As I read I wonder.......

..... just what the hell we get for our £165million?

From the print edition of the Daily Telegraph today, 14th February, the following headlines can be read:

"Britain being taken over by militant secularists."
"Brussels threatens pensions and jobs."
"22 hour curfew for Qatada as he is freed."
"No10 powerless in college tsar row."
"Britain in slow lane of global recovery."
"Quango bonuses are fair,says union."
"Elderly care is the great scandal of our society....."
"Public should be charged for freedom of information requests."
"Breast cancer too costly for the NHS."
"Hospital trust counts the cost of translators."
"£1million fund to end blight of binge drinking."
"Women should get time out of jail to see their children, judge rules."
"End of the line for rail firms making millions from weekend buses."
"Hague rules out Syria role for British troops."

There is not one item there that will not involve, in one form or another, the government using our money for finance either now or at some time in the future. I repeat a question from an earlier post, namely where was the element of 'referism'? Where have the people been involved in the decision making for any of the above? Where are examples of any MP returning to his constituents and asking them how they would wish he should vote on each issue? Where, for example, is there any instance of the government asking the people if they are prepared to fund an attempt to end binge-drinking?

If politicians elected to govern, so obviously cannot or will not, why are we paying them £165million per annum? If politicians are able to spend our money, without any recourse to us, why are we paying them £165 million per annum? If politicians, elected to represent their constituents, ignore those constituents and vote according to their principles and views and/or who ignore their constituents by dutifully following the party line, why are we paying them £165million per annum? If politicians obfuscate, lie to us, fail to tell us the truth, trick us, swindle us, and have the morals of a sewer rat, why are we paying them £165million per annum?

The sooner those 'sick' within our society are 'hospitalized', the sooner our country will return to good health.

Just saying................

Question

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 The correlation twixt this and this, is?

Just asking................

A political deficit of self-governance - where MPs are concerned

Member Allowances Committee: The formal minutes of the Members' Allowances Committee list only the various formal decisions and other proceedings of a formal nature. They are not a record of all the discussions which may have been held.

Members Estimate Committee: The Members Estimate Committee considers matters relating to MPs pay and expenses insofar as these are covered by the Members Estimate. From the start of the current Parliament, responsibility for Members' expenses has been transferred to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). The Members Estimate Committee has the same membership as the House of Commons Commission.

House of Commons Commission: The Commission is responsible for the administration and services of the House, including the maintenance of the Palace of Westminster and the rest of the Parliamentary Estate. Once a year the Commission presents to the House for its approval the 'Estimate for House of Commons: Administration', covering spending on the administration and services of the House for the financial year. The Commission meets approximately once a month in Speaker’s House. The Commission provides the non-executive governance of the House by Members, but it does not manage day to day operations. It has delegated this power to the senior officials who make up the House of Commons Management Board. The Commission is not responsible for expenditure on Members’ salaries, pensions and allowances.

Committee on Members Expenses: The Committee on Members’ Expenses is established under Standing Order No. 152G (as amended on 7 July 2011). Its role is to consider matters relating to Members’ expenses referred to it by the House.

Standard & Privileges Committee: The Committee considers reports from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, oversees his work and recommends any changes to the Code of Conduct or to the rules relating to the conduct of MPs, and inquires into matters relating to privilege that have been referred to it by the House.

Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority: The Speaker’s Committee considers the candidates proposed by the Speaker, following fair and open competition, for the posts of Chair and members of the IPSA. The candidates for these posts are then approved by the House of Commons and appointed by the Queen. The Committee also reviews the IPSA’s annual estimate of the resources it needs, in order to ensure the estimate is consistent with the efficient and cost-effective discharge of the IPSA’s functions, before the estimate is laid before the House by the Speaker. The Committee has a membership of 11. The Speaker, the Leader of the House of Commons and the chair of the Committee on Standards and Privileges are ex officio members, and five further members of the House of Commons are appointed by the House. In addition, three lay members are to be appointed by the House of Commons following fair and open competition. A lay member is defined under the Act as a person who is not, and has never been, a member of either House of Parliament. Lay members have not yet been appointed. The quorum of the Committee is three. (Emphasis mine)

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA): IPSA was created by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 and was tasked with bringing independent oversight and control over MPs’ expenses. IPSA put in place new rules which are a clean break from the past. IPSA operates transparently by regularly publishing details of MPs’ expense claims.

