The latest accusations in the Daily Telegraph are that Members of the Cabinet hired accountants at the Tax Payers expense to control, some would say limit, the amount of tax which they had to pay. There is also the accusation that the tax payers paid for media training and for media gadgets which by implications had uses in terms of party political matters and personal uses. Two major Tory figures Sir Nicholas Winterton and his wife, Anne announced that they would be standing down at the General Election. Question had previously been asked about their use of Tax payer’s money in ration to property purchases and death duties.
The issue of the expenses of Members of Parliament has centred on the provision of the two home allowance and its misuse. Members of Parliament should either be paid a salary which covers the provision of two homes when the need for a second home is clearly established or should have a second home provided for them provided for them. It should not apply to Members who already have a home in Greater London and represent a constituency. Everyone else is able to get to work, including those who work shifts such as late night, weekends and early mornings.
One of the problems is where Members of Parliament do not live in Greater London or in the constituency they represent. This is a problem if they are married and have a family with work and school commitments which means that partners and children should not be expected to uproot themselves at crucial periods in their respective lives. There is an argument for Members not standing in a constituency which is so far away from their home that they cannot attend properly to their duties which appear to be divided between constituency work and Parliamentary, and under out system, work as part of the Government or in a Shadow Government capacity if a member of a major Political Party.
I would suggest that the first loyalty of a Member of Parliament is to their constituents, and not as a Member of the Government, as a Member of Parliament or as a Member of a Political Party. Their duty on election is to represent all their constituents taking up issues between their constituents and the Government, issues involving local government and issues involving others. There is a need for a staff and an office in every constituency to do this, the number of staff depends on the average volumes of requests for help and contemporary staffing conditions and it is logical that these staff also work and live close to the constituency. They will need to filter referrals which can be dealt with elsewhere in the first instance. Has a matter which involves a local authority gone through appropriate local authority processes? This is an argument for having constituency of the same population size and for varying local staffing levels where the constituency covers a large geographic but sparsely populated area.
Members also have a duty to represent the collective and organisational interests of constituents and this will involve not just the local authority or local authorities, health matters and other official bodies, such as religious organisations, trade interest and voluntary organisations. This may or may not be related to legislation and policies under consideration. The Member of Parliament needs local based staff to establish the extent to which individual representations truly reflect opinion within the constituency. He has a duty to represent local opinion accurately and fairly. This should be the basis of the lower house. The Member will want to engage in publicity about the matters of local concerns and should be trained and provided with assistance in relation to the media.
The second function of the elected Member of Parliament to the Lower House is to hold the executive to account and to participate in the creation of new legislation. There is too much legislation passed, much of it trying to correct the problems of earlier legislation. There is too little evaluation of thee effectiveness of legislation, removing the unworkable and the out of date. It is said that 75 percent of all legislation is now passed in Europe rather than by the Parliaments of individual nations. If this is so then their there is need for fewer Members of Parliament in relation to this role but for the national parliament to review more closely the legislation passed by their European colleagues.
The evidence is that because of the growing role of Government in our lives through the use of electronics, and data storage and retrieval, and the emphasis upon Political Parties and their organisation, that the role of back bench Members of Parliament has been diminished especially as the government tends to exercise control over the appointment of those who serve on Committees of the House of Commons. This needs to be changed. The involvement of Back Benchers in legislation and Government policies and decisions also requires staff and an office and these should be provided at Westminster. Members of Parliament, almost all, are members of Political parties. I do not support the Tax Payer making any contribution for the day to day expenses of Political Parties. There is a different case for ensuring that private money is not used to buy seats at elections, but this does not mean that the Tax Payer should fund Political parties at election. Tax payer money should be used to ensure everyone has the opportunity to vote and that voting arrangements are fair and not open to corruption. I had intended to comment further about other aspects of the second allowance system and continue the analysis of what individual Members of Parliament have done.
However so much else has been happening that if I do not mention I will forget. First the weather. It has been glorious for two days. As hot as usually experienced in high summer. It has been possible to be out in shirts and trousers without other clothing. I have therefore moved quickly to switching to the inner jacket of my main Winter’s coat, together with its sleeves. I need this with its inside and outside pockets.
