Why parliament needs a shake-up
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Associate Editor
David Stevenson May 29, 2009
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It's vital we seize the chance to reform parliament before the next election, says Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. It's the only time we voters will have any real leverage. Most of us heartily dislike the 'political class' and want to see it swept away. Gordon Brown couldn't do this because he believes in the political class and "would be destroying the system that gives him power". His plans would only make MPs "more under the thumb of government, more absolute in their dependence on the wallets of the taxpayer".
Only David Cameron offers any real hope of change, but even he, when he become prime minister, will seek to ensure that government retains its power over Parliament. "To put it brutally, [the political classes] are down, so this is a good time to kick them."
There is a harsher point to make. This scandal has come about because of money. "It turned out that MPs were taking too much of it. They must now get less." If we admit the argument for bigger salaries we are "condoning dishonesty and breathing new life into the professionalised political classes which we want to strangle".
Charles Moore is the last survivor of Young England, says Bruce Anderson in The Independent, "that Tory romantic movement of the 1840s which drew on the idealism of Lord John Manners and the cynicism of Benjamin Disraeli". He doesn't recognise that there has always been a political class in England, "which radicals have habitually condemned, before taking office and joining it".
That class has always included MPs who "were a waste of pay and rations". But the current membership of the House of Commons, especially on the Tory benches, contains many dedicated public servants who could earn a lot more in other professions, "but who chose politics because they wanted to serve their country. Do not call for their overthrow, Charles, before you have worked out how to replace them. Before asking for something, make sure that you really want it".
There are only two points to make about the expenses row. "First, it was trivial, second, it will never happen again." Beyond that, the electorate next year will find the usual solution to a failed government – and after that there may be a case for re-examining the working of the Commons.
I'm sick of this "sanctimonious nonsense", says The Guardian's Joan Smith. "People have been encouraged to believe that we are governed by a uniquely corrupt political class that requires condign punishment." As for the army of independents now lining up: "the spectacle of a House of Commons populated by TV celebrities, obsessives who blame the EU for everything, and BNP members, fills me with horror".
Many of our MPs just don't seem to get it, says Simon Heffer in The Daily Telegraph. I never thought I was suited to politics, but the disgraceful behaviour of my sitting MP, Sir Alan Haselhurst, has made me think again. He's supposed to be a "pillar of society" but how does that square with taking £12,000 to "tart up his garden"? If Sir Alan doesn't apologise, pay back the £12,000 and promise to behave, "I shall stand against him as an independent. If elected I would need no second home and would only work part-time". But so much the better. "We need to get away from full-time MPs, for that is the cancer that has caused this ugly culture of financial rapacity."
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