Cleaning Up Politics

Cleaning up politics is alleged to be one of Gordon Brown's pledges of the new year - it was a pity he missed the opportunity to fast track legislation in the Queen's Speech to augment this but his latest pledges are seen as the last throw of the dice for his party in the run up to the election.

How bad did politics get?

Well let's not go over old ground but the revelations this year made us all extremely angry at a time when British families were suffering most as a consequence of the credit crunch and recession. It is now alleged that some 6 politicians are under police investigation for suspected fraud, mainly to do with claims on second home allowances for phantom mortgages. To be honest, there should be many more - Tony McNulty and Hazel Blears spring to mind but we get the age-old claim that they did everything within the spirits of the rules at the time, a convenient excuse to hide a flagrant disregard for common decency.

But there is much more at risk than just expense claims. What the whole drama illustrated was the priority of the individuals in politics to look after themselves ahead of acting with true conscience. It makes you wonder what people really thought about major issues like Iraq and Afghanistan but kept quiet as it would upset the gravy train. Surely more individuals other than Clare Short and Robin Cook questioned Tony Blair's decisions, particularly on Iraq? How many were reminded of their 'obligations' to support the party rather than vote with decency in mind?

There are more decisions which could be scrutinised but for many people, trust flew out of the window. How can you back people like Julie McBride when she fails to see that what she did was immoral and should be illegal? We clamp down on benefit fraudsters and tax evaders but these abusers of the taxpayer have played a game with us all forgetting all sense of moral values. Yet it seems that politicians will get away with it; they will sit at the next election and they will likely get voted back in. For those 'Zombie MPs' who have already said they will step down, they hang on for the last milking of the system, the pay off for losing the election - the parliamentary equivalent of the Premier League relegation pay off.

Why do we let disgraced MPs have that opportunity to finally screw us when the very reason they are going is because we have found out that's what they did?

It is at this point that leadership is called into scrutiny. Why have Brown, Cameron and Clegg not acted and simply sacked those individuals who have transgressed and admitted it? Why are they allowed one final shafting of the public when they have been royally doing so for some time?

My point is that if the party leaders cannot see the problem properly, how can we trust anything they do? This is a pretty fundamental issue about trust and they seem to care little about their own sinners, allowing them a final hurrah rather than acting to clean the whole system up and getting rid of the rotten eggs now. Then again, trust is something politicians abuse time and again - they are happy to tell us whopping great lies and justify them later when they manipulate the facts of the time.

It is little wonder that we have them all debating the Green Book, whether they should pay back what was claimed and whether they are bunch of thieving swines. It is in their blood - by definition if you want to be a politician then you are probably not morally strong enough to be one.

It will take far more than talking a pledge to clean up the system - it will take a fundamental overhaul of the political system at all levels of Government. I will bet my tax increases over the next 10 years that it will never happen.

Lessons Learnt

As we soldier on, with the world financial crisis that took us to the very brink of oblivion, a distant memory and confined to the annals of history, it seems we have learned little from the whole debacle.

I have no idea any longer how much we have spent, pledged, loaned, guaranteed in prop ups and bail outs but it something close to £1.3 trillion in the UK alone, closer to $5 trillion worldwide, about a tenth of Global Output. It seemed in the midst of the crisis, although my memory is hazy, that we were all particularly vindictive about the regulatory bodies who basically allowed banks to take excessive risks - most of which caused a repeated and prolonged breach of basic banking standard governance tests. We accused the regulators of being 'asleep on the job' and 'turning a blind eye' as banks produced profits from thin air and paid their executives bonuses of incredible magnitudes. There was kamikaze lending, 125% mortgages, a ten fold increase in house values, complex derivatives with unclear lines to unassessed assets - no one had any idea who was buying what, who owed who and how much the underpinning assets were.

All the while, the regulators collected their fat salaries, had power breakfasts and big lunches with roaring banking executives and did nothing - some claiming because the Government told them to do so.

Learning From Our Mistakes

It would heartwarming then, given how close we came to the financial equivalent of a China Syndrome global financial meltdown, to know we have learned lessons from our mistakes and plan a new, tighter system so that the same mistakes are not repeated.

In a Blairesque re-writing of history, Chancellor Alistair Darling now tells us that the regulators were in fact not to blame for the financial meltdown. In fact, he tells us that it was not the system that was at fault but the judgement of those who were in the system.

For the uninitiated, that would be Lord Adair Turner, who has had the penance of revising the system in between all his other and non-executive jobs, and his well paid and dimwitted CEO, Hector Sants. Curiously, they were at the helm of the FSA before the credit crunch hit us all so badly and they are still there today. So we have a situation where Darling believes the FSA is well set up but manned by idiots with no judgement but he asked the same idiots to revise the system and stay there.

Good thinking - that should stop the whole thing happening again then as the same Government is there to tell them to turn a blind eye again.

Re-Writing History

I dare say in the revising of the fiasco, we will find that Lord Myners and the Government were salaciously hoodwinked by McKillip and Scott in stitching us up on Fred's pension, that Ron Sandler at Northern Rock personally took the decision to keep handing out 125% mortgages after the Government took control, that Gordon Brown suggested that Lloyds TSB did not, at all costs, take over HBOS at the eleventh hour and that the British taxpayer voted openly in favour of his leadership at the MEP and Local Council elections - they just got the ticks in the wrong boxes which was someone else's fault also.

The fact is that the banks are already steaming ahead on the old course with new money and no punishment for their past. Precious few executives have lost their jobs but thousands of tellers, administration and branch staff have lost theirs while bonuses will start to flow again at renewed rates very soon.

There has been no ban on shorting or derivatives, credit is flowing back into the system to start the whole gravy train again. In fact, at the last round, banks were starting to clock up enormous profits out of thin air once again. The banks are happy as sand boys.

Meanwhile, down in the real world, unemployment continues to rise, negative equity is rising to above 11% and small businesses continue to go bust in their hundreds, every day. The personal and social consequences of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression will be felt for a long time to come, not least in higher taxes lasting for another 20 years - let alone the missing, household named businesses.

It would be comforting to know that the Government would have got to grips with the real causes of the banking crisis, make sure it can never happen again and have a regulatory system which had the teeth, motivation, no vested interests and the determination to act decisively whenever and wherever it saw breaches of governance.

But that's precisely what we won't get. The Brown-Darling thinking is that's no way to get the kind of growth they want. Just as Green and environmental policy are at odds with capitalism, we will never get that either.

Politics is all about the here and now - it's why filling in Expenses Claim Forms is a higher priority than fixing the banking system.

Ship Leaves The Sinking Rats

Amid cries of lost authority and dysfunctional leadership and Government, there has been an exodus of rats from the holed ship that is New Labour.

To be honest, it's hard to see whether it is the ship leaving the rats or the more traditional way round. But rats they are. Jacqui Smith was a shoe-out and her position has been pretty untenable - not just because of her expenses but the fact was she was a joke of a Home Secretary. Communities Secretary, whatever that entails, was the realm of leather-clad Hazel Blears who has resigned with dramatic and pointed effect deliberately staged to wound the PM further. After her attacks on his communications fiascoes, she took a face full herself for her greedy use of taxpayers' money to feather her nest and tried to redeem herself by paying back some of the money she made. Now she is going back to Salford to tend to the darlings who she hopes will vote for her - and she is already piling on the jam thickly for them. Salfordites are indeed the only people who matter, apart from herself and her sleazy little career, according to her cooing but there were plenty of barbs about the leadership in her spiteful resignation speech. I am sure the words of praise used in Question Time must have gagged in Brown's throat.