This has been an important sporting weekend. Jenson Button won the Monet Carlo Brand Prix. This is usually the most boring of the races unless it rains. The drivers like it because the circuit requires great driving skill and is in a fashionable and glamorous place. Boring however it remains. Jenson Button won and his team partner came second for the third time this season. Even if Jenson fails to score any points in a race he would remain ahead in the as champion driver and then he would could only be overtaken in the next race if he failed again and both races were run by his closet rival, his partner. There is then another huge gap so the third place would have to win all three races and Jenson score only two points or less for him to lose his position. He is not unassailable but his performance has been remarkable.
England trounces the West Indies in the first One day game, although it was officially the second as the first was washed out. The game finished early but large sections of the crowd had got drunk or found other ways to entertain themselves. Durham played Notts today in the first of the 20 20 domestic completion games this season. Notts started badly and then put on 103 runs for the fifth wicket, scoring 163 runs for six wickets which is about 8 runs an over. Durham then had a disastrous start losing two wickets for six runs and four wickets for 27 runs. There was then a fifth wicket partnership of 101, a great coincidence. Durham then collapsed while getting the remaining runs and needed one off the last ball with their last wicket pair. Claydon was the hero scoring a four. Durham should have won more easily but a win is a win and they have won all three of their most recent one day games. Durham play Notts again tomorrow evening, this time at the Riverside and I shall be there, weather permitting.
On Sunday the main sporting event was the last matches in the premiership and which of Sunderland Hull, Newcastle and the Boro went down with West Bromwich. If Sunderland or Hull won their matches they were safe and Newcastle had to win to have a good chance of survival while a win for Boro and they would have an outside chance. All four teams lost and therefore Newcastle for the first time in sixteen years and the Boro for the first time in eleven years, were relegated. However before this happened it was an afternoon of great emotion. Boro equalised after being one down and their position was always the weakest of the four. They went out with a whimper and question marks are being asked about Steve Gibson one of the most loyal and effective Chairman who devoted a great deal of his money and his life to the development of the club and also regarding Gareth Southgate, a young manager who is yet to prove his worth. They are bound to lose their International players and their future even in the Championship must be in question.
It was reported that Newcastle had chances to take the lead and then to level the score after Aston Villa took the lead at home. When the news reached the Stadium of Light there was delirium bordering on ecstasy. For close on two decades Newcastle as lauded it over Sunderland especially when Sunderland were in the third division or when Newcastle was vying for the Premiership or playing in Europe. They had the bigger stadium and the high profile managers of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. They had more high profile players, notably Michael Owen. The difference between the two clubs was however on the field of play where both were rubbish for most if not all the season, but the difference was between the Newcastle owner Mike Ashley may he rot in hell etc is the view of most Newcastle fans, and Nial Quinn the brilliant former player and now Chairman of the Club. Sunderland appeared to be the only team to put up any kind of fight in the last game and came back from being a goal down 1.1 and from being 3.1 down to 3.2. Chelsea who brought their first team with the exception of Frank Lampard were a class act and several notches above Sunderland. They scored two great goal. Although Sunderland lost and saved their place in the Premiership for next season, the great joy was the confirmation that Newcastle had be relegated. The crowd went off home singing in the sunshine and this continued on the bus home.
According to the clock I had just missed the bus on arriving at the station but it did not pass by on the other side for a further five minutes. It then arrived quickly. After the fiasco of the last take the bus trip to the match, I went direct to the High Street stop and was surprised how few individuals there were waiting and that when the bus came after only a short wait it was nearly empty. Everyone had gone to the stop nearest to the stadium and the bus filled up with as many standing as sitting. It was a very happy journey and there were cheers of derision when a few Newcastle shirts were seen as we entered South Shields. The police were in the process of arresting two youth, barely young men close to the former Azda as I reach the area. I suspect this was as much the consequence of drinking quantities of alcohol in the sunshine than anything else.
I saw two films over the past couple of days. Hidalgo pleased with two fine actors Viggo Mortinson, a cowboy and the army despatch rider who delivered the authority for the Wounded Knee massacre. His secret is that he had a native American mother. Omar Sharif replays his Lawrence of Arabia role, this time as an aging head of a race whose passion is breeding horses and winning with his entry in a 3000 miles across desert race to the ocean. Hearing about the boast that the Cowboy is best rider in the world he sends an emissary to invite him to be a competitor in the race. He meets two individuals who are to have a major influence on the outcome of his visit. The first is an Englishwoman who is also a competitor but in league with a relation and rival to the Sheik and who willing to do anything to win including killing the horses of leading rivals as well as their riders.