Notice anything about the above? No doubt readers will have 'got it in one'. They all comprise MPs, or appointees of MPs, who decide their (MPs) pay, pension, the money required to maintain them (in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed), their 'standards' of probity and behaviour, the 'rules' under which they operate, whether they are guilty of any breach in those 'standards' - and it is all done 'amongst themselves', without any agreement, or consultation, with those that provide the monies required.

The best condemnation of the Expenses Scandal was summed up by Simon Carr in the Independent of 22nd June 2009 when he wrote that the cost was nationalised and the profit was privatised. He also proposed what is perhaps the most obvious system to negate all the problems - and public expense - caused by the foregoing committees and what are quangos. On the basis that it is well known that  Legislators can make language mean what they want it to mean it has to be asked why we, the public, allow our politicians to 'self-police' and to self-decide what they should earn and what pension they should get, what expenses they should receive, how much their food and drink should cost them, etc. No statutory code, or set of rules, drawn up by those that will 'benefit' is worth the paper on which it is written!

Where politician's 'expenses' are concerned, why not one website on which everything is recorded - and let those who provide the funds for that be the judge? Where MPs salaries are concerned, why not one website containing any requests from MPs for a 'raise' - and let those who will be providing the funds be the judge? Why not one website on which the costs of 'Parliament' are provided and let those whose money provide for that decide what is and is not 'acceptable'. I believe all that to be part of the idea of 'Referism' proposed by Richard North. 

The foregoing negates the need for legislation, quangos, complex bureaucratic structures, summonses and appeals, interminable consultations. It puts scrutiny in the hands of the people, it devolves power to the people - which after all is what politicians maintain they wish to do. Above all, it ensures the participation of the public in politics - something that is missing at present and about which all politicians complain (tongue in cheek?).

There is another - one might say overriding reason - for the change I suggest and that is where politicians present any scheme covering their personal income or behaviour, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will already have found a way round it!

Just saying................


With acks to Stuart Wheeler: "A Crisis of Trust"

A small point......

.....that has come to light is MPs whose websites now carry advertisements, examples being Douglas Carswell and Christopher Heaton-Harris.


As it is fairly certain neither would respond to me, my not being a constituent, perhaps one of their constituents would care to question what fees these advertisers pay; if one is being accepted; if accepted to whom does that fee go?


I have to question the ethics of a Member of Parliament's website, funded by the state or privately, carrying any form of advertising, whether paid or unpaid and whether surreptitiously or not 'pushing' a government policy. If it were not for their positions in our society they would probably not have the readership that they do and probably may not have secured any subsequent revenue stream.


Just saying.......................




Update: An email correspondent has forwarded two screenshots which show how Carswell's and Heaton-Harris' blog appears when viewed in Spain.

(Click on screenshots to enlarge)

One wonders if these MPs are aware of this and feel that it is acceptable their sites carry adverts for dating Chinese girls or news about vacancies in another land?

Should either of them arrive at this blog, perhaps they would let me and my readers know how they feel about this subject - and perhaps they would answer the question I posed?

Who to believe: Vaz or Straw?

Only yesterday when posting about a parliamentary debate I pointed to Keith Vaz complaining that MPs are so busy they do not have time to deal with matters EU. Well, well, today we have Jack Straw complaining that MPs have little legislation to consider and that they need some meat to deal with. One's first impression is that one of the two is telling porkies, however on reflection it is possible that both may have opened yet another Pandoras Box.


Some MPs, like Vaz, are it seems extremely busy with the promotion of themselves, whilst also following Ronald Reagan's maxim for all that is wrong with 'government', namely that if it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it and if it stops moving subsidize it. Straw, it seems, wants more time to do just that. Odd that ministers felt it necessary to state that the Commons has a 'balanced diet' when it is widely known that they dine extremely......oh sorry, just noticed the additional words: 'of business'. On the other hand, if MPs have time to debate bills as ministers maintain, why is it necessary that time constraints are imposed? If Vaz is correct, then what are these other matters of such importance that limits his time? If Vaz is so busy with these other important matters, what is Straw not doing that he should be doing? Perhaps both could make their diaries available for public inspection?


