For the second time in my lifetime there a dangerous angry mood for revolutionary change on the part of the general public.
I want to begin with how the political classes can prevent a major swing to the British National party at the next General and Local Government Elections, accepting that the United Kingdom Independence party will be the main beneficiaries at the European Elections with hopefully some gains also by he Liberal democracies and Green Parties.
Fist the government should announce the date of the next General Election which should be before the next local government elections in out Cities and Towns. Obviously if it is defeated on a vote of confidence before this date then the Election will be brought forward. I do not support an immediate General Election because a number of important matters have to be resolved beforehand to enable the new Government to concentrate on the major tasks ahead.
The first decision which all three of the major political parties should take is to require all the sitting Members of Parliament to seek confirmation of their position before their respective candidate selection procedures. Associated with this each Member of Parliament should publish their expense claims since their Election to the present Parliament with a statement of explanation covering the matters disclosed. However it should be made clear that the local selection/de-selection process should take into account the whole performance of their Member of Parliament since the General Election. No Member of Parliament should be excluded from this process, including the Party leaders, Government and Shadow Minister’s.
Secondly their should an urgent review of the basic salary of all Members of Parliament and Ministers to reflect the nature of their work and having agreed this amount a condition of payment in full should be an undertaking to relinquish all other paid occupations and activities during their term of service. Whether they work for free or donate to registered charities is for the individual to determine. The system should ensure that deferred payments or payments in kind are also excluded.
Public funding for staff working in the constituency or at Parliament should be set and all employees paid and managed by the house with appointments all approved by the Party management. This should not prevent Members of Parliament accepting additional funds from other sources to employ more staff as long as the sources are disclosed and the Member does not directly or indirectly intervene is any matters concerning the funders. Where the Members belongs to a party, the funds should go tot eh Party which in turn would allocate the to individual members. I have in mind that there is need for more independent Members who will lack the research and database systems of the main parties and therefore need additional help to carryout the duties, as well as reducing the amount of tax payer’s contributions if possible.
I now turn to the question of accommodation needs. It should be a condition of receiving parliamentary salary for all Members of Parliament to have accommodation within their constituency and close to their place of work. Many will also have a third residence where their partner lives and works and their children attend school. If their family and main home is their constituency home then their should be no restriction on its size or location but not public funds should be used.
If they wish to retain a family home elsewhere then a home should be provided in the constituency paid for by the tax payer and available while the individual remains a Member of Parliament for that constituency. A range of accommodation should be provided within the area of Parliament for those who whose constituencies are outside of Greater London. The allocation of the accommodation should be governed by the individual Party and individual circumstances with accommodation. The accommodation should enable partners and other family members to reside upon payment of published scale of charges. The accommodation should be fully furnished and maintained by the state.
Nothing in these arrangements should prevent any individual from having the homes where they wish or the additional employment they wish as long as public funds are not involved.
Even if these measure or other measures are agreed and implemented is has to be accepted that their will be some rough justice fall out in the short term and that the British system has suffered major damage.
The situation in relation to Local Government Councillors also needs to be reviewed and revised.
The first instance of revolution on the streets was not Suez, or Cuba, or the War in Iraq but the dramatic and sudden death of Princess Diana when the nation weeped and then became angry with the Monarchy, and the Royal Family was forced to stand in respect outside the Gates of the Palce on march as part of the cortege. The anger was fuelled by the media at home and abroad and there are many including myself who remain convinced that she was assassinated, because of having studied the official Inquest and its flaws. It is important to remember that the Queen advised Paul Burrell of eh dark forces within the state and how he was prevented from revealing what he knew in open court and accepted banishment to the USA. The important point is that the institution of the Monarchy, which had already become damaged through the behaviour of Princess Margaret and the children of the Queen received a major blow from which I question its ability to recover after the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Princess Charles has always been disliked by section of the media and right wing establishment and the position of his wife will always be used by those against him, whatever title she is given and while the Church of England remains the established church. Any move to jump a generation and have a young king with a young bride is also under fire with media questioning about attitudes to those of other ethnicity and cultures and the common people in general. Had she not given up her claims to the title Princess Anne has shown herself to have the integrity and ability to follow her mother and would fit into Britain’s most successful and well regarded monarchs all being women.
The present revolutionary situation over the body politic is more serious and potential more dangerous for all the questioning about the need for a monarchy in a modern democracy and the thought that Vince Cable would make an excellent Speaker, Prime Minister or first President, who else is there? I do not see change unless it is part of major constitutional reform which abolished the use of titles within the UK so that heredity peerages would no longer be recognised or referred to within the UK and a new second chamber would created.