He also meets the daughter of the Sheik who wants to break with traditions and from a forced marriage for political reasons. She is kidnapped as a way to blackmail the Sheik to give up his horse and the secrets breeding such animals. The Cowboy who under threat because of being found in a misleading comprising situation with the daughter is sent to rescue her and he then triumphs over various obstacles to winning the race.
The film is beautiful photographed and with excellent acting progresses beyond the usual fare. The conversations between the cowboy and the daughter appear authentic about both trying to breakout from the social and traditional confines of their cultures. While is social intimacy and adult conversation about life there is no romance. Their destinies are different. He returns to the USA where following his ordeal in the desert he has accepted his native American background and culture. He releases his horse back to the remaining wilderness and the company of other wild horses..
The second film was very different. A 1970 spy film with George Peppard and Joan Collins called the Executioner. The story has the makings of a good film such as “the Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton and TV series Smiley’s People. The Spy suspects treachery when a ring he controls in a Russia state is killed or are missing and in particular he suspects a colleagues with whom he has a vendetta as the man steals his lover who becomes his wife. Although he still loves the woman, he has a new girlfriend who is able to gain access to closed records of previous situations which have caused concern and where the common denominator is the colleague who seduced his lover. When the spy is contacted by a friend who appears to confirm that the man is a traitor he kills him and with the help of the friend dumps the body in the channel from a light plane. When he is captured by the Russians they convince him that the friend was innocent. Later he learns that the man was a double agent and that his superiors knew and had been feeding him false or misleading information for years. They want to promote Peppard but he feels the whole basis of his beliefs and work has been undermined. They could have stopped the destruction of his colleagues and friends in the Russian state. My problem with the film is George Peppard and Joan Collins who are George Peppard and Joan Collins.
I enjoyed my roast chicken and tined vegetables so much on Sunday that I had a chicken salad for the evening meal after the match and a bottle of Peroni. There was strawberries and melon I enjoyed a sausage sandwich with Branson pickle out in the sunshine on Monday and a prawn salad in the evening with melon. There was smoked salmon on toast as treat at tea time. I also had a Pecan flake pastry twist in the sunshine.
The issue of the expenses of Members of Parliament has centred on the provision of the two home allowance and its misuse. Members of Parliament should either be paid a salary which covers the provision of two homes when the need for a second home is clearly established or should have a second home provided for them provided for them. It should not apply to Members who already have a home in Greater London and represent a constituency. Everyone else is able to get to work, including those who work shifts such as late night, weekends and early mornings.
One of the problems is where Members of Parliament do not live in Greater London or in the constituency they represent. This is a problem if they are married and have a family with work and school commitments which means that partners and children should not be expected to uproot themselves at crucial periods in their respective lives. There is an argument for Members not standing in a constituency which is so far away from their home that they cannot attend properly to their duties which appear to be divided between constituency work and Parliamentary, and under out system, work as part of the Government or in a Shadow Government capacity if a member of a major Political Party.
I would suggest that the first loyalty of a Member of Parliament is to their constituents, and not as a Member of the Government, as a Member of Parliament or as a Member of a Political Party. Their duty on election is to represent all their constituents taking up issues between their constituents and the Government, issues involving local government and issues involving others. There is a need for a staff and an office in every constituency to do this, the number of staff depends on the average volumes of requests for help and contemporary staffing conditions and it is logical that these staff also work and live close to the constituency. They will need to filter referrals which can be dealt with elsewhere in the first instance. Has a matter which involves a local authority gone through appropriate local authority processes? This is an argument for having constituency of the same population size and for varying local staffing levels where the constituency covers a large geographic but sparsely populated area.
Members also have a duty to represent the collective and organisational interests of constituents and this will involve not just the local authority or local authorities, health matters and other official bodies, such as religious organisations, trade interest and voluntary organisations. This may or may not be related to legislation and policies under consideration. The Member of Parliament needs local based staff to establish the extent to which individual representations truly reflect opinion within the constituency. He has a duty to represent local opinion accurately and fairly. This should be the basis of the lower house. The Member will want to engage in publicity about the matters of local concerns and should be trained and provided with assistance in relation to the media.