You Reap What You Sow

Back stabbing, sniping and blatant grandstanding as we have seen in various forms from the likes of Blears, Harman, Johnson, Milliband and others are the sorts of weapons that Brown used in his war of attrition with Blair in order to get his coveted PM job. So you reap what you sow really as it works both ways, which Brown has found to his cost. The duplicitous little smiles hid sneaky goings on and now Brown can see what life is like when people take sides in order to oust a PM.

New Labour made a huge case to get rid of the Tories in 1997 based around sleaze. But we have seen that New Labour has been founded on the very same with cronyism and puerile bullying to add in. Their laissez faire style of Government was all about self-seeking and it has been a sad voyage that took in a lot of people.

For the those with any ounce of common sense, it was plain to see a few short years into their time that Labour had put its faith in an economy built on sand. It was obvious to see that Britain was building wealth on unrealistic asset inflation which itself was attracting more money than was clearly healthy. It was a recipe to create a massive hole in the finances of the nation as many predicted it would do. Not even the staunchest critic could have predicted just how big a hole that would be.

The rats leaving is the death knell for Gordon Brown. He has been a particularly poor leader. It should never be about charisma but it should not be about delusion. Blair flirted with it and now we know that he had a religious agenda that seemed to authenticate his warmongering while for Brown it was an over-inflated self assurance about his abilities to manage the country's finances.

He had convinced himself that he had found the Philosopher's Stone that if touched by money it would create an endless supply of more. For all his self-professed abilities and intelligence he was wrong. Britain's economic boom was a mirage.

To The Bitter End

I would imagine that Brown is thick-skinned enough to blunder his way on to the bitter end. He has until next June to call an election and I think his tactic will be to try and distance himself from the recent fiascoes and hope against hope that the economy will have recovered somewhat and so diminish our memory of the recent past and soften our anger.

There is a problem in doing so. While there are many signs pointing toward the recession having reached its nadir, the problem is that that fallout hasn't. Unemployment is now the real evil and it has lagged the recession so far but, like a supertanker, it will be difficult to turn. There is a real possibility that it will rise again by some 50% on the current 2m and that will make a significant portion of voters very angry. In doing so, it is certain that the Chancellor will have to revise his budget deficit estimates yet again as they are wrong already from the last lot but he does not seem to factor in the increased burden on the Welfare State.

While I sympathise with many people who want an early election, I don't think it is wise as we have yet to fully flush out all the expense abuses as a) we have only really dealt with second home allowances so far, travel and office expenses are yet to come and b) not all the fiddling MPs have been outed yet. The danger is that we go the voting without full disclosure and risk voting in bad eggs again or worse still, that the Telegraph will deliberately hold back sensitive details until the hustings begin so killing off chances of certain individuals. Some say the Telegraph has played the information in a balanced way but I think they have deliberately targeted Labour so far and they have held off on Party leaders. That may be released at the wrong time.

Getting Perspective

Today, the headlines are all about Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith losing their jobs. Far away, another British soldier in Afghanistan lost his life. We should not give so much credence to the rats - let's get focused on the heroes who do our bidding whether right or wrong. It will help take our minds off the squalid politics all around us.

Why MPs Put Off Leaving

You may think it curious why MPs who have seen the light and the tide of opinion against them, then effectively own up and resign, wait until the next election to stand down. You might have thought they should go immediately and let the public vote while their memories are fresh.

As with the very facts of their departure being involved in grabbing what they can, so to is their actual leaving. You see, if they leave immediately and force a by-election, then they stand to forfeit an incredibly lucrative send off.

Rather like Premiership Football 'Golden Parachutes' for relegated teams who may find life in the Championship so hard after spending so much money in the top flight, get a large pay off, so too do MPs. It is all about helping them adjust to the real world of employment, allegedly.

It seems incredible to the rest of the population who if they have to leave their job having failed (except of course if you are a senior banking official whose end package is set by a Government Minister) that MPs should be allowed a massive pay off for any reason. But they do.

Of course, the PM especially does not want a whole load of by-elections to see his majority eroded badly, particularly as he is cowering in the corner awaiting the MEP etc votes. But the outbound MPs are particularly eager to wait for their pay offs.

Naturally, Hogg, Mackay, McBride, Morley, Moran, Steen, the Wintertons, Viggers, McCartney, Fraser, Chapman and Conway will be busy putting their capabilities around to major companies for lucrative non-executive director roles, plus Trust Chair positions and whatever else they can get their hands on - maybe EU Commissioners. Mandelson found that a lovely little earner for a disgraced politician with lots of little sideline extras like playing on £80m yachts with Russian Oligarchs who wanted favours at the EU. They all have as much as a year to sort out their CVs and life in 'Civvy Street' which is paved with gold for money-grabbers of their calibre.

Golden Goodbyes

I am not talking about Tom Dalyell's £18,000 'bookcases' ordered before he retired, that was chicken feed. The pay offs for outbound MPs at the next election will depend on grants, age, service etc but will vary from a slim £32,000 for McBride to over £60,000 for her hubby, Mackay - so the dynamic duo will have around £96,000 between them. They represent the wide spectrum of payments to all the departing. Naturally, the first £30,000 is tax free - so they will feel it is just like having their allowances all over again only this time they won't have to make up reasons why we should pay.

I am sure we could think of more appropriate payments for each of these and be a little more precise about when they should go. But as with most things to do with politics, the opinion of the voters is the last thing to be consulted. We get that opportunity once every 6 years and that is the last time they give a fig for what we think.

How Will The Public Vote?

One of the concerns that senior politicians have, and I heard Lord Tebbit and Peter Hain discuss this on a late night radio program recently, is that people will not bother turning out to vote as they are so disillusioned with the whole thing. I suspect that in the case of MEP elections that will be the case. Few voters identify with what happens in the European Parliament - it is a black hole that drains money.

Do you know that the office allowance for MEPs is £175,000 for each of them? They have wisely stopped them employing family members but most in the UK work from home or cheap offices, so the allowance is absurdly high - but they use it.

I believe people will shun that vote as hardly any of us can think of the name of a single MEP, I don't know who my local representative is, and the European Parliament makes the most stupid of laws that most of us can't be bothered with. That we are indifferent is because the whole European Federation is a complete mess and is just a money sump run mainly by France and Germany, and British politicians who have failed at local level. That's the common view - well mine at least.

But, I think a General Election may be different. The US has just had one of the most amazing elections and the voting population turned out in droves to vote for change - and they got it. Finally, there was a glowing advert for radical opinion and action - a vote against a disastrous double term that has set particularly US foreign policy and finances back years.

I have a suspicion that Britain will do the same. The problem we have is that there is no Barack Obama - the opposition party leaders are like sniping puppies. They have no minds of their own. The departure of MPs is a good example. If they had courage, conviction and sense they would have made each of their own MPs stand down immediately and seek a by-election at those seats. This would have been a powerful message back to Government on the mood of the people - it also would have stopped those who stole most getting any more.

