Is Your MP Working for You?
The MPs' expenses uproar continues to dominate the news, with attention turning now from the revelations to the mop up operation.
On the one hand, there has been damage control - scores of MPs writing cheques to pay money back, some MPs suspended, others no longer able to stand in the next election. Perhaps the biggest casualty of all, Speaker Michael Martin, is standing down after intense pressure and criticism over his handling of the situation.
Read today's latest story
On the other hand, Gordon Brown has announced "big changes" to centuries of parliamentary history and an end to the approach to how members rule themselves.
Unsurprisingly, the toll this has all taken on Westminster's reputation has been huge, but it is not as though MPs have been immune to scandal in the past.
The wave of sleaze scandals in the 1990s, primarily surrounding Tory MPs Nigel Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken, led then Tory Prime Minster John Major to ask Lord Nolan to clean up politics.
Nolan's came up with seven principles of public life which all MPs were encouraged to follow. They are: Integrity, selflessness, objectivity, leadership, openness, accountability and honesty.
While the backlash looks set to rumble on for a long time to come, here at Panorama we are interested to know where expenses fit into those principles of public life.
Despite what may have been good intentions, Sir Alistair Graham told Panorama that for many, expenses were seen as a nice little extra benefit on the side:
"I think [MPs] developed this culture of it's alright to fleece the allowance system because we're badly paid. I think they were given a nod and a wink by whatever prime minister or chief whip to say, 'well look if you're struggling a bit, well you know, use the allowance system to do the best you can.'"
This all begs the bigger question on MPs' behaviour in general. We will be looking beyond the expenses row, to other areas of MPs' working lives. In this new climate of transparency - and public scrutiny - which facets of public life might an angry electorate consider to be 'dishonourable' conduct, whether or not they fall, technically 'within the rules'?
Watch Is Your MP Working for You? Monday, 25 May, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One at 8.30pm.
Comments Post your comment