The second function of the elected Member of Parliament to the Lower House is to hold the executive to account and to participate in the creation of new legislation. There is too much legislation passed, much of it trying to correct the problems of earlier legislation. There is too little evaluation of thee effectiveness of legislation, removing the unworkable and the out of date. It is said that 75 percent of all legislation is now passed in Europe rather than by the Parliaments of individual nations. If this is so then their there is need for fewer Members of Parliament in relation to this role but for the national parliament to review more closely the legislation passed by their European colleagues.
The evidence is that because of the growing role of Government in our lives through the use of electronics, and data storage and retrieval, and the emphasis upon Political Parties and their organisation, that the role of back bench Members of Parliament has been diminished especially as the government tends to exercise control over the appointment of those who serve on Committees of the House of Commons. This needs to be changed. The involvement of Back Benchers in legislation and Government policies and decisions also requires staff and an office and these should be provided at Westminster. Members of Parliament, almost all, are members of Political parties. I do not support the Tax Payer making any contribution for the day to day expenses of Political Parties. There is a different case for ensuring that private money is not used to buy seats at elections, but this does not mean that the Tax Payer should fund Political parties at election. Tax payer money should be used to ensure everyone has the opportunity to vote and that voting arrangements are fair and not open to corruption. I had intended to comment further about other aspects of the second allowance system and continue the analysis of what individual Members of Parliament have done.
However so much else has been happening that if I do not mention I will forget. First the weather. It has been glorious for two days. As hot as usually experienced in high summer. It has been possible to be out in shirts and trousers without other clothing. I have therefore moved quickly to switching to the inner jacket of my main Winter’s coat, together with its sleeves. I need this with its inside and outside pockets.
This has been an important sporting weekend. Jenson Button won the Monet Carlo Brand Prix. This is usually the most boring of the races unless it rains. The drivers like it because the circuit requires great driving skill and is in a fashionable and glamorous place. Boring however it remains. Jenson Button won and his team partner came second for the third time this season. Even if Jenson fails to score any points in a race he would remain ahead in the as champion driver and then he would could only be overtaken in the next race if he failed again and both races were run by his closet rival, his partner. There is then another huge gap so the third place would have to win all three races and Jenson score only two points or less for him to lose his position. He is not unassailable but his performance has been remarkable.
England trounces the West Indies in the first One day game, although it was officially the second as the first was washed out. The game finished early but large sections of the crowd had got drunk or found other ways to entertain themselves. Durham played Notts today in the first of the 20 20 domestic completion games this season. Notts started badly and then put on 103 runs for the fifth wicket, scoring 163 runs for six wickets which is about 8 runs an over. Durham then had a disastrous start losing two wickets for six runs and four wickets for 27 runs. There was then a fifth wicket partnership of 101, a great coincidence. Durham then collapsed while getting the remaining runs and needed one off the last ball with their last wicket pair. Claydon was the hero scoring a four. Durham should have won more easily but a win is a win and they have won all three of their most recent one day games. Durham play Notts again tomorrow evening, this time at the Riverside and I shall be there, weather permitting.
On Sunday the main sporting event was the last matches in the premiership and which of Sunderland Hull, Newcastle and the Boro went down with West Bromwich. If Sunderland or Hull won their matches they were safe and Newcastle had to win to have a good chance of survival while a win for Boro and they would have an outside chance. All four teams lost and therefore Newcastle for the first time in sixteen years and the Boro for the first time in eleven years, were relegated. However before this happened it was an afternoon of great emotion. Boro equalised after being one down and their position was always the weakest of the four. They went out with a whimper and question marks are being asked about Steve Gibson one of the most loyal and effective Chairman who devoted a great deal of his money and his life to the development of the club and also regarding Gareth Southgate, a young manager who is yet to prove his worth. They are bound to lose their International players and their future even in the Championship must be in question.
