The Professors passion for "The Science of Deceit" started here...

Employed by the Ministry (in a covert capacity) to help introduce the law ending dishonest politics, you can see his hand all over the posts of past.

Current political circumstances have forced him to reveal himself and as we speak, MPs are signing up to re-introduce The Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill for debate with over 80,000 voters supporting them.

Posts before Jan '08 are purely for the record (with hindsight they make fascinating reading). Posts after May 13th mark the Professor's return.


Meet the Professor

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Recaps 2 - First brush with Parliament

For those just joining the Ministry, when we asked solicitors the question, "How do we prosecute an MP for lying" the answer was a resounding "You can't" - try "the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards".

We did.

It was our first brush with Parliament...

Inspector Mawers (that's enough.Ed) - the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards


If you read up on this whole self-regulation business it looks a bit like smoke and mirrors. Plenty of bodies, committees and commissioners - all independent to a man but all reporting to Parliament or the PM. Nice to be Judge and Jury at your own trial, eh ?

Needless to say,
when Sir Philip Mawer returned our call, it was a bit of a shocker. We never thought in a million years they'd let us near the Palace of Westminster - let alone interview its gatekeeper of ethics and morals.

Turns out Sir Philip's office is round the back of Westminster Abbey. Bathed in divine light, you enter through a hobbit-like gate set into a suitably intimidating wall with Westminster casting suitably ominous shadows.

Passing through that gate would be crossing the line from pissing about on the Internet to sticking our head above the establishment parapet. Were we really gonna tough it out with the guy who politics between Teflon Tony and hauling MPs over the coals ?

Who are we kidding ?


I'd had a curry before-hand and that didn't bode well.

We were in a lot of trouble.

2 comments:

  1. Did you see this article in the Daily Mail yesterday?:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=479751&in_page_id=1770

    Elizabeth Filkin hounded out of position as Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after rubbing up certain 'important' people the wrong way...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yea its a good article jaffa - def worth a read

    ReplyDelete