Dissolve this rat-infested parliament
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 Whenever I have voted I have voted for the Conservative party. However I have never been a member of the party and David Cameron has yet to provide a really good reason why I should vote Conservative at the next election (other than to get rid of Gordon Brown and Labour).
Although I am not a huge Cameron fan, he seems to be coming out of the expenses scandal with his own reputation intact. The same cannot be said for many of his colleagues and if Iain Dale felt "sick to the stomach" by the behaviour of backbencher James Gray (see HERE) I feel far more sickened by the antics of better known Tories, including Iain's former boss David Davis (£5,700 for a portico and £2000 for the cost of "mowing and rolling two paddocks"!!).
Someone (I can't remember who) suggested that what some Tories have done is even worse than their Labour or Lib Dem counterparts because, individually, they are much wealthier. I'm not sure that your personal wealth should influence your behaviour (the same rules should apply to everyone, surely?), but one has to ask what Alan Duncan (who made a small fortune as an oil trader) thought he was doing when he claimed £3,194.50 of taxpayers' money for gardening/landscaping.
Likewise colleagues such as former agriculture minister Douglas Hogg who claimed £2000 for clearing the moat (!!) around his country estate; or James Arbuthnot, Conservative chairman of the defence select committee, who wanted over £1000 to clean his swimming pool; or deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst who claimed £142,119 in second home allowances since 2001 (including "£12,000 for gardening bills at his farmhouse in Essex").
As for Francis Maude ...
As I see it, Labour is now unelectable. The Conservatives will probably win the next election with a sizeable majority. But do we want more of the same type of money-grabbing MPs in charge of our country?
David Cameron appears to be clean. He is in a strong position therefore to clean up both his parliamentary party and British politics. To do so however he has to start now by sacking some very senior figures within his party. It will be a difficult choice because how do you choose between someone who thinks it's OK to claim for 550 sacks of manure and someone who charges the taxpayer for a chandelier? (Sack them all, I hear you cry. Sadly, it's not practical.)
More generally, this parliament should be dissolved as a matter of urgency. Neither the Government nor this parliament has the moral authority to govern our country. Many of our MPs have shown themselves to be rats and we should encourage them to leave the sinking ship as soon as possible.
We need a fresh start: new MPs, new government, new Speaker. Now.
Simon Clark
David Cameron has called a press conference at 3.30pm. You can follow this story on Conservative Home. Could be interesting.
Simon Clark
15:45 "Appalled" Cameron says "sorry" - again. No sackings but shadow cabinet ministers will repay questionable expenses. All Tory MPs asked to pay back "excessive" claims. Those who refuse will be expelled from the party. In future Tory MPs will only be able to claim for basic costs on second homes such as rent and utility bills (no more garden furniture etc etc etc). Full story HERE.
Simon Clark
16:30 Earlier today Commons leader Harriet Harman said that MPs whose claims had broken the rules should pay the money back. Er, isn't that the problem? The vast majority of MPs' expense claims have not broken the rules but they are still unjustifiable morally. Cameron, to his credit, gets this. Harman/Brown don't. Pathetic. Story HERE.
PS: no sign of Cabinet ministers or Labour MPs being asked to pay back "excessive" claims.
Reader Comments (14)
I think that all the people who have been charged and convicted of benefit fraud should now be pardoned and allowed to keep the money they stole from the taxpayer as obviously from the attitude of our "Parliamentarians", stealing money from the taxpayer is acceptable behaviour.
They certainly waste far more than they steal though.
"Hypocracy".
Their expenses should be no more nor less than the average business person can legitimately claim on their company expenses, such as necessary entertainment of clients (although this should have a maximum amount per head), legitimate travelling expenses. Any second home expenses should be means tested, just as many benefits to the man in the street are means tested.
See how they like it then when they 'earn' 50pence a week or month too much to be entitled to an extra £100 per month! If nothing else, it should make the system fairer in the long run for the actual taxpayer!