The present situation has a number of interwoven causes. The first is the dominance of two Political parties and then the dominance of the Government over the House of Commons. This has led to a stable system and career politicians, supported by an unreformed civil service. This has been to the benefit of the country as shown by popular governments such as those of Thatcher and Tony Blair lasting for a decade and winning two General Elections with substantial majorities.
The situation has also been caused by the two main parties with the Liberal Democrats closely following behind broadly agreeing on the political policies and direction of the UK. The first area where the Parties did not respond to public concern is the ethnic transformation of our cities and town commencing with West Indian migration, then the Indian and Pakistan sub continent and then from central Europe. People are feeling overwhelmed, frightened and betrayed.
The second issue is the failure of International capitalism and the greed of bankers and speculators and the failure of the government to prevent a situation in which taxes will rise and public services will be reduced to meet the cost of preventing a complete collapse of the system and from recession turning into economic depression. That the government had just before the financial crisis abolished the ten percent taxation rate and then agreed to paying off the bankers with obscene sums while jobs were lost in their tens of thousands, stores closed down on the high street, homes repossessed and worse promised to come, has only built up pessimism and powerlessness.
That the media has turned on the politicians over the past ten days is their own fault. First they failed to pay themselves or accept external recommendations for payments appropriate for the task required and then they failed to effectively monitor the system of staff, second home and other allowances designed to balance up the position and enable a cross section of men and women to balance up position.
Forgotten over the past days is the original complaint was that Members used their expenses in relation to staff to employ partners and other family members, or for other purposes than the stated intentions. The main concern to emerge now is that the way second home allowance has been used and manipulated. An intentional claim for residences which are not within the stated rules, or for mortgage payments not entitled or for furnishings and goods not exclusively for use in relation to Parliamentary duties is fraud and merits reference to the police as well as dismissal from the Political Party and from Parliament. The problem will be to establish intent in a legally satisfying way, although a different level of tests apply for Parties and for Parliament.
While account needs to be given to the advice received from official these are individual elected to uphold and further the law, to apply justice as fairness and to direct officials on matters of policy and its application and interpretation. They are also members of political parties with policies and rule son such matters.
The truth is that from Party Leaders and officials and the Speaker of the House of Commons and his staff there has been acceptance of the status quo and an unwillingness to reform. What is worse is that there had been a deliberate and calculated attempt to prevent the information coming under scrutiny and then to delay the information until after the European and County Council Elections. The majority have only got themselves to blame if the public reached the conclusion that the majority had something to hide.
There is need to mention the nature of the payments office and its scrutiny. These are not usually high flyers or major paid figures themselves but career civil servants wanting to prove themselves, gain friends and supporters or just anxious to appear helpful and impress. Some will take their position very seriously. While other will be casual. I remember as a young public paid servant in local government I tackled those who avoided paying cars taxed for a month or so but continued to use their vehicles, and who made self certified statements which were to the contrary to the facts, but was told by my bosses that I was being over zealous in a situation where as a subsequent cashier I had to balance my account to the penny before I went home, and the authority employed its own auditors to go through every penny on a daily basis as well as external auditors having to approve the accounts once a year. So whatever the system it is also about the attitude of those at the top.
Similarly when I worked for the now defunct Yorkshire West Riding County Council, there was one member of staff who checked out the mileage claims of individual child care officers to the extent that she would not just follow routes with a map measuring device but got out at her own expense at weekends retracing routes where she felt the reimbursement claim was unjustified. Yet this was the same local authority where I reported to the Home Office Children’s Inspectorate as well as the Children’s Officer the failure to follow procedures to protect and further the welfare of children in residential homes and in foster care and when in consultation with the Home Office I took action in relation to one residential establishment, I was threatened by the head of the Home that he could make or break me at the forthcoming reorganisations appointments because of his relationship with the chairman of the appointments committee. This was a situation where although I was not appointed to a headquarters position as a consequence, the Home Office had approved my candidacy as one of the first Directors of Social Services for 1971, and was told after I had accepted an appointment at Cheshire that I was wanted by Dewsbury because Councillors there had known of my work through writings, personal contacts and references.
So my experience over thirty services working in the public service, albeit for local government but also having served on government and national committees for which expenses were paid is that the systems were usually good and thorough, but with a varying approach to monitoring and attitudes.
