the past year
of the serious risk to our security of Saddam Hussein's
'weapons of mass destruction', Prime Minister Blair
has admitted, that the threat was non-existent. For that
critical error of judgement and for his gross incompetence
in handling this very important issue, I ask you to take
immediate steps to ensure that Tony Blair does the honourable
thing and resign without delay..
I
would therefore be much obliged if you would propose and
help mobilise a Parliamentary vote of 'No Confidence' in
Mr Blair which, despite Labour's huge majority, would leave
the PM with no option but to resign.
If
I get no reply to this letter, I shall assume you will continue
to support Mr Blair as our Prime Minister. In such circumstances
I shall not vote for you in the forthcoming General Election.
Signed:
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Simple,
non-violent, protest letters along these lines on a variety of
issues could be the basis for re-vitalising our democracy and
increasing voters' interest and participation in politics. Download
a printable copy of the above letter here.
There
is another way for the voice of the silent majority to be heard,
a voice that made sure broken promises would not only be revealed,
but punished in subsequent elections.
In
the year available before the General Election expected in 2005,
many topics are available as ammunition, each one asking questions.
A weapon for our purpose will be the results of Opinion Polls
in individual constituencies using ICM, NOP, Gallop, Mori
or YouGov.
Questions
suggested for this purpose are listed here.
CAST
YOUR VOTE ON A VARIETY OF OTHER IMPORTANT ISSUES HERE.
Current
and prospective Parliamentary candidates of all Parties running
for election could share a platform at public forums in every
constituency. They would be presented with the results of
polls on this issue expressed by the majority of voters in that
constituency.
The candidates could be asked if their own views and that of their
Party manifesto corresponded with the polls, and if not, how they
intended to represent the will of the majority of local voters.
Local and National Press, Radio and TV coverage would be arranged
and the results published on this web site.
Here
is another powerful strategy for using your vote effectively in
the forthcoming General Election. Send your sitting and prospective
MPs a letter defining your requirements if they want your vote.
This example deals with the proposed
EU Constitutional Treaty.
Your
letters would end: "If you do not answer
this letter, I shall take it that you intend to follow the Government
line. I shall act accordingly in the forthcoming General Election.
Or
why not create a questionnaire that you send to all the candidates
in your constituency, getting them to give yes/no answers to questions
of your choice, and ending it with the same paragraph(above).
Download
a printable example of the questionnaire.
It
is high time for the people of this United Kingdom to stop allowing
themselves to be manipulated by politicians. We need our representatives
in Parliament to genuinely reflect the view of the majority in
their own constituency, even if this means going against their
personal and/or their party's policy. While they may argue their
case, hoping to change the minds of the majority in their constituency,
they should ultimately be obliged to reflect the majority view
of those who elect them.
It
will be argued by politicians of all parties that most voters
don't have the knowledge necessary to express an opinion on important
subjects at issue, and that our vote is a form of delegated democracy.
We should argue that it is their duty to ensure that we voters
do have ready access to such information as is necessary to form
an intelligent opinion. That, after all, is one main purpose of
Opposition Parties in our Parliamentary Democracy.
Most
important of all, such proceedings would rekindle in voters their
latent interest and obligation to cast their vote, knowing that
the candidate of their choice would be more likely to act in accordance
with their wishes. A much higher turnout in elections would be
the result.
Contact
your local Party Chairman. Gain his support for setting up public
forums in your constituency on these, as well as any other relevant
topics, well before the next General Election expected in 2005.
You should then, depending on the integrity of the candidate of
your choice, feel fairly certain that your view on any subject
being debated in Parliament will more accurately be reflected
by your representative in that assembly.
