Peter Kenyon

Tory whip: no lashing for MacKay

Why is Andrew MacKay still a member of the Parliamentary Conservative Party? In the wake of right-wing media criticism of Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a lack of leadership over the Parliamentary Allowances scandal, what does this tell us following the suspension of Elliot Morley ex-Labour MP for Scunthorpe from the Parliamentary Labour Party?

Top Tories 'to pay back expenses' - check small print

The BBC website headline is grossly misleading.

All shadow cabinet members who have had their expenses questioned will repay some of the money, the BBC understands.

Note the word 'some'.

Repayment: an honorable litmus test for Labour MPs

An honorable start has been made by a small number of backbench Parliamentary Labour Party members to help restore trust with their constituents. These include:

Margaret Moran MP for Luton South is reported to have agreed to repay in full money claimed on her Southampton home, some 100 miles from her constituency.

The Press Association reported that said she was repaying the full amount claimed for the house in Southampton that she shares with her partner as a result of "constituents' anger at the current fees regime".

Her husband works in the south coast port.

Meanwhile in the North, the Newcastle Journal reports:

Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell apologised to his constituents for using allowances to buy furniture for a second home in London, which he moved into around five years ago.

He declared: “I am very sorry, I shouldn’t have claimed for it.”

Neither featured yesterday in the PoliticsHome 100 'Sleaze Meter' poll.

The reputational bar was raised for the 'flippers' - MPs making capital gains from exploiting the current  Parliamentary Allowances regime for second homes - by  Labour MP John Mann, who has spearheaded calls for expenses to be reformed. He has been widely reported warning in a thinly disguised reference to Labour cabinet minister, the right honourable Hazel Blears MP:

'I tell you what: any Labour MP who isn't paying capital gains tax should not be a Labour MP.

Tax avoidance in the Labour Party is unacceptable.' 

Personally, I am not impressed by Conservative Party leader, David Cameron's bravado in reportedly threatening to withdraw the whip if excessive claims are not repaid.

I think the first test should, rightly, be individual conscience. That will help both the electorate and local party activists decide what sort of person they are either voting or campaigning for as their representative in Parliament. Action to deal with those sitting Labour MPs who fail it should follow swiftly, irrespective of whether they are seeking re-election. It is less than 3-1/2 weeks until the Euro-elections.

That is why I think Moran and Campbell deserve a modicum of respect. The real hero of the whole sorry tale is Moran's constituency neighbour Luton North MP and Campaign Group stalwart, Kelvin Hopkins - his home is in Luton and he commutes to London daily to undertake his parliamentary duties.

UPDATE 1400 For a peek at the Opposition see what ConservativeHome addicts are saying here. Note the centrist personalised headline. I wonder if we, in the Labour Party, can be more democratic?

LATEST: The government wins all its Commons votes on reforming MPs' expenses

That's the BBC headline on the main BBC News home page, not mine. In the interests of balance the BBC reports that:

The Conservatives said it was a "tragedy" that there had been no nationwide reform to second homes allowances, which have been the subject of controversy in recent months.

I don't recall any workable proposals being made on second homes allowances by the Conservatives.

Furthermore, can anyone tell me when the Commons would have voted on the MP expenses issues now resolved, if Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has not intervened?

Time to rally round Brown, and reconnect with voters - update

Speculation about a stalking-horse to run against Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes me think it is time to rally round our Leader. I was asked on Sky TV the day Mr Brown announced on You Tube his commitment to reform of MPs expenses what I thought. Without any briefing to shape my reply, I said repeatedly I thought it was the right thing for a Prime Minister to do, when it was so obvious that public hostility to MPs' extravagent and inappropriate expense claims had to be addressed.

There may be disagreements about defining out of town MPs legitimate expenses and how they should be reimbursed. But there shouldn't be any doubt that MPs living in easy commuting distance should not be entitled to a second homes allowance, or that incomes from other employment should be declared in full or that MPs office staff should be direct employees of the House. Indeed, the Conservative front bench is reported here as supporting all those parts of the Prime Minister's proposal.

And for the avoidance of doubt was the interim per diem allowance such a bad idea pending the outcome of the inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life? Given that the House will be in recess most of the time before that Committee reports, MPs would not be eligible for the allowance as soon as the long, oh, so long summer recess starts, anyway. Though I am assuming Sir Christopher Kelly is going to get on with taking evidence and making recommendations sooner rather than later.

Mr Brown should be given full credit for having forced a vote on those issues now. We in the Labour Party, especially on its National Executive Committee, should be mapping out how we can use this initiative, the introduction of the 50p tax rate, imminent withdrawal from Iraq, and the forthcoming Euro-elections (amongst other things) to reconnect with Labour voters. How else are we going to reverse an 11-year trend in declining membership and win back millions of voters?

