Expenses scandal
Leading article: Mr Cameron starts to repair the damage
The Tory leader did well, but public confidence will not return overnight
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Independent Minds
David Cameron's swift response yesterday to the damning revelations of abuses of the expenses system by a number of his MPs was a demonstration of the Tory leader's political surefootedness. By announcing that members of the Shadow Cabinet will pay back claims which look excessive (and that if Tory backbenchers fail to do the same they will be expelled from the party) Mr Cameron showed that his concern is for action, rather than words.
The Conservative leader also spoke passionately of why it is vital for the Tories, as a party that has been so critical of Labour's wasteful public spending, to set a moral lead on this matter. Mr Cameron knows that, for the country at large, the abuse of expenses is not only about the sums involved, but feeds into broader concerns over the trustworthiness of the entire political class.
But impressive though Mr Cameron's performance was, shoring up public confidence in the probity of the Conservative Party will be a tough and incremental job. None of the mainstream parties has emerged well from the expenses scandal. But the revelations pose a special problem for the Conservatives because of the party's recent image problems. The news that Tory MPs have claimed taxpayers' money to pay for the upkeep of moats, tennis courts and chandeliers is a serious public relations upset for Mr Cameron, threatening to undermine all his work in brand decontamination.
Such details serve to reinforce an old stereotype of the plutocratic Conservative grandee, hopelessly out of touch with the majority of British people, while in possession of a grotesque sense of self-entitlement. They could also undermine the central Conservative argument that, if elected, the party will restore rectitude to the public finances. What chance of that, people might ask, when some Tory MPs regard £1,000 gardening bills for their private estates as an appropriate use of taxpayers' cash?
Of course, for the public to blame Mr Cameron personally for the hypocrisy and greed of some of his backbench MPs would be grossly unfair. Mr Cameron did not choose the Conservative parliamentary party; he inherited it when he won the leadership. And those MPs who have abused the system most egregiously are not part – and were never likely to be part – of his frontbench team. Additionally, Mr Cameron has made commendable efforts to modernise the Conservative Party in recent years, ditching the old vote-losing Tory obsessions over Europe, tax cuts and immigration. And his frontbench's focus on improving Britain's public services, rather than devising ways for the wealthy to bypass them, is welcome too.
In recent years, Mr Cameron has dragged his party back from the unelectable fringes to the centre ground of politics. It would be a travesty if the "lord of the manor" lifestyle of some of his more irrelevant backbench MPs were to distract public attention from that achievement.
The Conservative leader made a fine start yesterday in repairing the damage, underlining his political astuteness. But sceptics will inevitably wonder whether he would have announced quite such resolute reforms of the system if these damning details had not come to light in the way they did. Mr Cameron would probably accept that, for all the progress made in recent years, the job of decontaminating the Conservative brand is still not quite complete.
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Comments
Pay some back.Some! And that only applies to some of his party. And why stop at 4 years, it has been going on longer than that. Will they be paying interest?
Would an ordinary member of the public be treated so leniently? Just pay it back and all will be forgotten. Yeah right!!
Why did Cameron wait till today to take action? Was he hoping the Telegragh would not publish. I would have been far more impressed with him had 'fessed up last week. Cameron has been brought kicking and screaming to this point, far from leading, like Brown, he is just reacting to polls. Leaders are better than that.
Whilst some people may have assumed that the expenses were a bit risky - the scale of the misuse would have been hard to predict. At least he has taken some action and more maybe required.
Brown in contraast is sitting on his hands, being led by the prat Martin down roads any self respecting PM would never go down. Brown the useless strikes again and deals with the situation like a frenchman in war time. Pathetic
Whilst some people may have assumed that the expenses were a bit risky - the scale of the misuse would have been hard to predict. At least he has taken some action and more maybe required.
Brown in contraast is sitting on his hands, being led by the prat Martin down roads any self respecting PM would never go down. Brown the useless strikes again and deals with the situation like a frenchman in war time. Pathetic
I won't vote Labour because they have wrecked the public and private finances of this country, they will not be happy until everything we do is either banned or made compulsory, they pump money into an ever worsening health care and education system; they waste billions on ill considered so called "investment". their mission is to create a client state totally dependent on them; they are proven to have the ethics and morality of the gutter etc etc...
I must vote Conservative
Or...
I won't vote Conservative because some Conservative backbencher owns a moat....
I must vote Labour.
It's a difficult choice alright.
Why not use your brain and vote Lib Dem? At least their MPs have made some efforts to try to get this cleaned up in advance of these revelations.
See what the politicians have done so far. We are bankrupt then they send the injection to get rid of our bodies so they can eat more.
