Tumbleweed through Westminster

There's that moment in Shooting Stars when Vic Reeves cracks a joke, silence followed by tumbleweed blowing across the studio...

Nobody's laughing at the Kelly report and the silence in Westminster is killing us. Either that or no-one's talking to the lobby hacks. The most they could muster from the expected collective outrage was a letter signed by five protesting wives employed by MPs.

The Telegraph managed to prise some quotes from Parliamentary grandees, Sir George Young gave a decent insight into his mindset, Asked whether members could accept a pay rise in the face of public anger he told the BBC: “If that is what an independent body decides then I am sure the public will endorse it.” We probably will. But it sticks in the craw.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Sir G for the Ministry as chair of The Parliamentary Committee for Standards and Privileges.

"I think we've got the balance right... No-one has a greater interest in policing the code, setting high standards for Members of Parliament, than Members of Parliament," May 2007

If there should be resignations over the current state of Parliaments' lamentable lack of public trust he's one of them...

...still, no-one really questioned the headmaster and prefects in charge of maintaining the self-regulation charade. Yet.

There was also the tiniest hint of infighting - Anthony Steen, the Tory MP for Totnes, said he had been “vilified” for putting in receipts for the running costs of his second home while others who have made significant sums by claiming mortgage interest have “got off scot-free”. Yes Anthony, we're all extremely sympathetic. That's what happens when an elected representative doesn't show up for votes on whether expenses should be subject to Freedom of Information requests and indeed all the other FOI votes. We note you were in favour of no lower limit to the receipts MPs should have to declare - but that was on the 30th April of this year - too little, too late. In any case the police haven't started to name names yet.

The press lobby said the feeling of anger was "palpable" and there was a general, "all of us have been punished for the actions of a few".... errr.... yup. That's right. We entrusted all of you to keep the house on the straight and narrow.

All in all it feels like todays' Guy Fawkes romp through Parliament organised by Old Holborn, Guido & Co have something to celebrate... for the moment at least.

Cash for Dinners - Pot Calls Kettle Grey.

Sir George Young MP is under investigation by Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. He reports directly to..... the Parliamentary Committee for Standards and Priveledges, chaired by.... Sir George Young MP.

We wonder if his face looked something like this when he found out....

Parliamentary Self Regulation a Blinding Success !!!

Quick update on that stalwart of our Parliamentary Democracy - the notion of self-regulation.

Every Parliamentarian we've interviewed to-date has argued MPs are accountable to the public between general elections via the various independent committees and commissioners that police them.

We've had problems with this concept all along, for two reasons (last week gave us a third).

1) The people give their sovereignty to MPs. MPs represent us. They're obligation to be honest is to us . If they deliberately misrepresent the facts, make misleading statements....tell lies. They're doing it in our name. We should have some direct legal means of redress to hold them swiftly to account.

2) How can we possibly have confidence in a self-regulatary process that allows the accused to be tried by their colleagues, their peers.

and now... "Cash For Dinners"

We're in the ridiculous situation where two members of the investigative body stand accused and have to be investigated by their own committee - Sir George Young MP is the Chairman for Chrisssakes !!. Those accused have had to stand down from the investigation. They're both Conservative, leaving a massively one-sided committee which is supposed to be cross party/apoltical to rule on the outcome.

Self-regulation is in a no-win situation.

If the committee finds them guilty, there'll be shouts of "foul play" - a politically biased judgement.

A "Not guilty" verdict and see 2) above - we're back to "how convenient, a bunch of MPs find some other MPs innocent".

Incidentally - Cameron's one of the 19 Tory MPs accused. His (current) defence is that the rules weren't clear. So he consulted them ? Really ? Surely if they weren't clear, you'd ask for clarification ?

Rules aside, does he actually think the taxpayer should foot the bill for his party to hold fund-raising dinners ?