But that is British Politics. It is the same old system. Antiquated, over-manned, laborious and corrupt - it is time to have a massive rethink on how our Governing system should be structured and come up with new ideas not tinker with old. The fact that the Speaker leaving has caused such a furore is indicative of a status quo which serves all who seek a career in politics. You can fail, have out of date opinions and survive. I do not agree with Parliament being a popularity contest but in this modern age we deserve far better than we have and far more say in how our money and votes are used.

In a conversation just yesterday it augmented my opinion that corrupt, self-seeking politicians sent our young soldiers into at least one unjust war that they had no strategy or plan for, were not prepared for in terms of kit and at a time when we were taking away regiments. There was zero conscience involved and Blair just tried to justify the whole thing with a circular argument that related to the fact that insurgents were fighting after we went in. He displayed all the trappings of Medieval pious people who justified their actions on the Will of God instead.

The world has changed - we should fight politicians who abuse our vote to wage illegal wars and make policies which fail us. Our vote next time round will be on corruption but in amongst all our anger about expenses and greed we should remember that this Government have failed us - long before they were outed for the rotten eggs we all thought they were.

Let's keep that in mind on the day that another two brave kids have died in Afghanistan.

4 Homes, 2 Bail Outs, 1 Chancellor

Britons gasp in amazement as it turns out that Chancellor Alistair Darling can add up.

It has been revealed in the Daily Telegraph today that Alistair Darling can indeed add up despite all indications to the contrary. In a week where his latest growth forecasts were trashed as just wishful thinking putting a further hole in his calculations on Britain's budget deficit and our tax wallets, it appears that Darling was never short of adding-up skills when it came to his expenses.

He may have resorted to flipping coins to come up with some of his budget numbers but he was more used to flipping homes it appears. Not just once or twice, mind you, but 4 times in the last 4 years. He clearly didn't get where he is today by being being just a dowdy old Chancellor with unmatching hair and eyebrows, he seems to have been a bit of a property baron.

All those weekends grafting on the numbers haven't paid off for Britain - we taxpayers are deep in hock until 2032 thanks to the huge debts we have run up paying for the years of fantasy under Darling's predecessor, Gordon Brown. But those grafting weekends certainly have paid off for Darling's bank balance. In addition to his quadruple home-flipping, it is alleged that he also claimed for second home allowances while he lived in his grace-and-favour lodgings in Downing Street. I am sure he is not the first to do so, as Hoon and Brown himself are rumoured to have done the same.

And it has all earned Mr. Darling a pretty penny - no wonder he had no time for watching our finances.

All these bail outs of course will ensure that when he gets sacked for either his sheer incompetence or greed (and it really is a flip of the coin to decide now), that he will have some nice non-executive directorships on some of those banks he saved. Northern Rock should be a good place for him but I dare say he has done his sums right and RBS will be more his style - he's a home town boy, after all.

Perhaps I'm Stupid

Maybe it's because I am stupid or naive, but it strikes me that none of the idiot MPs who are being exposed seem to be trying to head the Telegraph off at the pass. Darling is a case in point. Knowing full well that in the current climate the chances of him hiding the fact he has flipped his homes 4 times in 4 years were minimal. Should he not have either come clean to Brown or someone and let them know or should he have got his retaliation in early and created another bank crisis to divert attention? Nope, he seems to be of that ilk of MP who thinks that if he lies inconspicuously low by just continuing to bodge his economic forecasts and clocking up more debt then no one will notice his personal greed.

Indeed, it is hard to discern from that worried face of his that he had time to screw us all but maybe that's why he always looks so bemused and scared.

Not so Hoon or Blears who just seem to take it all in their crooked stride. Hoon rests easy knowing full well he's lined his pockets while the young lads he sent to Iraq didn't have the proper kit. But it was far more important to make sure his kit and homes were ok.

Thick skinned I suppose we should call it - the sort of thing Bill Cash has copious amounts of. He's been leading us a merry dance renting off his own daughter at our cost. I should think that's lost him his seat and hers - serves them both right. He won't step down, as with them all, he assumes 'What is lawful, is appropriate'. The mantra of all those who have so little morals as to find any loophole to make us much as they can off the backs of others.

Observing Politics

What has amazed me in all of this is how so few MPs seem to be not very well off. So many, across all parties, seem to have multiple homes, lead a lovely lifestyle, consume vast sums of expenses and seem to think they are owed more.

What has also come to light is how they scheme just to save their own skins. None have summarily resigned, but a few have offered to stand down at the election which could be as late as June next year. Meanwhile, a report in last week's Guardian, revealed that up to 52 current Labour MPs have applied to be admitted to the Upper House as they fear for their careers at the next election. How very courageous of them - if only they had been that scrupulous when serving as MPs they would have had nothing to fear. Sadly for them, only the most crooked get that treatment.

The next few weeks will be a tough time for Brown. Our guests over the weekend were lifelong Labour supporters who contribute to the Party every year and have been committed to the cause. Even they have decided that the very Party that told them Conservatives were a bunch of sleazy scumbags have turned out to be more rotten, conniving and outright dishonest than the ones they vilified. They have decided to not vote Labour at the next election. I think they are indicative of the enlightened sort who voted Labour despite not being working class as they saw the injustice of plain capitalism. Now they see that Labour were just a bunch of wannabes.

There aren't any of the Parties who come out good looking in all this. The alternatives are limited and it seems everyone is at it. The time for not just reform and but a complete rethink.

Barcelona Win - At Least MPs Are Out of the Headlines

I am sure many will be sorry to see Manchester United beaten tonight. In fairness, I think even the most rabid supporter would agree that Barcelona were by some distance the better of the two teams tonight, although it would be fair to suggest that United played nowhere near their best. Still, credit where it's due.

Sadly, the monotonous drip of revelations about MP expenses are here to detract our disappointment. Latest to exploit the system is 'Sir' John Butterfill, Tory big man. Like diminutive and scheming Hazel Blears, he used the fact that the Parliamentary system is independent of the the tax system to claim that his tiny flat in London was his main residence for purposes of creaming the tax payer for outrageous amounts for his valuable Bournemouth 'second' home and then cynically, knowingly and fraudulently claiming that the home he had designated his secondary one was his primary residence when he sold it, so netting himself a 'CGT' tax free £600,000.

Under current rulings, the systems are independent so theoretically what he did was allowable. In practice, it was not. This was a blatant, well researched scam to make a lot of money, tax free, at the expense of taxpayers. While it may not overtly breach law, it was unquestionably illegal gain.

Butterfill claims he put £500,000 into the home so his profit was only £100,000 - but he forgets that is only the same principle to which all of us have to adhere. The taxman cares not one jot on how much you put in, that was your risk. Again, it is an example of fat cats trying to make up their own rules to benefit themselves. If only we all had the same rules.

In this case, if the law does not take an interest, the taxpayer should. If we have been funding the mortgage and upkeep on what we thought was his second home but turned out to be his primary one, then we are owed at least all the mortgage payments back and in reality we should have the entire profit he made.

I am sure MPs will guffaw at such a suggestion but it really is time we took control of the situation. We have sat back and watched an elite group of people who we granted a mandate to milk us. If the law and the taxman have no jurisdiction, then we do. It's our money.

I am fed up of listening to preening big heads who claim they have done nothing wrong or that the claims office passed it - I am fed up of the police remaining on the sidelines - I am fed up of the taxman chasing the rest of us and not the fat cats. It really is time we all reacted. It is our money and we do not want people to profit from it where we can't like 'flipping' residences, we do not want to pay for the PM's cleaning, we don't want to pay for Cameron's wisteria thinning, Hogg's moat, Viggers's duck house, Steen's gardening, Blears' scams, Mandelson's profit when he wasn't an MP, Mackay's scheming or bags of dung.

