Take Back Power

Any regular readers might note that I have resisted the urge to weigh-in on MP's Expenses. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, I'm not sure that there is anything further to add to the debate and secondly when it's all you hear on the news and read in the paper this sort of thing very quickly becomes quite boring. However, there is one point I feel really needs to be made.

Over the last few weeks it has been made clear to the public that a number of MPs have been on the make, exploiting the expenses system to work to their benefit. Some MPs have treated their allowances like a target to be reached, claiming tens of thousands of pounds of money from UK plc. The minimum that an MP will receive as an annual salary is over £64,000. They will earn even more than this if they are on a committee or if they have a seat on the cabinet. Expenses are then paid on top of all this which means that an MP can earn very much more than their basic salary while average earnings in the UK are less than £25,000. With a high proportion of people earning very much less than this it's no wonder that the public are so infuriated

However, it is also important to remember that out of 646 MPs in UK Parliament, the Telegraph have named only 169 (which includes some MPs that no longer hold a seat in Parliament). This means that there are still well over 400 MPs that have not been singled out - probably because any expenses claims that they have made are entirely appropriate and unremarkable. It is also worth remembering that of the 169 named MPs, very few have actually broken the expenses rules. I'm not saying that it's morally acceptable but I am saying that it is understandable. Don't agree? Let me put it to you like this:

You start working for a new company and are told that you can claim expenses for certain items that enable you to do your job - fuel and stationary perhaps. To begin with you claim only for those items that you purchase that are related to you carrying out your duties until... one day, chatting with a couple of your colleagues they point out all the things that you can claim for, and indeed, lots of other employees already claim for. So your choice is this: do you continue to claim only expenses relating to your job or do you start to claim everything you can? Some paper here, staples there, a bit more fuel that you actually used for work... it's not right and I'm certainly not condoning it, but it happens and thousands of people do it and get away with it.

Of course, they aren't claiming £30,000 for gardening with £1600 of that for a 'duck island'!

Essentially, the point I'm making here is that people can be relied on to behave like people, not angels. At the end of the day, many people enter politics on a truly alturistic basis. They want to make a difference and they want that difference to be positive. However, we can only rely on people to behave like people and people lie, they steal, they cheat and they look after number 1. We can't count on anyone (including ourselves) to be whiter than white but that's what rules and laws are made for; to discourage us from doing things we ought not to. The same goes for the government. There are more than a hundred MPs that have made ridiculous expenses claims, but they have been able to do so because the rules are not good enough and they have been able to get away with it because the oversight is not tough enough.

That's why I am supporting the Liberal Democrat Take Back Power campaign. The people of the UK need a government that works for us, not for the financial gain of its members. We need proper oversight and we need proper representation. Labour have proposed no serious changes to the rules - they would like the status quo to remain so that they can keep their fingers firmly in the cookie jar. The Conservatives have proposed only the very weakest of reforms that will make no real difference to the people of this country.

The Liberal Democrats' Take Back Power campaign aims to reform the expenses system in full, ensure the public have the right to sack any MP that has been suspended for misconduct, reform the outdated House of Lords, reform party funding so that the government can't be 'bought' through party donations, introduce fixed term Parliaments, reform the electoral system so that each vote really does count and change procedure to reduce executive power. More detailed information can be found at http://www.takebackpower.org/.

It is important that we take the opportunity NOW to press for true electoral reform rather than letting the government get away with a continued abuse of power. Therefore, I urge everyone to take a stand and sign the online petition. It's time to make our voice heard.