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Tuesday, 29 January, 2008

  • Newsnight
  • 29 Jan 08, 05:48 PM

CONWAY
conway203x100.jpgHow many MPs have their own relatives on the payroll and is it a good use of tax payers' money? That's one of the questions thrown up by the case of the Conservative MP Derek Conway. Today the Conservative leader, David Cameron, withdrew the party whip from the MP who has apologised for misusing his expenses. Mr Conway paid one of his sons more than 拢45,000 to be his researcher - though there was no evidence that he did any work. The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is now considering a second complaint, regarding Mr Conway's employment of another son. David Grossman has been investigating.

We'll also be asking how much longer MPs can spend public money without being fully accountable. Is it now time for 鈥渞oot and branch reform of MPs鈥 pay and allowances" as Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life said?


MARKETS
Gordon Brown is meeting leaders of Europe's four biggest economies in Downing Street tonight for a special summit to discuss the credit crunch and what they can do to stabilise the global financial system. Stephanie Flanders will be telling us what they've decided to do to avoid another Northern Rock and Societe Generale

FOOD
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These words sum up Michael Pollan鈥檚 In Defence of Food. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists - all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not 鈥榬eal鈥. We've got Michael Pollan in debate with the Chief Scientist at the FSA, and a director from the Food and Drink Federation. It will be a Newsnight Book Club too.


SILBURY HILL FILM
It's a mystery which has baffled historians for centuries. Silbury Hill is a man-made monument looming over the plains of Wiltshire, built out of chalk some 4,500 years ago. According to myth, a long-lost king was buried in it with a golden statue of his horse; either that, or its a homing beacon for UFOs! Many have tunnelled into the hill looking for answers - so much so that it was in danger of falling in on itself. In the past few months, archaeologists have uncovered extraordinary new findings. But this latest dig will also be the last: English Heritage has decided to close the hill up to preserve it. Newsnight recorded the last images inside Silbury Hill before it's sealed up for good. .


Comments  Post your comment

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Below is the "Personal Conduct" section of the MPs code. No wonder Tony left in a hurry.

SELFLESSNESS
Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.

INTEGRITY
Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.

OBJECTIVITY
In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.

ACCOUNTABILITY
Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.

Openness
Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.

HONESTY
Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.

LEADERSHIP
Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example."

  • 2.
  • At 06:49 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • Joe, Maastricht, The Netherlands wrote:

Could we for once not have to be afflicted with a typical Newsnight attack on a politican and actually discuss some real news?.

I would like to hear more on the Kosovo question, the spectre of a Nationalist becoming leader of Serbia has a much bigger impact on us all than the latest idiot from a political party getting caught out.

The fact that the EU jumped the gun with it's declaration about Kosovo independence is going to cause problems for all of us, what one earth where they thinking?, Serbia may very well have voted for a modorate who wish to join the EU, now the exact opposite looks likely, oh yes!, and Russia will have an ally in Europes own backyard!.

Come on Newsnight start reporting the news not the latest instalment of the sitcom that is British politics.

Thanks for posting that Barrie, perhaps one or two of them may read it if they stop by the newsnight site

  • 4.
  • At 07:29 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • caroline wrote:

There is nothing new about MPs fiddling their expenses. I know a, now retired, Labour MP of 20 years who 'employed' his wife, son and daughter none of whom did anything, all the constituency work was carried out by an underpaid secretary. I knew the family even before he became an MP and he got every'freebie' going that's what they called the perks. Conway seemed particularly inept, but it is high time they all had to account for all their expenses. What other job can you get with no experience, no qualification and never having had a job in the real world. In business my husband had to account for all his expenses and they should too. Money for another house and able to pocket all the profit, travel, council tax etc. it beggars belief and is high time it was stopped.

  • 5.
  • At 08:09 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • de castro wrote:

am sure mr conway is not the first or last MP to be involved in this
misuse of public funds.
transparency and accountability
is part and parcel of public office.
MP can spend 拢250 a day without having to show receipt/proof as part of their "perks" ... does this not encourage fraudulent use of public funds.
If MP/politicians are to regain public trust they must be open in their everyday lifestyles...ie anywhere in public. They elect to be public property and they must remain so. Why even in their parliamentary
sessions we can all see what value we are getting for our money. With some asleep in the back benches.
Wish I was a cameraman !

And now we will be duplicating them again in EUROLAND.

Do we need all these people to make laws that are obsolete the day they become law...or can never be policed/enforced....as per fox hunting.
regards
de castro

  • 6.
  • At 08:26 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • Timothy Mullen wrote:

Congratulations Joe - the only problem is that the 主播大秀's only way of justifying it's existence is to attack British politicians, and further erode confidence in the political system.

The REAL question that should be asked on Newsnight is are arrogant Oxbridge types like Paxman and Humphries, who do not believe in democracy, really worth their over-inflated salaries (much more than MPs get paid) and when are we going to see their expenses published - after all they are paid through the licence fee, which is taxpayers money!