And, I quite agree, this government need to be despatched to somewhere not too pleasant in the absolute immediate future, not in a few weeks or months! They have bled us dry and continue to do so and are too arrogant to admit to their mistakes and apologise!
Couldn't agree more.
I see that the LibDims have gone up in the publics' estimation now. I would not be at all surprised to learn that they are fleecing us as well. They are all scum, it's just that the Telegraph have printed the stories concerning Labour first, then the Tories, now it is surely time to hear about Clegg's lot.
Get rid of them all and start afresh. No more Labour, no more Conservatives, no more LibDems.
New administration, new rules, renewed confidence in those we pay to serve us.
Amen to that! I wish I shared your view on Cameron but I'm not optimistic that he will be any different. He has only to do one thing to change my view that he is a knee-jerk policitian who is only interested in the popular vote and not in the best interests of the country - ammend the smoking ban!
Who has the power to dissolve Parliament - is it only The Queen and what would compel her to do it? Would she have to wait until GB asked her to do it because he no longer had the authority to govern or does she have the authority to take the initiative?
They are hiding behind our apathy as usuall .
It is the other factions of the establishment that will move in to fill the vacuum.
Without even the percieved support of the population their weak.
I think they're getting really worried. I heard someone on the radio yesterday saying that the expenses scandal had become a 'perfect storm' in the run-up to the EU elections, and all the main parties would suffer at the hands of 'anti-democratic populists'.
I think that meant that if you don't vote Labour or Conservative or Liberal you're 'anti-democratic', and 'democracy' is best served by voting the current crew back into office, and anything else is dangerous 'populism'.
Idlex, I can't think of anything more dangerous than voting this shower of charlatans back into government and voting either of the other 2 parties in would only be marginally better, therefore my belief is we should all go for the 'dangerous populism'!
Well, I'm going to be going down the 'dangerous populism' route, Lyn!
And Norman Tebbit, no less, has been saying on the radio that people should show what they feel by not voting for any of the major parties. "There's nothing wrong with parliament," he said, "Just the people in it." Something like that, leastways.
I'm rather looking forward to this election!
As I said in another thread, I have not voted since 2001, and for several years gained personal satisfaction from resisting my local authority (Trafford) who even sent people to the door to try and get me to sign the electoral register.
About ten days ago I got the form from the Electoral Office so that I could get registered in time for forthcoming European and Local Elections. Like you idlex, I too am looking forward to the results of the European Election.
I have decided not to vote for Lab/Con/LibDem, my first choice being UKIP. I know that UKIP will be on the voting form. Any further elections, local, bi or general, if the only alternative to the 'big three' was Greens, I would soil my paper (which is counted in the returns). If UKIP were not there, but BNP were, I would vote for them, not because I support their radical politics, but because I can!!
Well said timbone, I heartily agree and would vote likewise - UKIP first, and if they were not there to vote for, it would have to BNP. I have your view too on the BNP, I do not agree with their radical policies, by there is no way I could stomach voting the liars and thieves who currently populate Westminster.
It's not enough for them to repay small amounts now they've been caught. They should be treated as THEIR LAWS treat US; anything judged by a trial-jury not to have been "wholly exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of their duties" should be paid back; they should then be subject to criminal sanctions up to and including imprisonment and barred from holding any further public office.
Charlatans and fraudsters. I spit on them.
I absolutely agree Basil, and lets face it, all this now in the media, so and so has voluntarily paid back this amount for his wrongly claimed expense, is only happening because the blighters got caught! If they hadn't been caught red handed, they would still be wallowing in all the money they have been and would still have been, stealing from us on a daily basis!
Yes, charlatans and fraudsters the lot, and, as previously said, Treason should be the charge and the death penalty returned so that they can never sponge off us again.
As for spitting on them? I would waste my time, especially if they were on fire!
Basil, you post on May 13 contains a typing error in the last sentence. Surely it should read "shit" on them!