Family favourites
- 28 Jan 08, 01:31 PM
The case of Derek Conway, the Conservative MP who has been from the MP鈥檚 Parliamentary staffing allowance, highlights a problem I鈥檝e been banging on about for several years.
When I last checked about three years ago, there were around 60 MPs - almost ten per cent of the total - who employed staff with the same surname. Now they won鈥檛 all have been family members and there would have been the odd coincidence of name, but the vast majority of them would have been wives, sons, sisters and so on. On top of that there will be many other MPs who employ members of their families with different surnames.
Now I鈥檓 not saying all these MPs are corrupt. Far from it. There are many MPs spouses who do a good job for them, and deserve every penny they are paid from public funds (and probably a lot more). The late Eric Heffer MP was always shadowed by his wife and parliamentary secretary Doris Heffer. According to the diaries of Giles Radice, Doris Heffer would sit in the front row of the audience when Heffer was speaking, saying "nonsense, Eric" if he said something with which she disagreed. A similar supporting role was provided to Brian Sedgemore, who late in his career defected from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. In his case, it wasn't 'the wife' who worked for him, but rather, 'the ex-wife', continuing her duties even after they had divorced.
But almost everyone at Westminster knows there is significant abuse of the system. They know there are many MPs who pay staffing allowances to relatives in return for little or no work, as seems to have happened with Derek Conway and his son. And the big increases in MPs staffing allowances in recent years have probably made the abuse more prevalent, enabling MPs to have enough funds to employ a genuine secretary and/or researcher at the same time as also funnelling money to a relative who does little or no work for their money.
I鈥檓 not saying MPs should be banned from employing relatives, a rule they have in the German Parliament, and the US Senate. In many cases it makes a lot of sense, and given MPs gruelling schedules, it may do a lot to keep some of their marriages going. But at the very least there should be a public record of which MPs employ relatives from public funds. But attempts I鈥檝e made to secure such information through Freedom of Information requests have met with the response from the Westminster authorities that it can鈥檛 be provided to me for reasons of privacy and security reasons. Oh yeah!
Overall, British politics may be dogged by regular sleaze stories, but in reality there are few examples where I can think of British politicians abusing their positions for personal financial gain (as opposed to political gain). The employment by certain MPs of relatives who do little or no work is one big exception to this. The Parliamentary authorities should be more vigilant in putting a stop to it. An additional section in the Register of Members Interests on the employment of family members might help, causing MPs to think twice about whom they employ.
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BUT MICHAEL
If you go to the parliament website and look at the MPs duties and at the code of conduct you will see that they can do as they like 鈥 that is their covenant with us, the voters.
In 2005 I stood for Parliament in Newbury as agent provocateur. Next election I intend to bring this non-representative representation 鈥 quaintly termed 鈥淧arliamentary Democracy鈥 - to the notice of the Voters. You may say that politicians are not all dodgy, I couldn鈥檛 possibly comment, but the truth is they all join a dodgy club; and you recall what Groucho said about clubs!
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"But almost everyone at Westminster knows there is significant abuse of the system. They know there are many MPs who pay staffing allowances to relatives in return for little or no work, as seems to have happened with Derek Conway and his son. And the big increases in MPs staffing allowances in recent years have probably made the abuse more prevalent, enabling MPs to have enough funds employ a genuine secretary and/or researcher at the same time as also funnelling money to a relative who does little or no work for their money."
The single most depressing thing I have read today
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Yes well done remember Ian Duncan Smith ?
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What did Groucho say?
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Groucho said "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member" or words to that effect.
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This is disgusting.
This is the kind of revolting nepotism you come across in the Far East and institutionalised in the less developed parts of the world.
10 days suspension is simply not enough.
Why is his son not being exposed, humiliated and booted out of Uni - so many of us have to shell out thousands and work as well as study (and even raise children simultaneously as well).
This guy, and all of them who do anything like this (and I realise that's a lot) must be SACKED, BANNED, HOUNDED by the press.
We expect high standards of police officers; of civil servants; of anyone in public service - For MPs to be excluded from this is ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Why is this not on the front pages? Is it perhaps because it was chased and exposed by a BNP candidate?
There is no way that anyone can claim moral superiority over BNP people unless their actions in attacking immorality exceed those of the BNP.
If you are so much more morally excellent than the BNP - PROVE IT!
Chase this story and hound this avaricious reprobate and his son like you're supposed to.
DO YOUR JOB!
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This is the sort of thing which demonstrates how little people care about politics and how much that allows politicians to get away with.
A politician has been found to have been stealing money from the Country and giving it to his son, pretending that he was paying his son a salary for work which his son was not in fact doing.
How is he still in office as an MP? How can he have the bloody cheek to stand up in the House of Commons and talk about his "administrative shortcomings"?
This grotesque and dishonest thief should be hounded out of politics (and any other occupation requiring any amount of integrity) tomorrow morning.
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Should suspected cheating not be referred to the police. After all, Peter Hain's activities have been.
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Michael Crick is quite right in banging on about this dishonest abuse of the system but he doesn't come up with a solution.