  • 7.
  • At 08:31 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • neil robertson wrote:

Today's report by the Commons Select Committee overseeing the security services on the threat to GCHQ and Aldermaston during last year's floods raises in my mind a lot of questions about the adequacy of the contingency planning review carried out by Douglas Alexander MP a couple of years back when he was a Cabinet Office Minister ..... but Channel 4
news reported tonight that D Notice measures were taken against them at the time when they tried to report!

  • 8.
  • At 09:58 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • richard wrote:

Michael Pollon's comments are long overdue. Western eating habits are now seriously bad.

But he's no expert either! Not everything eaten by our grandparents was good for them. There are some useful foods in the modern world. And they aren't all only found in markets and under the name of organic farming - good though these may be.

The Western world doesn't have to be blown apart by terrorists. It's self destructing on its own.

  • 9.
  • At 09:59 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • Nick Thornsby wrote:

Looks like it will be a good show.

  • 10.
  • At 10:14 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • Mike wrote:

Re The Derek Conway affair. Small family businesses, particularly husband and wife companies are tightly regulated by HM Revenue and Customs to ensure the maximum tax take from their income. Indeed the law is about to be changed to tighten the rules yet further. Moreover, if judged to be operating outside of the regulations, they must pay back all monies plus a heavy fine on top. Yet it appears that MP鈥檚 can misappropriate public funds with impunity amongst their relatives and if found out pay only a small proportion back with no mention of a fine.

  • 11.
  • At 10:32 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

HONOUR

According to the 主播大秀 10.00p.m. News, MPs are termed 鈥渉onourable鈥 because they are deemed to be just that, by virtue of the office. So how does this honour accrue? Not from the party selection process; parties want fawning allegiance to dogma, protection of the leader and a win at any price. Nor from the election at local level; here the voters generally vote 鈥渞osette鈥 and ignore the qualities of the 鈥渞osette stand鈥. It鈥檚 all a British charade isn鈥檛 it. Those who are prepared to join that iniquitous Club of Westminster, are defined by the very act of joining. They are a bunch of very unappealing rosette stands.

  • 12.
  • At 10:40 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Watching the show now, But i have two questions:

1) Where did you get that fluffy bunny toy from?

2) How much fun and funny stares did you get filming that!

  • 13.
  • At 10:56 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Silbury hill should be left alone and not raped by English Heritage
Paul Wills (aka Littlestone)

  • 14.
  • At 11:24 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • Jeanette Eccles NW London wrote:

The fluffy rabbit had a visible Hamleys label on it

  • 15.
  • At 11:42 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
  • The full benefit wrote:

When the cost of food is more than the price..we know the difference is made up with psychiatric effects...

Eg...Horseradish "the ideal accompianment" ...who want's to be accompianied by an idealist retentive ..expressing middle income prejudice feedback from a dislocated reflex exertion...???

But the spreadeagle funding means the more people complain about the shrink effects..the cheaper the actual food product gets but the more money the biotech companies get...

Someday soon... entire biotech companies will be taken over by complete staff systems.... rather than school sites taken over by biotech offices..

TLC BCD... young family women should be liberated from psychiatric regimes..

  • 16.
  • At 12:30 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • the cookie ducker wrote:

I know people are killing each other in the world and MP's are all a bit bent but what i want to know is...who bagged the fluffy bunny after filming? was it Jeremy?

  • 17.
  • At 01:11 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Fantastic Jeremy tonight (54/10) - great interview with Danny Finkelstein & Sir Alistair Graham. Loved the food debate with Michael Pollen too. Interesting point - not to eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise - a lot wouldn't recognise pasta with pesto sauce! And ha ha ha @ " the latest in the nutritional stack in the veritable lunch box that is the Newsnight - who writes this rubbish?" :-)

  • 18.
  • At 02:15 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • Mark wrote:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These words sum up Michael Pollan鈥檚 In Defence of Food. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations..."

Michael Pollan is an idiot. Human life expectancy is now longer than it has ever been. We die of diseases we never got in the past nearly as often such as cancer and heart disease because we died of other diseases resulting from among other things poor nutrition or tainted food (so called "naturally grown organic foods" are IMO very dangerous and risky compared to food processed with chemical preservatives because they are more likely to contain mold and bacteria.)