It was reported that Newcastle had chances to take the lead and then to level the score after Aston Villa took the lead at home. When the news reached the Stadium of Light there was delirium bordering on ecstasy. For close on two decades Newcastle as lauded it over Sunderland especially when Sunderland were in the third division or when Newcastle was vying for the Premiership or playing in Europe. They had the bigger stadium and the high profile managers of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. They had more high profile players, notably Michael Owen. The difference between the two clubs was however on the field of play where both were rubbish for most if not all the season, but the difference was between the Newcastle owner Mike Ashley may he rot in hell etc is the view of most Newcastle fans, and Nial Quinn the brilliant former player and now Chairman of the Club. Sunderland appeared to be the only team to put up any kind of fight in the last game and came back from being a goal down 1.1 and from being 3.1 down to 3.2. Chelsea who brought their first team with the exception of Frank Lampard were a class act and several notches above Sunderland. They scored two great goal. Although Sunderland lost and saved their place in the Premiership for next season, the great joy was the confirmation that Newcastle had be relegated. The crowd went off home singing in the sunshine and this continued on the bus home.
According to the clock I had just missed the bus on arriving at the station but it did not pass by on the other side for a further five minutes. It then arrived quickly. After the fiasco of the last take the bus trip to the match, I went direct to the High Street stop and was surprised how few individuals there were waiting and that when the bus came after only a short wait it was nearly empty. Everyone had gone to the stop nearest to the stadium and the bus filled up with as many standing as sitting. It was a very happy journey and there were cheers of derision when a few Newcastle shirts were seen as we entered South Shields. The police were in the process of arresting two youth, barely young men close to the former Azda as I reach the area. I suspect this was as much the consequence of drinking quantities of alcohol in the sunshine than anything else.
I saw two films over the past couple of days. Hidalgo pleased with two fine actors Viggo Mortinson, a cowboy and the army despatch rider who delivered the authority for the Wounded Knee massacre. His secret is that he had a native American mother. Omar Sharif replays his Lawrence of Arabia role, this time as an aging head of a race whose passion is breeding horses and winning with his entry in a 3000 miles across desert race to the ocean. Hearing about the boast that the Cowboy is best rider in the world he sends an emissary to invite him to be a competitor in the race. He meets two individuals who are to have a major influence on the outcome of his visit. The first is an Englishwoman who is also a competitor but in league with a relation and rival to the Sheik and who willing to do anything to win including killing the horses of leading rivals as well as their riders.
He also meets the daughter of the Sheik who wants to break with traditions and from a forced marriage for political reasons. She is kidnapped as a way to blackmail the Sheik to give up his horse and the secrets breeding such animals. The Cowboy who under threat because of being found in a misleading comprising situation with the daughter is sent to rescue her and he then triumphs over various obstacles to winning the race.
The film is beautiful photographed and with excellent acting progresses beyond the usual fare. The conversations between the cowboy and the daughter appear authentic about both trying to breakout from the social and traditional confines of their cultures. While is social intimacy and adult conversation about life there is no romance. Their destinies are different. He returns to the USA where following his ordeal in the desert he has accepted his native American background and culture. He releases his horse back to the remaining wilderness and the company of other wild horses..
The second film was very different. A 1970 spy film with George Peppard and Joan Collins called the Executioner. The story has the makings of a good film such as “the Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton and TV series Smiley’s People. The Spy suspects treachery when a ring he controls in a Russia state is killed or are missing and in particular he suspects a colleagues with whom he has a vendetta as the man steals his lover who becomes his wife. Although he still loves the woman, he has a new girlfriend who is able to gain access to closed records of previous situations which have caused concern and where the common denominator is the colleague who seduced his lover. When the spy is contacted by a friend who appears to confirm that the man is a traitor he kills him and with the help of the friend dumps the body in the channel from a light plane. When he is captured by the Russians they convince him that the friend was innocent. Later he learns that the man was a double agent and that his superiors knew and had been feeding him false or misleading information for years. They want to promote Peppard but he feels the whole basis of his beliefs and work has been undermined. They could have stopped the destruction of his colleagues and friends in the Russian state. My problem with the film is George Peppard and Joan Collins who are George Peppard and Joan Collins.
I enjoyed my roast chicken and tined vegetables so much on Sunday that I had a chicken salad for the evening meal after the match and a bottle of Peroni. There was strawberries and melon I enjoyed a sausage sandwich with Branson pickle out in the sunshine on Monday and a prawn salad in the evening with melon. There was smoked salmon on toast as treat at tea time. I also had a Pecan flake pastry twist in the sunshine.
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