In the present situation the Telegraph appears to have been high selective in who and what they have highlighted. Listening to the editor on Question Time he did not respond to the request to be told what analysis had been made of all Mps claims and what percentage had included items meriting query and at what level of seriousness. How selective has the Telegraph been in first releasing information about Government Ministers, then Government Backbenchers, then the Conservative Shadow Cabinet and the High Tory backbenchers, then the Liberal Democrats and then overnight an historical case and an ethnic one? Have some individuals been protected? What has been the purpose and what is now the primary objective?
Now I fear we are a short distance away from a right wing dictatorship organised by those who oppose a David Cameron’s Premiership and which is likely to command support from the military and the police as well as from International corporations, and the Christian churches, including the Church of England, the Church of Rome and the evangelical churches of Middle America. Probably unwittingly, the Daily Telegraph is in the vanguard of creating destabilization, and political chaos, and opportunists like Norman Tebbit, Nigel Farage and Peter Hitchens are quick to join the momentum for a mainstream ring wing change as an alternative to the British National Party who will become the beneficiaries at the next General and Local Elections in our Cities and major towns, just as UKIP will gain substantially in next month’s European elections.
The problem is that it only the media, a media that now not only wants blood, but senses it can achieve blood, that can prevent revolution occurring. The evidence is that the Daily Telegraph cannot now resist continue to work through the information made available, and why was the Daily Telegraph selected and not the Times, Guardian, Independent or Daily Mail? Other media cannot resist fuelling public anger with for example BBC Question Time last nigh which could have had a more balanced programme of questions rather than devoting the whole time, or the news channels who unsuccessfully tried to put the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury on Trial, this morning or Channel Four last night who held an inquisition type of debate at Church House. Andrew Neil frothed at the mouth with anticipation on Thursday and again at the late night show although I noticed he did not disclose his income and expense claims as a tax payer servant at the BBC!
The performance of the Party Leaders is also of interest and relevant with David Cameron seizing the opportunity to reassert authority over his Parliamentary Party and take the initiative away from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has to deal with Hazel Blears in a public way. It is evident that before the media moves on something else their has to be further blood letting and the position of the Speaker is also in question.
The furore will continue until the European Elections and constituency parties start deselecting some Members. The threat of a right wing coup will remain.
I want to begin with how the political classes can prevent a major swing to the British National party at the next General and Local Government Elections, accepting that the United Kingdom Independence party will be the main beneficiaries at the European Elections with hopefully some gains also by he Liberal democracies and Green Parties.
Fist the government should announce the date of the next General Election which should be before the next local government elections in out Cities and Towns. Obviously if it is defeated on a vote of confidence before this date then the Election will be brought forward. I do not support an immediate General Election because a number of important matters have to be resolved beforehand to enable the new Government to concentrate on the major tasks ahead.
The first decision which all three of the major political parties should take is to require all the sitting Members of Parliament to seek confirmation of their position before their respective candidate selection procedures. Associated with this each Member of Parliament should publish their expense claims since their Election to the present Parliament with a statement of explanation covering the matters disclosed. However it should be made clear that the local selection/de-selection process should take into account the whole performance of their Member of Parliament since the General Election. No Member of Parliament should be excluded from this process, including the Party leaders, Government and Shadow Minister’s.
Secondly their should an urgent review of the basic salary of all Members of Parliament and Ministers to reflect the nature of their work and having agreed this amount a condition of payment in full should be an undertaking to relinquish all other paid occupations and activities during their term of service. Whether they work for free or donate to registered charities is for the individual to determine. The system should ensure that deferred payments or payments in kind are also excluded.
Public funding for staff working in the constituency or at Parliament should be set and all employees paid and managed by the house with appointments all approved by the Party management. This should not prevent Members of Parliament accepting additional funds from other sources to employ more staff as long as the sources are disclosed and the Member does not directly or indirectly intervene is any matters concerning the funders. Where the Members belongs to a party, the funds should go tot eh Party which in turn would allocate the to individual members. I have in mind that there is need for more independent Members who will lack the research and database systems of the main parties and therefore need additional help to carryout the duties, as well as reducing the amount of tax payer’s contributions if possible.
I now turn to the question of accommodation needs. It should be a condition of receiving parliamentary salary for all Members of Parliament to have accommodation within their constituency and close to their place of work. Many will also have a third residence where their partner lives and works and their children attend school. If their family and main home is their constituency home then their should be no restriction on its size or location but not public funds should be used.