How about this? We each threaten to withhold £10 per month of tax until the MPs who have abused the system in any way are sacked and not allowed to stand for public office again at minimum but are prosecuted where required. Our votes are too cheap to make a difference - as we have seen in the bank bail outs, only money talks and when they don't have it the whole matter becomes a different story.

The fact is that we have the power to stop this right now. We have the power to force every MP who has 'sinned' in our eyes out of office. Regardless of the taxman, the lawmakers and the MPs themselves, ultimately we are the most powerful people in the land because it is our money they waste and we have a say.

It's pointless Esther Rantzen, Simon Heffer, Martin Bell et al standing against these people - it isn't the point anyway. The system failed us completely and it is answerable to us. We don't want new candidates to dip their beaks, we want our money back and the profits people made with it.

It is time we realised that if the law and HMRC fail us then it is beholden upon us to ensure fairness ensues. £10 per month per taxpayer withheld is around £3.6bn a year of tax shortfall. That's a fair proportion of our interest payments on the debts we have 'agreed' to build up to pay for the bank bailouts. Sovereign debt is about to be downgraded, the last thing the Government needs is a further increase in debt to cover the shortfall from us.

Like Simon Heffer, I am being perfectly serious. It is time to vote with our wallets - it's the only language they have been proven to understand.

Is The Telegraph Going Too Far?

Dairy Entry: Day 18. Can't take much more. Running out of will to vote. If only someone had any contrition we might be able to make it a few more days to the MEP Elections. Teddy did a Captain Oates this morning - said he was going out to buy the paper and we haven't seen him since. Oh no, not Darling, Blears and their accounting fees.........

It's all getting a bit much and on Sunday I threw down the paper in disgust at some blatant lies. There was a whole article on St Albans and how the whole town of apparently well educated snooties were up in arms at their local MP in the trough, Anne Main. The horror of the lies was too much to bear for a town not known for its protest.

While I believe the description of the city of having the most pubs per head of capita is true, they somehow described it as being some bastion of the upper class. Having lived there for several years and played rugby at Old Verulamium RFC and witnessed grown men hurling themselves from beams into the arms of waiting drunks, I have also seen men with their ankles tied together and trousers down hopping across the pitch with flaming newspapers up their backsides. Therefore, I think several of us would disagree with the accusations of high intelligence and upper class backgrounds. The Telegraph goes too far.

Now I live within the domain of Watford, our own 'Blair Babe', Claire Ward had become the eyes and ears of the Queen in Parliament and the playmate of a Royal Marine officer in the showers while on a fact finding mission to Bosnia, it is alleged. It appears she got plenty of facts of life that day. She has had her head in the trough too - so you don't need to be in leafy suburbia to find a fiddling MP and a town fully disgusted. And Watford is a hardy place - you have to be with a football side that behaves like a yoyo and has to keep all its nice shops under cover.

Now Blame Accountants

Today's revelations about accounting is a bit silly. It's alleged that several ministers collectively paid around £11,000 for accounting fees to do their tax returns - the sin here is that they used our money for it. As so often the interpretation of UK Tax law by the very MPs who make them up and vote for them are radically different to those upon whom they impose them. Rather like paying for a gardener or a cleaner, paying an accountant to do your return is a personal, lifestyle decision, even if they are complex or simple. There is a hint in here that Alistair Darling, who paid around £1,400 over two years for his accounting fees, was using the accountant to get advice on how to 'minimise' tax. It sounds daft being as he is the Chancellor who actually is in charge of of the whole shebang but there you go. The fact is that £1,400 over two years would not buy you much advice but probably an office junior with a calculator just verifying the numbers you have written down. It will not get you a fully indemnified partner helping you squirrel your gardening costs or bags of manure under Parliamentary rules from personal expenditure.

Frankly most accountants are not that crooked and certainly not that cheap.

So I think that we do Darling, Blears, Hoon et al a great disservice. They were intelligent enough to know what they were doing and for the Telegraph to try to blame it on an accountant's advice for less than £1,000 a year is a) hard to believe and b) a gross insult to the fiddling abilities of most MPs.

'We Are All To Blame'

Darling is a pitiful sight at the best of times. As he announces bail out after bail out, his eyes widen in shock as if by broadcasting the numbers he suddenly realises what Gordon Brown and his banking 'advisers' have actually told him what to do and that the numbers are much bigger than the feeble maths books he was brought up on.

So on the Politics Show he did the usual political trick of trying to take some responsibility and blame by sharing it out with everyone else - it's the bank bail out principle all over again, 'We've cocked up, so everyone is to blame and pay for it.'

He asserted that MPs had plenty of chance to vote on expenses reform but 'turned their heads' each time when they had the opportunity. Vince 'Enforcer' Cable was incensed by the comments. Are we talking about the House of Commons where the Government has a whacking majority and votes through whatever it likes regardless of personal opinion? Darling seems to have lived in a dreamworld - Labour Party Whips control the voting, no law gets passed unless Brown says so. Of course, until such time that a final pang of conscience over the plight of Gurkhas slaps him in the face and tells him to get a gram of heart - he, the man who wrote a book on courageous deeds telling courageous warriors to get lost but having opened up our borders over the last 12 years to a few million migrants from all over the place?

If ever there was bunch who needed a reality check, then it is the occupants of the Cabinet.

An Election Needed?

Cameron could be accused of behaving like an over eager virgin wanting his 'first time'. It's all a bit premature.

I apologise in advance about the use of metaphors here, I have just made myself feel queasy seeing 'baby-faced' Cameron and 'School Sneak' Osbourne rutting like stags. But it is a little like that.

We are only at day 18, for heaven's sake, and there 650+ MPs and we are only really looking at second home allowances to date. We haven't got on to the make believe of travel and office expenses in any detail yet. OK, see we have a few more revelations about Derek Conway, but we knew he was an unsporting egg all along, but there are plenty more snippets to keep us going to the real election time and longer.

Here is the problem. We are in danger of exploiting public opinion when only a fraction of the misdemeanours and outright law breakers have been 'outed'. The problem will arise if Hustings start and more revelations hit or, worse still, an MP is voted in and has to resign weeks later. We want the truth up front.

We do need to have a clear out as there is a problem that goes all the way back to selection. You only have to see that Clare Moran's local Labour Party has endorsed her selection again for the next election to know that local parties do not get it either. How can local parties seriously consider people like Steen, MacKay, McBride, Conway etc etc? These people put them in power in the first place, they are hardly good judges of character. In many cases, it seems as long as they have a public school background, a large mansion and snooty accent then they are in. What this whole affair has taught us is that we need a fresh start on democracy because the direct outcome of the decisions we make as voters are the £billions we owe in tax, the credit rating of our sovereign debt, the dead and maimed bodies of our soldiers and the state of Douglas Hogg's moat.

Let's not get all premature. This has to get played out to see how rotten the whole system is. We need also to get to grips with expenses at all levels of Government and Civil Service. I heard Nadine Dorries on the radio bleating about the 'culture of fear' and 'suicidal thoughts' of MPs at Westminster and how they were underpaid which she seems to think should legitimise so many of their activities - it is that lack of capacity to reason that gets me. Any MP gets a minimum salary of £65k which puts them in the top 3% of earners in the UK - then they get a fully paid for 'office', a second home allowance and a virtually limitless travel budget. If that is underpaid then they ought to take their chances in the real world and get paid what they think they are really worth.