Human beings need ten essential amino acids in the same meal and the only foods which have them all when not eaten in careful combinations with other foods are meats, fish, poultry, and other animal products like milk, cheese and eggs. Plants have mostly carbohydrates which are worthless. Their only value consists of vitamins and minerals and fiber bulk for digestion. The one valuable nutritional asset of some plants is essential oils which can also be gotten from some fish. My aunt who just died at 98 1/2 years old lived her last two years on a diet entirely of cottage cheese and vitamin pills. Every time she went into a hospital or nursing home for some infection and recouperation and they fed her a "balanced diet" including vegetables, she came home weaker than she went in. Meat is the best food you can eat because it most resembles what the functional elements of your body are made out of, protien in the enzymes, hormones, and organelles manufactured from essential amino acids according to instructions from your RNA. These are the building blocks of our cells. The vegamania hype is a political scam invented by animal rights wackos. My neighbor's daughter was a vegan. She had a miscarriage and now has breast cancer. Her body couldn't build the tissue to develop an embryo into a viable healthy baby and she couldn't manufacture the self defense mechanisms we have built into our design to destroy cancer cells. She paid a heavy price for listening to people like Michael Pollan. When your body cannot replace no-longer functioning proteins because it does not have all of the necessary amino acids to make new ones, you are dying.

I am not saying weight control is not important or that we should allow ourselves to become obese risking diabetes and heart disease but experience with low carbohydrate diets shows that people lose weight and are healthier than they are on a diet rich in refined grains (especially wheat), refined sugar, and salads. BTW, it is these carbohydrates which cause oversecretion of insulin leading to a constant feeling of hunger due to hypoglycemia and ultimately diabetes and other serious chronic ailments. A life on salads is IMO a self imposed nutritional death sentence.

  • 19.
  • At 03:28 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • June Gibson wrote:

I reckon a few of the posters on here must be related to MPs. The matter is of great concern to those of us who pay up for the rotten lot of them. I'll bet that a trawl through MPs unaccountable expenses would reveal that many have been working a similar scam on the public. There has been altogether too much media scrutiny of foreign affairs (over which we have no control) in recent years, allowing our MPs to get away with fleecing the voters. I am for more items covering MP expenses frauds. Life here is all pay, pay, pay - and for what?

  • 20.
  • At 09:50 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • JOHN PARFITT wrote:

Derek Conway deserves all that's coming to him but it's a but rich for his sins to be picked over by a well [over?] paid 主播大秀 noisemaker who gets at least a dozen times more than a back bench MP [taxpayers money just like Ross and Norton] another member of the inky trade where expenses are a perk and a serial quangista who has been well paid and honoured for telling other people what to do for years.

MPs should deal with him themselves. You may remember Garry Allighan who was expelled by his fellow members for inserting his fingers in the till but went on to a ditinguished career in [guess what]journalism!

Ex homine, I had one serious attempt to enter parliament in 1983. The boundary commission scuppered me at the last fence. I declared that my wife, a graduate and trained secretary, would be my secretary if I got in: the hours being what they were then it would have been the only way to see her regularly and the money would have made up a bit of the salary cut I would have taken even if it owuldn't have been as big a [say] the other JP. my prosepctive constituents liked the ide two for almost the price of one.

  • 21.
  • At 09:51 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • stevie wrote:

I tend to aggree with Mark as I am old enough to remember 'real' food as a war baby we had to endure 'rationing' which was the best thing that happened to forties babies. No excesses unlike today with diets rich in sugar and salt and everyone got a bit of the cake,'cept there was no cake! I wish we could go back.....

  • 22.
  • At 10:39 AM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

MOSTLY HARMLESS

The problem with MPs is the PARTY POLITICS problem (just as, for example, the 鈥渄rug problem鈥 is really a social competence problem). Voters vote for PARTIES, they do not CHOOSE MPs. MPs are PRE-CHOSEN BY PARTIES. There is no requirement on MPs to serially represent the voters who foolishly voted for that rosette they were carrying. And once installed in Parliament, they are 鈥淢ostly Harmless鈥 (to quote Douglas Adams). Until we have a system where the local MP goes to Parliament wearing OUR TEETH, it is all a charade.
Below: 鈥淭he (Weasel) Word of Gov.鈥

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF YOUR MP
Your MP will generally do everything he or she can to help constituents, but will not feel able to support every cause, nor will he or she be able to get the desired solution to every individual problem. Members may not be able to support one constituent if in doing so they will deprive another. At times a constituent鈥檚 demands may conflict with party policy and your MP will have to decide where their first loyalty should lie. The Member may think that, in any case, a majority of constituents would support party policy 鈥 after all that is likely to be one of the reasons why they elected him or her.

  • 23.
  • At 12:13 PM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Barrie,

As noted before, I agree that parties are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Salaam, etc.
ed

  • 24.
  • At 01:23 PM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Barrie,

As noted before, I agree that parties are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Salaam, etc.
ed

P.S. I did enjoy Michael Pollan and the "debate".

  • 25.
  • At 05:32 PM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • wrote:

Barrie,

As noted before, I agree that parties are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Salaam, etc.
ed

P.S. I did enjoy Michael Pollan and the "debate".

P.P.S. A veritable storm of 502 errors. Anyone trying to fix this problem?

And "Sorry for any multiple postings!"

  • 26.
  • At 07:26 PM on 30 Jan 2008,
  • john wrote:

That Silbury Hill report was excellent.

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