Personally, I hope that the Chief Whip's office is lining up Labour ministers and any Labour MPs seeking re-election, to repay taxpayers' money that the court of public opinion regards as 'larding it'. Voluntary repayments by any other member of the PLP (not covered above) would be widely welcomed as a means of restoring our elected representatives' sullied reputations.

Update 1236 - apparently David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party has bottled out of supporting the PM over second incomes. Hat-tip Labourboy

How to cut the Tories campaign funds - Click early, click often

According to the Guardian the Tories have bought up Google adwords to direct traffic to their much sought after views on Alistair Darling's 2009 budget.

So Google: Budget

Or click here

Then enjoy costing the Tories everytime you click on their ad in the right hand column. Let's see if they have set a Google Ad budget limit.

Budget illustrates growing Labour/Tory divide

Alistair Darling's 2009 budget helped offer voters a clearer choice between Labour and Conservative. The country goes to the polls in less than two months to choose its representatives in the European Parliament. This is usually an opportunity for the electorate to kick the government of the day. On 4 June a more serious electoral challenge looms. Should we the people indulge ourselves and put a smile on the face of the anti-Labour, xenophobic, anti-European media? Or on reflection, is this the time to take a more considered view and give the  Labour the thumbs up?

For all their bluster just what would the Tories have done? Who cares that borrowing is the highest since World War II? What matters is whether there would be even more people out of work as a result of the reckless behaviour of some bankers, if our Labour government had not stepped in. More journalists should be demanding answers of the cynical Conservatives.

Tories demand support for bank lending, silent on risk rewards

Telling isn't it. Conservative Home is whinging about just how many times they have demanded loan guarantees for bank lending from the Labour government, but is completely silent on the issue of executive pay for bankers.

I'm not opposed to the state guaranteeing bank loans or even setting up a state-bank (though I would prefer a people's bank as it's the people's money that would be used to capitalise such an institution). But surely there has got to be a fundamental reassessment of rewards/remuneration and their relation to risk-taking.

No banker requiring government guarantees for its loan book can be worth more in income terms than say the Prime Minister. Pay cuts for bankers would help their banks recapitalise more quickly too.

Nudge, nudge - PM said thinking about £10k tax threshold

The ruling Labour Party's NEC (as a whole) may be in the dark about the state of its own finances, its National Policy Forum may have been banned from discussing tax policy last July, so it's a relief to read courtesy of headline skimmers, fellow bloggers traced back to an exclusive in the Daily Mirror that Labour leader Gordon Brown is thinking about taking those paid less than £10k a year out of tax.

A healthy open debate in the Labour Party would have come to a similar conclusion a long time ago as a policy goal, as it did about the minimum national wage. The Conservatives shroud waving over that issue - unafffordable, loss of jobs, end-of-world - was shown to be ....just that....shroud waving. Now is the time to get a national debate going over what is a living income after tax - £10/annum tax-free seems an excellent headline catching starting point.

Recent banking developments are a vivid reminder of why it's ok for a political party in government to be able to maintain a degree of independence from the toil of ministers when it comes to shaping policy ideas. The party on the ground (as we rank-and-file members like to think of ourselves) are not there to be trodden into..the ground..but to help shape groundswells of opinion around Labour policies inspired by Labour values. When everyone in the country is either earning, receiving or being encouraged to aspire to a living income, then we will have a Labour Party worth voting back into government.  I can't think of anything more likely to mobilise people back into membership of the Labour Party and them wanting to be active.....appeals to vote Labour to stop the Tories or the BNP are not enough. We need a positive message too - a living income fits the bill. 

Saving the world banking system - Hansard's version

Yesterday Conservative members of parliament mocked Gordon Brown, the British ruling Labour Party's leader, for answering a question at Prime Minister's question time. Their normal tactic is to accuse him of not answering at all.

As promised in my post yesterday  here's the Hansard account: 

The Prime Minister: The first point of recapitalisation was to save banks that would otherwise have collapsed. We not only saved the world— [Laughter . ]—saved the banks and led the way— [ Interruption. ] We not only saved the banks— [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

The Prime Minister: Not only did we work with other countries to save the world’s banking— [ Interruption. ] Not only did we work with other countries to save the world’s banking system, but not one depositor actually lost any money in Britain. That is the first thing. The second thing is to get the banks into a position in which they can resume lending, and that is why interest rates have come down by 3.5 per cent.—something that the Opposition said was not possible, but which actually happened. The third thing to do is to work to remove all the barriers to interest rates and to the lending of money by the banks, and that is what we are doing in discussion with the banks now. The Opposition may not like the fact that we led the world in saving the banking system, but we did.

Quite so.