We have the ostrich runner who wins, then we Japan stating that the vaccines can be made from vaccines. Now we have this from DIT killing maniacs. Where are the politicians and the mental doctors?
An Australian euthanasia activist staged the first of a series of "suicide workshops" in Britain yesterday, in a town affectionately termed "God's waiting room" due to its elderly population.
Almost 100 people attended the event, held at a hotel in Bournemouth, to listen to Dr Philip Nitschke lay out the options for people wishing to kill themselves.
The doctor promoted his DIY suicide kit, which included an "exit bag" to use as a suffocation device and a selection of powerful drugs from Mexico. The Indians made these before they left the planet. They are now in Pluto that we have thrown The vast majority of his audience were of retirement age, many of them married couples.
Even the British Airways may join the waiting room if many old come up. Thank Allah. He had 100 only. I told you these people are Satan in the angels? dresses.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
As the guy on the other side of the world put it; 'I am the captain of a bunch of loonies.'
disciplines his MPs in the traditional Etonian way.
the politics in this country remind me of some kind of yoyo. tory-labour-tory-labour-tory- labour etc.
let s look at some of the other parties . ahem. blimey, can t find much information on any other uk
political party. my internet search engine keeps jumping straight to irish political parties. if there are any out
there ,could anyone please list them and perhaps explain what their agendas are. i don t like the fact that 2
political parties have been mauling this country for years in the save knowledge,that come next election , voters
will vote them,for lack of choice,or anger at the current ruling party. it is obvious that this sort of knowledge does
results in blatant abuse. mr cameron displays this thinking on a bandaid level. how smug. let s bring on a
complete new set of parties and politics.
Just look at the state of our country since Tony Blair and Nu Labs came to power.
If there is going to be an inquiry we be an honest one, or we will end with a report like the Dr Kelly affair?
These people judge themselves, give themselves pay rises and holidays, no more it is the public
that should decide their future and life style.
That's the rich taken care of
Now it's the turn of the powerful
God bless the Daily Telegraph :-)
The Telegraph which has always been the representative of the rich and powerful has turned on it's own kind.
They are all in the same cage fighting out their moral dilemmas and not very successfully at that.
I find it very amusing :-)
After 12 years of these champagne socialists the country is in an awful state. Their greed and sleaze has been amply demonstrated over months of leaks and derision. Brown has behaved in a dysfunctional manner, mismanaged the economy and buried his Party in the dustbin of history for the next 50 years. His economic policies have failed because he has run out of other peoples money and now expects our children and grand children to repay his Government debt.
Brown is a complete disaster and the sooner there is a General Election the better. The longer he remains in office, more people will lose their jobs. (Current loss rate of 60,000 per week).
Cameron is supposed to be one of the big cheeses in the Westminster village so how come he didn't know what was going on? If he didn't know he should have done. By the way this comment applies to all of the MPs.
Finally, if miscreant have to be threatened with the sack before doing the right thing, what does that say about their values of what is right and fair?
Finally finally, to pay for the cost of the independent audit, will there be a staff reduction in the office that handled expenses?
If we look at the revelations of Tory abuses so far they seem to be a little worse than Labour largely because they are wealthy toffs with more to spend their money on, but otherwise not a great deal of differences. Being told to pay it back does not change the fact that it happened; where embezzlement has clearly taken place MPs should be prosecuted not told it is okay to say they are sorry and pay a little back.
This has to be the most overblown non-story ever.
While our underpaid MP's are being crucified in the media, the real fat cats are laughing all the way
from the banks.
The problems throughout has been the secrecy atttached to MPs' expenses, The Speaker's irresponsible action and the work of the parliamentary staff dealing with these claims. The impression is that all claims are allowed through on a nod and a wink without reference to the rules at all. Do we know of any claims that have been refused?
Honestly from all MPs is now required and they must justify their actions and their positions with their constituents. If they can reasonably justify their expenses claims they shoud not repay them or offfer to repay the, but when claims cannot be justified then repayment should be made and sacking and de-selection should follows.Justice must be done and be see to be done.
Also apart from outright fraud, there is also the additional charge of massive hypocrisy and double standards, what penalty for that?
1,David Cameron is leading the game as fare as sorting out expenses is concerned,
2,The LibDem opposition motion on the Gurkha's passed
3,The house looks like it might remove the speaker
4,Brown dropping earlier expense reforms due to lack of house support
I know this is mainly a side affect Mr Browns lack of authority but its nice to seem parliament working as it indented(ie consensus) rather than simply passing no. 10's wishes.
Here's hoping for a hung parliament and stronger FOI laws so we can keep an eye on them,