If they wish to retain a family home elsewhere then a home should be provided in the constituency paid for by the tax payer and available while the individual remains a Member of Parliament for that constituency. A range of accommodation should be provided within the area of Parliament for those who whose constituencies are outside of Greater London. The allocation of the accommodation should be governed by the individual Party and individual circumstances with accommodation. The accommodation should enable partners and other family members to reside upon payment of published scale of charges. The accommodation should be fully furnished and maintained by the state.
Nothing in these arrangements should prevent any individual from having the homes where they wish or the additional employment they wish as long as public funds are not involved.
Even if these measure or other measures are agreed and implemented is has to be accepted that their will be some rough justice fall out in the short term and that the British system has suffered major damage.
The situation in relation to Local Government Councillors also needs to be reviewed and revised.
The first instance of revolution on the streets was not Suez, or Cuba, or the War in Iraq but the dramatic and sudden death of Princess Diana when the nation weeped and then became angry with the Monarchy, and the Royal Family was forced to stand in respect outside the Gates of the Palce on march as part of the cortege. The anger was fuelled by the media at home and abroad and there are many including myself who remain convinced that she was assassinated, because of having studied the official Inquest and its flaws. It is important to remember that the Queen advised Paul Burrell of eh dark forces within the state and how he was prevented from revealing what he knew in open court and accepted banishment to the USA. The important point is that the institution of the Monarchy, which had already become damaged through the behaviour of Princess Margaret and the children of the Queen received a major blow from which I question its ability to recover after the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Princess Charles has always been disliked by section of the media and right wing establishment and the position of his wife will always be used by those against him, whatever title she is given and while the Church of England remains the established church. Any move to jump a generation and have a young king with a young bride is also under fire with media questioning about attitudes to those of other ethnicity and cultures and the common people in general. Had she not given up her claims to the title Princess Anne has shown herself to have the integrity and ability to follow her mother and would fit into Britain’s most successful and well regarded monarchs all being women.
The present revolutionary situation over the body politic is more serious and potential more dangerous for all the questioning about the need for a monarchy in a modern democracy and the thought that Vince Cable would make an excellent Speaker, Prime Minister or first President, who else is there? I do not see change unless it is part of major constitutional reform which abolished the use of titles within the UK so that heredity peerages would no longer be recognised or referred to within the UK and a new second chamber would created.
The present situation has a number of interwoven causes. The first is the dominance of two Political parties and then the dominance of the Government over the House of Commons. This has led to a stable system and career politicians, supported by an unreformed civil service. This has been to the benefit of the country as shown by popular governments such as those of Thatcher and Tony Blair lasting for a decade and winning two General Elections with substantial majorities.
The situation has also been caused by the two main parties with the Liberal Democrats closely following behind broadly agreeing on the political policies and direction of the UK. The first area where the Parties did not respond to public concern is the ethnic transformation of our cities and town commencing with West Indian migration, then the Indian and Pakistan sub continent and then from central Europe. People are feeling overwhelmed, frightened and betrayed.
The second issue is the failure of International capitalism and the greed of bankers and speculators and the failure of the government to prevent a situation in which taxes will rise and public services will be reduced to meet the cost of preventing a complete collapse of the system and from recession turning into economic depression. That the government had just before the financial crisis abolished the ten percent taxation rate and then agreed to paying off the bankers with obscene sums while jobs were lost in their tens of thousands, stores closed down on the high street, homes repossessed and worse promised to come, has only built up pessimism and powerlessness.
That the media has turned on the politicians over the past ten days is their own fault. First they failed to pay themselves or accept external recommendations for payments appropriate for the task required and then they failed to effectively monitor the system of staff, second home and other allowances designed to balance up the position and enable a cross section of men and women to balance up position.
Forgotten over the past days is the original complaint was that Members used their expenses in relation to staff to employ partners and other family members, or for other purposes than the stated intentions. The main concern to emerge now is that the way second home allowance has been used and manipulated. An intentional claim for residences which are not within the stated rules, or for mortgage payments not entitled or for furnishings and goods not exclusively for use in relation to Parliamentary duties is fraud and merits reference to the police as well as dismissal from the Political Party and from Parliament. The problem will be to establish intent in a legally satisfying way, although a different level of tests apply for Parties and for Parliament.
While account needs to be given to the advice received from official these are individual elected to uphold and further the law, to apply justice as fairness and to direct officials on matters of policy and its application and interpretation. They are also members of political parties with policies and rule son such matters.