I believe all MP's expenses outside travel ( steerage ) should be ended. Commute their presesnt expenses allowance into salary, subject to tax like everyone else. The constituency party could provide secretarial duties.
However what does Mr Crick believe should be done in the case of Mr Conway?
Should his party take any action?
Should he not be de-selected as a Conservative MP, that would send a pretty powerful message and set a very high standard for all the Parties.
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There is nothing new about this, I know, a now retired, Labour MP who was an MP for 20 years and employed his son, daughter and wife on the public purse. I knew the family even before he was an MP and none of them did any real work. A very poorly paid secretary did it all. It is very depressing and it is high time all MPs expenses should be published in detail and accounted for as in any other business but it won't happen will it. No wonder people don't want to vote.
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And not only do they take a salary but also a nice pension. I personally know of two neighbouring MPs, one with the families nose in the trough (the wife was a "researcher" on a decent salary and took the pension and the travel warrants) and the other whose wife was a loyal, diligent and hard-working secretary. The first had a poorly paid secretary with no pension.
MPs staff should be employed by the House and paid by them directly, the MP should not come in to this as it has been demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to steward the funds they are allocated.
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There are two points I would like to make:
As previous contributor said, the money used by some MPs to "pay" relatives is taxpayer's money and so as far as I am concerned, this money should be treated with more respect,not squandered.It makes me feel cross that MPs give no thought to where that money came from - to the working men and women who have laboured to earn a respectable living and paid their tax on time. If you've recently had to pay your 2006-2007 taxes as a self employed person, you will know exactly how I feel just now!
Secondly, the political parties rely a lot on volunteers to do a lot of slog. There is a lot of complaint that party membership is dwindling. I think that most volunteers would think twice before supporting an MP who employs his or her own family, while accepting free services from a group of volunteer members.
I think the answer is that MPs should ask their families to work in a volunteer capacity. They can claim reasonable out of pocket expenses for travel etc as volunteers, but not a salary.
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And not only do they take a salary but also a nice pension. I personally know of two neighbouring MPs, one with the families nose in the trough (the wife was a "researcher" on a decent salary and took the pension and the travel warrants) and the other whose wife was a loyal, diligent and hard-working secretary. The first had a poorly paid secretary with no pension.
MPs staff should be employed by the House and paid by them directly, the MP should not come in to this as it has been demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to steward the funds they are allocated.
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How would political journalists like it if politicians crawled through their dustbins metaphorically speaking and occassionally not?
Bob
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you're right Bob Goodall - ALL 主播大秀 EMPLOYEES AND MPS SHould have all their info displayed for all to see.
Frankly, If I'm paying for these clowns, I want to know what colour underpants they're wearing in the morning - even if they're wearing them on the outside like Jeremy PAxman!
I think the message from the public is clear, WE are sick of the corruption in Westminster AND propaganda in the 主播大秀.
If we are gonna have public services, we need to know EVERYTHING.
Nobody forces people to become MPs or 主播大秀 staff - frankly a lot of people do stuff for free just to get a chance.
Clearly then, these are EXTREMELY privileged positions to hold, and we need absolute respect for them, which means absolute 100% intolerance for ANY impropriety; ANY propaganda; ANY species of deceit.
Otherwise, you can shove your licence fee, and I'll join the BNP out of contempt for the supposed alternatives.
This is a BIG message from John Bull - SORT IT OUT!
It goes to the 主播大秀 and WESTMINSTER.
Enough is enough.
We need a smaller government and a smaller 主播大秀 with much more public control and devolved power - Proportional representation, and the purging of the mock-liberals and their non-funny political comedy tripe that infests the 主播大秀.
GAME OVER!
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Derek Conway should be sacked, it is as simple as that. If he were in any other job environment, he would be dismissed dishonourably. He has shown the most appaling judgement, even if he denies outright fraud, what he has done is utterly unacceptable.
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How will we be able to differentiate between family members who really do work and those who are just having money laundered through their accounts?
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Derek Conway
The person who is likely to emerge with least credit from this sad matter is Michael Martin MP for Glasgow North East. In his capacity of Speaker he has a track record of blocking attempts to bring greater transparency to the issue of MP's expenditure of Public Money. I recall that just before his Coronation Gordon Brown indicated he would be taking steps to ensure more transparency, it鈥檚 gone very quiet.
Although I do not agree with the extremity of the remarks of Jonathan West, the first speaker on Any Answers Sat 2nd Feb. I do not doubt his sincerity and agree with the sentiment behind his remarks. Lock Conway up.
Mr West was followed by a number of Speakers who had suffered at the hands of Social Services as Agents of their Local Authorities who are clearly slashing support to those who so badly need it. If there was less waste and abuse of Public Funds the money would be there.
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MP's have only themselves to blame.the comment by conway that "Everyone is doing it"try using that excuse to the Police when caught speeding that everyone is doing it,
What appals me is that MP's when caught out genuinely believe they have done nothing wrong,how can it be right to clame expences for a house you own...?
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