If Straw is correct then the reason is obvious - with more and more areas of government being ceded to Brussels it stands to reason that there will be less and less for our politicians to do. In which case perhaps our MPs could debate the subject of their own existence and whether they are in fact necessary. Perhaps MPs could debate the cost/benefits of our membership of the European Union? Perhaps MPs could debate the question of treason and whether charges should be brought against those politicians that have routinely denied the British people a say on our membership of the European Union? Perhaps MPs could debate the question why we have so many quangos and advisory bodies advising them, yet maintain that they, the politicians, are the only ones capable of deciding important matters of state. Perhaps MPs could debate whether our system of representative democracy is in fact fit for purpose and the benefits people might gain by a change to direct democracy and referism? There is so much MPs could do, but don't!


Even better, when not inside the House of Commons, perhaps our MPs would just keep quiet?

Chips in a tower

The Daily Telegraph reports that MPs have been complaining about the standard of subsidised cuisine afforded them in the House of Commons. One of the complaints was in respect of how their chips are served and that it would be preferable if they were served in 'a tower'.


Well I for one would like to see all the MPs in a tower - The Tower of London!


Just saying....................

Whaaat?!

It would appear from this report that MPs are suggesting that those of us who enjoy the 'fruits of the vine' or 'the hops from the fields' should have two 'dry days' a week.


What rings the proverbial alarm bell is when one reads that "few people understand what constitutes an alcoholic unit, the basis of the drinking advice, and tell ministers that the guidelines do not seem to change behaviour."


And we all know what follows when guidelines don't change behaviour, don't we?


Any MP that tells me that I need two 'dry days' a week will promptly be introduced to a lamp post - his feet won't touch the ground!

MPs to revert to 'playing the violin' again?

Christopher Hope, Daily Telegraph, writes about the latest report from the Committee on Members Expenses.

The chairman of the committee has the downright effrontery to say that the present system is 'damaging democracy' and that ipsa should be stripped of their powers.

And that, Mr. Afriyie, is exactly how we, the people, view MPs!

Now, if our democracy was based on 'Referism' and 'Direct Democracy', the problems about which Adam Afriyie (a multi-millionaire to boot) complains would not have arisen in the first place.

Just saying......................

A credibility gap

Subrosa posts questioning the apparent lack of gravity in the platitudes paid to our military dead by the leaders of our political parties in the House of Commons. I, too, feel that these expressions of regret and sympathy have become routine and are now uttered with the same degree of intonation as might be the latest trade figures. That these announcements of those who fell are so closely followed by the 'Cameron/Miliband Show', in which the two participants trade what amounts to schoolboy insults, further undermines the solemnity due to our fallen.

This leads one to question whether when MPs talk about, for example, the plight of the poor or the pain felt by consumers with rising energy bills, they actually mean it. Why is it that when an MP raises the plight of one of their constituents at PMQs invariably it is done in such a manner as to make a political point?

That Subrosa is moved to raise her concerns, as I am to raise my questions, just demonstrates the nadir to which politicians have sunk in pursuit of their careers.

Just saying.........

Coup - look at this!

That our Parliament, MPs and democracy is a sham behind the facade of which the first two condone, through what can only be described as a Quisling attitude, the undermining of the third, is ironically on show today.

Item 1: Today's Order of Business in the House of Commons contains a debate the EU budget for 2014 – 2020. The European Commission has called for a 5.9% increase in 2014-2020, but the BBC reports that the Treasury has estimated this amounts to an 11% increase on current contributions, thus increasing the UK’s annual contribution to the EU by £1.4 billion. The Commons will also debate a Treasury proposal to object to the EU’s proposals on capital requirements for credit institutions and investment firms, as it proposes maximum limits and wouldn’t allow the Government to impose additional requirements on UK banks. For our 'sovereign' Parliament to spend a maximum of 1½ hours debating the first matter - plus the additional time for the second - when, whatever their decision, they cannot affect any budget increase, or any change to capital requirements, proposed by the EU Commission only bears witness to the truth of the statement contained in the first paragraph of this post.

Item 2: Ian Parker-Joseph, in his post today, also illustrates the sham that our Parliament and MPs have become when he homes in on the editorial in today's Daily Telegraph which highlights the creation of what IPJ correctly calls a Politburo. David Cameron and George Osborne have been adamant that the eurozone countries should come together to resolve their problems - and that suggestion is, I would aver, about to come back and bite them.