The truth is that from Party Leaders and officials and the Speaker of the House of Commons and his staff there has been acceptance of the status quo and an unwillingness to reform. What is worse is that there had been a deliberate and calculated attempt to prevent the information coming under scrutiny and then to delay the information until after the European and County Council Elections. The majority have only got themselves to blame if the public reached the conclusion that the majority had something to hide.
There is need to mention the nature of the payments office and its scrutiny. These are not usually high flyers or major paid figures themselves but career civil servants wanting to prove themselves, gain friends and supporters or just anxious to appear helpful and impress. Some will take their position very seriously. While other will be casual. I remember as a young public paid servant in local government I tackled those who avoided paying cars taxed for a month or so but continued to use their vehicles, and who made self certified statements which were to the contrary to the facts, but was told by my bosses that I was being over zealous in a situation where as a subsequent cashier I had to balance my account to the penny before I went home, and the authority employed its own auditors to go through every penny on a daily basis as well as external auditors having to approve the accounts once a year. So whatever the system it is also about the attitude of those at the top.
Similarly when I worked for the now defunct Yorkshire West Riding County Council, there was one member of staff who checked out the mileage claims of individual child care officers to the extent that she would not just follow routes with a map measuring device but got out at her own expense at weekends retracing routes where she felt the reimbursement claim was unjustified. Yet this was the same local authority where I reported to the Home Office Children’s Inspectorate as well as the Children’s Officer the failure to follow procedures to protect and further the welfare of children in residential homes and in foster care and when in consultation with the Home Office I took action in relation to one residential establishment, I was threatened by the head of the Home that he could make or break me at the forthcoming reorganisations appointments because of his relationship with the chairman of the appointments committee. This was a situation where although I was not appointed to a headquarters position as a consequence, the Home Office had approved my candidacy as one of the first Directors of Social Services for 1971, and was told after I had accepted an appointment at Cheshire that I was wanted by Dewsbury because Councillors there had known of my work through writings, personal contacts and references.
So my experience over thirty services working in the public service, albeit for local government but also having served on government and national committees for which expenses were paid is that the systems were usually good and thorough, but with a varying approach to monitoring and attitudes.
In the present situation the Telegraph appears to have been high selective in who and what they have highlighted. Listening to the editor on Question Time he did not respond to the request to be told what analysis had been made of all Mps claims and what percentage had included items meriting query and at what level of seriousness. How selective has the Telegraph been in first releasing information about Government Ministers, then Government Backbenchers, then the Conservative Shadow Cabinet and the High Tory backbenchers, then the Liberal Democrats and then overnight an historical case and an ethnic one? Have some individuals been protected? What has been the purpose and what is now the primary objective?
Now I fear we are a short distance away from a right wing dictatorship organised by those who oppose a David Cameron’s Premiership and which is likely to command support from the military and the police as well as from International corporations, and the Christian churches, including the Church of England, the Church of Rome and the evangelical churches of Middle America. Probably unwittingly, the Daily Telegraph is in the vanguard of creating destabilization, and political chaos, and opportunists like Norman Tebbit, Nigel Farage and Peter Hitchens are quick to join the momentum for a mainstream ring wing change as an alternative to the British National Party who will become the beneficiaries at the next General and Local Elections in our Cities and major towns, just as UKIP will gain substantially in next month’s European elections.
The problem is that it only the media, a media that now not only wants blood, but senses it can achieve blood, that can prevent revolution occurring. The evidence is that the Daily Telegraph cannot now resist continue to work through the information made available, and why was the Daily Telegraph selected and not the Times, Guardian, Independent or Daily Mail? Other media cannot resist fuelling public anger with for example BBC Question Time last nigh which could have had a more balanced programme of questions rather than devoting the whole time, or the news channels who unsuccessfully tried to put the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury on Trial, this morning or Channel Four last night who held an inquisition type of debate at Church House. Andrew Neil frothed at the mouth with anticipation on Thursday and again at the late night show although I noticed he did not disclose his income and expense claims as a tax payer servant at the BBC!
The performance of the Party Leaders is also of interest and relevant with David Cameron seizing the opportunity to reassert authority over his Parliamentary Party and take the initiative away from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has to deal with Hazel Blears in a public way. It is evident that before the media moves on something else their has to be further blood letting and the position of the Speaker is also in question.
The furore will continue until the European Elections and constituency parties start deselecting some Members. The threat of a right wing coup will remain.
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