No, we need to weed out people like Dorries et al. If you think Politics is underpaid, then simply do not choose it as a career. And why we allow so many MPs to have external interests to supplement their earnings is beyond me.

Finally, I do not think the whole situation has been played out legally yet. The statute which allows MPs a cost up to around £25,000 for accommodation while performing their parliamentary duties is very clear about what can be claimed, no matter what the Green Book says. The blatant abuse of our tax system by the very people who design it has yet to be explored and I am at a loss to know why people have not been investigated. Having just got a tax bill this month, it was a stark reminder of the power of HMRC and if I claimed anything in expenses which was not allowable by HMRC, regardless of my company's policy, I would be at risk to pay it back at minimum and be prosecuted at their discretion alone. Why, there are even whole police forces chasing tax fraudsters.

There are so many flagrant and cynical abuses of the tax system that every one of those MPs should be investigated in full and prosecuted where appropriate, because the taxman will tell you that it doesn't matter if it was a mere bag of manure - fraud is fraud.

MPs Are Off To The Funny Farm

Wow, if you want the perspective of an MP who simply has lost his marbles listen to the link to Anthony Steen's interview on the radio - he is Conservative PM for Totnes who has some massive house and claimed around £87,000 for basically trees and the upkeep of his garden.

On the one hand I find it hilarious but on the other it epitomises all the terrible things we have heard over two weeks of relentless revelations about MP expenses. In standing down, due to the anger of his constituents, who he accuses of 'jealousy' of his large house, he argues that he was a victim of a 'kangaroo court' and that he blamed it on the Government for signing up to the Freedom of Information Act as otherwise he would have been 'cleverer' and more prepared.

You can blame the Government for a lot of things but that is at least one thing they got right and if it means the demise of snooty prats like him, so much the better.

It makes you wonder how on earth he was voted into being an MP either by his local party members or the constituents. They must have been as mad as he was to have done so. It's what politics has become - you get the 'Tory Franchise' and you get the vote depending on your constituency. We used to see in my local area of Neath in South Wales that the local Labour Party could have put up a stuffed sheep and it would have been voted in. Close enough, we got Peter Hain.

It about sums up the whole situation - Steen is like Hazel Blears, the Speaker and the rest of them rotten to the core - they just have no clue that we have full rights to see what he calls 'his private information' as we are paying for it.

The gravy train is not yet over - not until it is somehow beaten out of their thick heads - it's our money and they are answerable to us.

The party is over, democracy 1.0 is dead and there is no upgrade. A whole new program is required preceded by a complete reformat of the disk. Hopefully there is a new manufacturer involved too.

Blue Ocean Thinking Needed For Politics?

I have blogged on the concept of Blue Ocean Thinking before, the idea that you can move from a world of high competition and low profitability in business to a new market of low competition and high profit opportunity. Some would argue, politics needs a similar makeover.

Yesterday, we saw an historic precedent as the Speaker was forced out - the first time such an unthinkable act has happened in some 300 years of politics. As much as there was baying for his blood after his recent performances, there was an equal rush to praise him by the same people while there is a growing opinion that he was pushed out as the scapegoat so that the public can see something tangible happening.

This way, it seems, few others will lose their cushy jobs thanks to Michael Martin falling on his sword.

Mixed Messages

I don't think this addresses the problems. While we had no real contrition from the Speaker, he was just sorry to have to go rather than for his actions or lack of them, Gordon Brown, while outlining some reforms and telling us what Hazel Blears did was 'unacceptable behaviour', he basically said she had done little really wrong.

It clearly is not the case and once again brings us back to a basic issue. Politicians seem not to understand that it is not about unacceptable behaviour - we are well passed that point. What it is about is clearing out the wrong doers completely. Only that way can we get some trust back into the whole system.

I also dispute Brown's belief that Hazel Blears has done nothing wrong - that is by his judgement only. The fact is that she deliberately deceived the taxman by declaring her parliamentary second home as her main residence. You have to know the difference between to the two systems in order to have claimed expenses on a second home and sell it as a main residence in order to get the benefit of not paying CGT - you cannot do it 'by mistake'.

In fact, you have to a pretty in-depth knowledge of both the Green Book and Tax Law in order to have worked the scams - because there are two in play here, only one of which Blears has offered any money back for. She paid the CGT knowing full well she had avoided paying it on what was her supposed main residence but she had claimed second home allowance on it also - which she did not pay back. By exploiting the fact they are two different systems she played us neatly and only paid back the lesser amount when, in fact, she should have paid back both. If she gave a damn, that is, but according to her the PM 'Thinks she's doing a great job'.

In the real world that is deliberate tax evasion and is against the law. Paying the amount in retrospect does not mitigate the intent - and the intent to defraud the tax man was the issue here.

This is at the heart of problem politics faces. It could take a General Election to flush out the offenders but this does not actually address the problem. At the constituency level, we are going to get misplaced loyalties over the law. Clare Moran is a case in point - while the country is outraged at the magnitude of her crime, her local party have endorsed her candidacy.

It's the Jeffrey Archer 'Lovable Rogue' instance all over again. The silly idea that a minor misdemeanour like defrauding the taxpayer should not get in the way of the fact that she is generally a pretty good egg really. The truth was illustrated when the BBC interviewed 64 people in Eliot Morley's constituency who had voted for him - 63 of them said they would not vote for him again.

That's the difference between politics and reality.

You see, it is not an issue for the parties to decide who is guilty or not - it is for the public to decide. By all means stick Morley, Moran and Blears up for re-election but they are asking for trouble and they will likely get it. Rather than these people resigning aide jobs or being suspended from the whip or the party, they should be dropped like hot potatoes, regardless of who they are.

The 'Gentleman's Club' that Brown refers to is still at work. These people are beyond the law and common decency and they should not be judged by their peers or bosses in Parliament or their parties, but be answerable to the law and the people.

The Interim Reforms

On the same day that the Heads of the parties agreed interim reforms which should get backed shortly, the Telegraph listed 12 'sins' or 'scams' that were popular amongst MPs. The reforms may cut down on some claims and try to prevent flipping but you have to wonder how clear and specific these reforms have to be. If you look into the Green Book and Tax Law, it is very clear that there was enough clear guidelines about this. It is why even interim reforms do not cut it.

Here are for instances. MPs who live within commutable distance from London should not be entitled to a second home allowance at all. Those MPs who stayed in 'holiday homes' while their sales went through would not be stopped. Those who give themselves a golden handshake like Tom Dalyell's bookcases just weeks before his retirement, like Mandelson claiming for house repairs after he resigned as an MP to sell his house for £136,000 profit, like those who claim for food without receipt even when the House is not sitting - these people are still not dealt with.

And it is clear why. MPs have, for the most part, never been in business and had to watch and account for every penny they spend as it is the employer's and so they do not understand the concept of using money that is not theirs. Rather like spending £300bn on bank bail outs and not on proper clothing for troops, they have a different view on life. When Geoff Hoon made sure his expenses were maximised for his personal comfort and gain, kids were being shot at in the wrong gear in Iraq.

Politics needs to find its Blue Ocean and re-invent itself.

What the Telegraph has exposed is that for years the country has believed that there were higher things to consider when governing and so you trust people when they says Iraq has WMD, you trust them when they take that back and say there were other good reasons, you trust them when they send kids to Afghanistan that they have given them the best protection they could. But the reality was that there was no higher things to consider as these MPs were just common, gutter crooks looking after themselves and voting for whatever Blair or Brown wanted. Their consciences had long since been bought as part of the elite club and their supposed free-thinking minds taken over.

The public deserve better than this even if they did get duped. The Telegraph has done us a great service and if money was paid, then it was in the best of causes. We have got far more payback in our tax savings than could have been paid.

It is time for Politicians and their apparatus to take a long hard look in the mirror and consider whether they could live with themselves. If they can then they ought not to be trusted in politics because it shows they have no conscience.

Let us hope that the people get to decide soon enough because we cannot trust that anyone is acting in our best interests right now, no matter what problem they are trying to solve. It is time we had our say.

Will Politics Ever Be The Same Again?

David Cameron is petitioning for an election, Nick Clegg broke the unwritten law in calling for the Speaker's head, the Speaker could not remove his head from his own backside, Hazel Blears has replaced Tony Blair as Britain's most pious politician, Ben Chapman is not another MP on the fiddle, Esther Rantzen is thinking of standing as an MP and Frank Carson has backed UKIP.

British Politics has changed forever, surely.

It's a week we may all look back on as a defining moment in British democratic history. After years of systematically believing all that we have been told, we have found out that the British Political system is, in fact, as corrupt as it looked. On a day when Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson crept out of some dark cupboard at a car dealership and accosted a lone customer like two desperate secondhand car salesmen some way off their quota, we saw the stupidity of their ill thought plans when VAT on the scrappage deal got in the way. Clearly no one had bothered to look at the fine print, the minor marginal details or the fact that £2,000 is nothing compared to the deals to be had on less than 1 year old unregistered cars blocking the forecourts.

In reality, if we got the chance, we would all emigrate or at least become non-domiciled to evade tax like all the rich people. But we shouldn't. More mortgages were granted last month, foreigners reckon British property is cheap, banks are posting record incomes and will surely pay back all the money they owe us, the pound is rising from the ashes, the stock market is going up and England have gone 2-0 up in a Test series. If you had predicted all that a month ago, you could have had long odds, particularly on the cricket front. The only sure thing we thought would happen was Manchester United winning their 11th Premiership Title.

I am going to make some more predictions. There will be a General Election in May next year and Labour will win, England will have won back the Ashes, Europe will win back the Ryder Cup, Wales will win the Grand Slam, Peter Mandelson will be Prime Minister and an asteroid will have destroyed the Moon. Ladbrokes gave me short odds on the Moon destruction but slightly longer on the rest.

I joke of course as Mandelson will be too busy contesting 'I was a Celebrity, get me in here' a new show for failed and dodgy politicians, but I have a suspicion that Brown will not be Prime Minister but Michael Martin will still lead the house. While the electorate may see sense, the MPs themselves would never rat on one of their own so Martin will stay. Let's hope at the next Election we all vote out every single MP who took us for granted, that includes Brown and his cleaning bill at £3k+ a year.

What price Frank Carson for PM? We already have had one overweight comedian as a deputy so why not the whole hog?

Have We Cleansed Our Souls Yet?

The revelations on MPs' expenses have come thick and fast this week. Party leaders have wrought their fury on their MPs - many have paid back dodgy claims, some have lost whatever jobs they had.

Democracy is saved? No.

We have fought wars in other countries in order to impose 'democracy and the rule of law' on others we deem inferior to us. Young kids in the front lines are getting killed and horribly maimed by unseen enemies, because of the decisions made by corrupt people. Many die because of unclad fuel tanks on planes, improper armour plating on their vehicles, not enough protective clothing and others die just because they are there. The problem with democracy, which our MPs seem to not understand, is that our MPs are more concerned with claiming for every last bag of manure, every sink plug, every ice tray before they have the moral courage to pay to protect our armed forces or pay proper compensation for the injuries they suffer in the line of duty or their families for the deaths of their loved ones.

It's that basic. Our form of democracy has been exposed to be horribly flawed. Even last night, in the face of truthful criticism, MP Stephen Pound still defended his ruling class claiming, once again, that the newspapers were egging things up and getting facts wrong. Many MPs, some no less powerful than the Speaker himself, seem to think that there is some right that an MP is above the law and the scrutiny of the public as to how they spend their time and our money.

They forget - this is the whole point of democracy.

As Emma B, the broadcaster, said on TV last night, very eloquently, we entrusted them with our votes, our personal mandates. We entrusted them to make laws, decisions, make war, look after the ill, educate children, be ambassadors for our nation. What we got was an elite group who could wait to get their heads into the massive problem of how to make extra money.

It is good to see the long arm of the law reach out, but as we have seen this week, the worst that seems to happen is that someone resigns their role as an aide or a minister. We have yet to see a full expulsion from Parliament or a sacking as an MP. There is, of course, good reason for this. The PM is fighting on all sides for his political career now that he has been found out to have been grossly incompetent over the last 12 years when he painted the picture he was a saviour. Now he needs as many of the rotten eggs to support him as he can. They have him exactly where they want him. The same goes for the other rotten party members.

The one thing we can take away from all this is that the majority of MPs are more interested in themselves than the people who put them there.

This is merely the top of the pile. When we peel back the onion skin and look at the vast array of MEPs, Commissioners, Assembly Members, councillors and the armies of mandarins associated with governing at any level, we will find a systematic abuse of democracy at every level.

A Bad Example To The World

MPs bemoan our youth for not wanting to engage in the political process. Our kids are at each other's throats, literally, crime is not right, no matter what the statistics say. We save bankers rather than lives, we fail our sick by wangling budgets and targets, we fail our kids' education by dumbing down exams to make us feel good. We help people make more money than God, don't tax them and stifle innovation and new technology by not investing in it. All because our MPs' personal priorities are about self-preservation and personal gain. It makes governing more like a dictatorship with nodding dogs all around denying their consciences in order to keep their heads in the trough.

We then have the audacity, the gall, the sheer hypocrisy the foist this kind of system on others through violent means. No one says their systems are right but who are we, with our deep set corruption, our crime, our violent PC games, our all hours drinking and greed to think we are better than anyone?

Who are we to send armies to make others become like us? Iraq will get its Western-built infrastructure and McDonalds - welcome to the new world order.

Fill your boots, it's party time - democracy is here.

When Is An Error Of Judgement Not An Error?

So we have one resignation on our hands. Andrew MacKay, Cameron's parliamentary secretary, is the first to fall on his sword. But let's be clear about this - he has merely surrendered his post as Cameron's aide. He has not stepped down as an MP.

As he is married to another MP, the two claimed for separate second home allowances. No matter how you interpret this one, this is just a blatant abuse of the system in a premeditated way. As man and wife, common sense and decency, and indeed the law on taxes, mean that you are treated as a duality. While the Green Book and officials may think that every MP is uniquely able to make the same claims, the fact is that a married couple should not.

It just becomes a scam to support two homes absolutely free.

MacKay is not even paying back the money as yet but awaits an edict from his master. Like so many others who hide behind this wretched book, which in its own way could not be more explicit about these matters, MacKay is just out of kilter with the rest of country.

The Ghosts of Morley

Elliot Morley may not have the luxury of resigning whatever it is he does. He is likely to be the first to incur the wrath of Gordon Brown which may be more like being kicked by a sheep. Morley is riddled with scams from flipping to claiming for mortgage payments he no longer paid. He claims it was an error and that he had committed no offence. Perhaps he ought to look in the law books - false accounting and fraud were crimes the last time I looked.

Meanwhile, in the Upper House, two Lords who are under investigation for taking money to change laws are to be suspended for 6 months. A poisonous penalty if ever there was one. Oh, we have seen peers escape jail for driving at excessive speeds in the outside lane of motorways at night while texting - and killing a stranded motorist at the same time. We have seen peers defraud shareholders, newspapers and insurance companies, serve time in prison and still keep their titles. I think a second house is required but this joke of peerage as being some kind of elite person with a better character than the rest of us is just a complete travesty.

The whole sordid affair drags on interminably but every day seems to bring ever more sleazy, disgusting examples of just how corrupt our ruling class air. It is, in a dreadful way, some kind of cleansing and a process that is helpful to us all. We have seen politicians for what they really are. Take away the fancy words and bull and they are pretty petty thieves. If they're thinking is at this kind of level then you can bet your shirt that on the bigger decisions, they are easily 'bought'.

Makes you wonder why we are in a war with Iraq and why aluminium tariffs for Russians were so conveniently reduced, really.

Is Paying Back Expenses Going To Be Enough?

The application for Hazel Blears' and Phil Hope's sainthoods are in video and with the Pope as we speak. St. Hazel of the Flipping Homes is expected to be a shoo-in.

However, Robert Peston has raised the concern that I have. If you hoodwink the taxman in real life, he doesn't usually take it like a jolly old sport. In fact he gets mighty tetchy about the whole thing. Peston brings attention to the Law this morning, the one in which MPs themselves voted to give themselves absolution from real people. It is a law which allows MPs to claim, tax free, the costs of overnight expenses.

Under section 292 of the Income Tax 2003 Act, MPs can claim up to around £23,000 in overnight expenses which of course is the equivalent of £38,000 of taxed money. Within this, they can claim any expense which is necessarily incurred in staying overnight.

I think you know where we are going on this. Gardening, cleaning, sink plugs, ice trays, horse manure, tennis court pipe leaks, moat dredging, swimming pool cleaning, housekeeping etc would be surely of interest to the taxman as they have little to do with overnight expenses. Of course, MPs would argue until blue in the face that housekeeping and cleaning are part of hotel expenses should you choose to blow your allowance that way but real people know the difference.

So, in fact, it does come down to the Law. Paying back wrongly claimed expenses should not be simply allowed as absolution of sin. HMRC should be all over these receipts like a cheap suit. To get back to points made by those MPs who think the Telegraph is the criminal for paying for the information we are reading, here is the good reason why they are actually doing the public service.

They are exposing criminals at work.

Shock, Horror - MPs With Common Decency

Martin Salter, Labour MP for Reading, doesn't claim any expenses and is happy to commute to London from his constituency when he needs to, saying he does not accept public funding as a personal choice. He must be barking mad.

Further away commuters like Alan Williams (Swansea) and Ed Milliband (Doncaster), claim less then a third of the allowance each.

The Conservatives have a complete buffoon in their midst. Phil Dunne, MP for Ludlow, has a flat in London but does not claim a penny and claims it is not 'the right thing to do.' Adam Afriyie, MP for Windsor, is so off his trolley that he not only did not claim his second home allowance but did not claim any travel expenses either. Maybe he is just daft and forgot.

Ann Widdecombe, and yes you expected it, claimed a mere £858 in second home allowances last year and reckons all expense abusers should stand down. It seems there may be a desperate shortage of MPs if all of them had to stand down - but in my book that is no bad thing.

At Lib Dem world, David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, for some reason prefers to commute each day so he can be with his family. Clearly, he is not a man fit to govern with those sort of daft values. He even says that changed sitting hours means it is easy to commute.

What no Queen's Flight waiting on the runway all day in Brussels, no away days to Strasbourg and Brussels with your 'Secretary' as the late Robin Cook enjoyed? No 'Blair Force One', either. Somehow that little presidential perk never got off the ground - not for the want of trying though.

In fairness, there are some decent ones left who seem to use common sense and morals in their judgement. I am sure it makes them better MPs because of it. Interestingly, very few of them are either a serving or Shadow Minister. Tells you all you need to know about the system, doesn't it?

Will The Taxman Treat Me So Nicely?

The taxman is not known for his leniency, particularly if you have deliberately gone out and deceived him. Just sending him a few quid after the event to keep him happy is not usually a good remedy. He likes to do the calculations and retributions himself.

As all the parties attempted to get 'closure' yesterday with grandstanding of superhuman proportions and an almost Presidential podium besieged by cameras for David Cameron, little Hazel Blears made her peace with the taxman.

After publicly cooing she had only ever owned one small property in London, she has missed the point of the scam unearthed. She had deliberately 'cheated' the taxman by declaring her Commons-designated second home for allowance purposes as her main residence to HMRC. The two systems are totally independent but had the taxman cottoned on she would surely have been chased for sizable tax evasion and, at minimum, have received the bill for the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on selling her second home plus the interest since receiving the gain - which was conveniently missed off her cheque yesterday.

MPs make the rules after all.

For us mortals, we would have been in hot water. This was not a trifling sum of money. This also was no ordinary mistake. Most Independent Financial Advisers or accountants know the rules on main residences and second homes - most do not know about the MP allowance rules. The HMRC takes precedent in any case and any adviser would have told Hazel Blears that she could not pocket the full gain from the sale of a property that was clearly not her main residence. If they had told her that she could, then she has grounds to sue for poor advice.

But what gave the scam away, was that SHE knew the difference. By knowingly putting down her London flat as a second home for expenses purposes she was allowed to claim her full allowance prior to the sale to make sure it was tickety-boo and maximise her return, but for HMRC she can only have quite deliberately claimed it was her main residence and so avoided paying CGT on the gain.

There is absolutely no doubt it, you have to know about the different systems in order to have operated the scam, it cannot happen by accident - she had to know that by declaring the homes in this way to two different authorities that she had worked a scam as good as any benefits fraud or VAT scam. She was deliberately deceiving the taxman. Mere mortals and plebeians like us would have had the full weight of the law on us.

Hazel Blears looked like Mother Teresa as she held up her grubby cheque for the public to see what kind of saint she was. In performing her well manicured act, she publicly admitted she broke the law. So why is she still in a job and why is she not subject to a police enquiry?

Losing His Marbles

Michael Martin has been known for his rather strange methods in the past. His handling of the Damian Green affair was curious in the extreme. His behaviour regarding the MPs Expenses scandal shows that he has at least lost a grip on reality but at worst shows that he has lost his marbles now that the best scam in the world has been exposed.

Of course, the trail leads to him. The chap who writes the Green Book reports to him and his office is responsible for passing expense claims, so all these wonderful claims on 'flipping', swimming pool maintenance and wisteria clipping are actually scrutinised by his office. He knew everything about all this beforehand.

Rather than converting to the new religion as all party leaders have plus the spectacular conversion by Hazel Blears, he actually turned, publicly, on those who sought to criticise the system. With barely concealed contempt he spat at Kate Hoey, a Former Minister, not for her stance but her habit of giving 'pearls of wisdom on Sky News'. It was a personal insult of some proportion worthy of a classroom big bully, particularly as Ms. Hoey had merely said that it would a be waste of police time to get police to investigate how the leak came about. That particular horse had already bolted was her assertion - not so, thought Michael Martin. In fact he could not hide his utter disgust that whoever had leaked the information 'should be left in situ'.

In Mr. Martin's eyes, there would be no recanting for this individual for their sins, beheading would be too good for them for betraying the scam of the century.

He did not just pick on females. Norman Baker got a taste of his lash for being the kind of MP who was 'keen to say to the press whatever the press wants to hear'. You could level the same thing at Michael Martin as he is saying exactly what the press wants to hear, that he is one of those MPs who really could not give a stuff what common people think of the disgusting behaviour of elected officials and that they should be allowed, in confidence, to scam the British taxpayer for every penny they can. Michael Martin represents that epitome of an MP out of touch with the consensus in the country right now, independent of political leanings.

The problem here is that Micheal Martin is a key part of the apparatus of expenses. It is his office that will lead the reforms, and this is his opinion. Nothing could have been more clear in the current Green Book about the spirit of expenses and all MPs who chose to test it to its limits knew one thing, that Michael Martin's office would let them through.

Why Michael Martin has been allowed to haughtily stand on his dangerously immoral ground and defend the scam practices like a schoolyard bully is beyond most of us. But to Gordon Brown, Martin stands as a figure of how badly this Government has lost the plot and a grip on its authority. Michael Martin should be a high profile casualty along with likes of Blears for being at the very heart of the problem.

But I will wager, not one person will lose their job over all this. Not one. Reality and morality does not enter into a politician's life. In an age old Blairism, all parties will be keen to 'draw a line' under all this and get on with the business of making money some other way. Tony got it cracked, that's for sure as he smiles piously atop his millions - expenses are a thing of the future for him.

Is Maximising MP Expenses Just Tax Avoidance?

We hear a lot of rhetoric from Brown and Darling about how they are going to clampdown on MPs' Expenses and the policy on that looks as shambolic as most things, but at least they have been consistent in their mantra of plugging tax loopholes to stop people avoiding paying the tax they owe.

It strikes me that MPs 'maximising' their expenses is a direct form of tax avoidance. Clever accountants tell you lots of little nooks and crannies on how to avoid paying tax on sums by claiming this and that and here we have the same. Labour Leader Designate, Harriet Harman, has come out and said that all the new allegations, including ones about Brown, Darling, Blears, Straw and others, are all within the rules but it isn't the point. Tax avoiders will tell you exactly the same. At one end of the scale, Philip Green would 'legitimately' say by taking a single dividend of £1.2bn and paying zero tax, he was within the law.

I think Labour are running out places to go on this. This is small time hoodlum stuff compared to the likes of the mega rich but it all starts somewhere. Heaven knows (probably quite literally) what Tony Blair was up to as he now earns his £ millions piously, after using blind trust funds to buy not one but two flats for his boy to go to University but I guess whoever has nicked all this sensitive data and his hawking it around the top newspapers may only have current data.

One thing is for sure, this method of drip feeding the information to papers like the Telegraph is a 'death by a thousand cuts' for the Government. They should never have put their snouts so far in the trough and shouted:

'I'm alright, Jack!'

Breach of National Security

Labour MP, Sir Stuart Bell, is on the warpath. In the wake of revelations that Jaqui Smith's husband claimed for viewing two porn films, Sir Stuart asserts that all 650 MPs' expense receipts have been put 'up for sale' and are valued at several hundreds of thousands of pounds as the interest of nosy voters rise amid the recent revelations.

In an interview on BBC's Newsnight, Sir Stuart, who sits on the Speakers Commons Estimates Committee, showed bold determination to keep facts of MPs' expenses away from public viewing. 'All of the receipts of 650-odd MPs', redacted or un-redacted, are for sale for around £300,000, so I am told,' he said. 'The price is going up because of the public interest.'

Bold Response

In a fit of pique over the fact that Jaqui Smith has claimed over £100,000 of allowances for a second home which happens to be her main family home, the fact that she pays her husband to watch films as part of her retinue and that the same 'working' husband watched porn films at that, PM Gordon Brown has boldly suggested that MPs' allowances for second homes should be scrapped.

It is alleged that an audible gasp and massive of slapping of a forehead was heard in London, followed by a prolonged sigh sounding like 'D'oh!'. The noise is believed to have come from Tony Blair's mansion somewhere near Sloane Square and nowhere near the Middle East.

It will be a move pretty unpopular with most MPs, particularly the army of Labour MPs who avidly claim expenses on second homes while having their first home less than 14 miles from Westminster. Sadly, for those whose constituencies are beyond a radius the length of London to Watford Gap are going to be seriously out of pocket. But it is envisaged they could make up the difference in allowance by pretending to cycle their bicycles each day but actually take first class on the train.

I am sure that has never been done before.

National Security At Risk

When asked who was selling the information, Sir Stuart was at the edge of his seat with excitement. 'We have a pretty good of not the person, but the source, and that is the subject of a House of Commons Investigation,' said Sir Stuart. 'It's probably a breach of the Official Secrets Act, it may be theft, but we will get to the bottom of it. In the public interest by the way.'

My sources tell me that the Justice Minister may step in and use special powers to stop details of MPs' expenses reaching the public eyes as National Security may be breached. The fact the public would actually want to know such details of what sort of freebies MPs are snorting in the trough for are full reason that we might divulge which fine wines an MP might have had while watching 'Debbie does Dallas' when they should have been casting a vote on the 42 day Detention Bill.

It is also believed that the details of MPs' favourite hotels and swimming pools may be known risking their travel schedules when visiting Brazil and sampling their local 'playful and colourful' back street culture.

Rising Cost of Politicians

The cost of the second home allowance as a bill to the public rose 6% last year, while it has been found by some committee that MPs should get a pay rise of 2.3% this year - Brown has vetoed any of his ministers getting a rise in a fit of rage at the embarrassing revelations and the fact they will get it all back in increases in spending on expenses anyway.

Of course, nobody would want to know why on the PM's recent trip to save the world that he and his team having called in to address some of the largest economies of the world that they then chose to go and see Brazil and Chile on the way back. Perhaps there were some good 'restaurants and clubs' there that Peter Mandelson knew or some special offers on Scotch Whisky at their duty frees.

MPs' Expenses are the thin edge of the wedge. Jaqui Smith is being supported by the PM even though she claimed £116,000 by designating a room in her sister's house as her primary residence so that she could claim her family home many miles away was her second home. Employment Minister Tony McNulty shows particular disdain in claiming that his second home is his parents' house just 11 miles from his apartment in Westminster.

Perhaps he should be thankful he is still in employment let alone the minister for it.

Personally, I think it would be £300,000 of bail out money very well spent if the entire 650 MPs' expense receipts came into the public domain so that we could see just what the hell we are getting for our money and how it is being abused. As for national security, that is a comment worthy of Jack Straw or Alistair Campbell. It's laughable - perhaps MPs have been downloading plagiarised documents off the web and paying via PayPal in order to convince us all that we should be fighting wars and bailing out banks.

Then we should open the lid on Assembly Members, Local Councillors, Civil Servants and the vast array of other Public Department workers who have the life of Riley, guaranteed pensions and some of the least required jobs in Britain.

I am sure we would save a great deal of money.