Not known much is the fact that the The Lisbon Treaty, in addition to expanding qualified majority voting (QMV), substituted the current voting weights in the Council with new ones based on the population sizes of the member states. These new rules are not yet in force – coming into force in November 2014 (with an option for a state to request a vote follows the old rules until April 2017 - an option the UK may well take). In addition to changing the voting weights, to the benefit of the larger more populous states, the rules also reduce the qualified majority required to pass an EU law from 71% to 65%. These two measures mean the UK will no longer be able to muster a blocking minority with the help of smaller non-eurozone states when the 17 eurozone members vote as a 'caucus', as they surely will do. Under the new rules a group of states needs votes from countries representing 65% of the EU population and the eurozone as a whole already have 66% on their own, giving them a permanent inbuilt majority.

So our self-proclaimed voices of sovereignty wasting 1½ hours of their time - although it could be said that, besides wasting all of their time, they are a complete waste of time - discussing aspects of our governance over which they have no say is indeed ironic, but at the same time extremely sad to witness.


Update: IPJ also Mary Ellen Synon who gives further proof that the EU stinks - an aroma that is now permeating our own government!

How much? You cannot be serious!

Two articles, one in the Guardian and the other in the Daily Telegraph, report that our elected dictators are floating the idea, once again, that their parties should be financed by the public, this time to the tune of £3 per vote. It would appear from Lord Feldman's quoted remarks in the Guardian that this money is required to allow political parties to engage with the electorate. The only problem with that idea is the public obviously don't wish to engage with those that Feldman represents - so why the hell should the public pay? From the House of Commons Communications Allowance Booklet it can be seen that they already receive an allowance, upto a maximum of £10,000, to cover costs incurred engaging with the public.

I think the phrase 'Foxtrot Oscar' is more than appropriate in response to this latest proposal!

Afterthought: And there are those amongst us who believe we should not rise up and slaughter these bastards?

Culling, a humane act

It is generally agreed that culling of sick or surplus animals is a necessary act, in which case the culling of MPs can likewise be logically justified on the basis that they too are sick and surplus to requirements. Nothing illustrates this more than two news items today, one involving David Cameron and the other, Chris Huhne.

David Cameron: Fifteen days ago we were informed that The Prime Minister’s office secretly commissioned its own legal advice on the Agency Workers Directive, which concluded that the impact of the new laws could be moderated. Today we find that contrary to what Downing Street intimated, the legislation will be implemented as originally intended, even though lawyers have stated that the original Directive has been 'gold-plated'. So yet another 'U' turn - unfortunately time does not permit the listing of the others........

It would appear that the comments of The Boiling Frog, to which I linked in this post were most definitely 'right on the money' - take a bow, TBF.

Chris Huhne: In his short speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference he made various assertions - and those on climate change and the environment I leave to fellow bloggers who are far more qualified than I to pass comment. Suffice it to say that his facts on energy bills did not seem to ring true, something confirmed by FactCheck who tweeted that they too smelt a rat and were in the process of checking*. I wish to comment on the tail-end of that speech in which, like Cameron, he exhibited that air of disingenuousness of which politicians are so adept.

Huhne stated that the EU is the key to our prosperity and that the eurozone takes half our exports, which seem to be odd and incorrect facts especially when one bears in mind that the euro, the chosen currency of the EU, is about to implode and also when doubts exist about the true level of exports. He also appears to have forgotten basic geography when he declares that the UK is part of Europe. Europe is a continent bordered by seas, oceans and the continent of Asia and one of those seas/oceans separates the UK from the continent of Europe. Stating "that is why we must always work with our partners in Europe – and more widely – to secure our objectives, nowhere more clearly than on environmental issues" belies the fact that we have no alternative but to work with our partners in Europe. Berating those who insist that only they have the answers one has to ask whether he has looked in a mirror lately? From Alex Singleton: "You may recall that this is a politician who sat on the Green Fiscal Commission, which demanded higher energy prices. Now, in front of the Lib Dem conference, he is criticising energy companies for not cutting them". Finally, in respect of wrecking common purpose, is that not the aim of all clear-thinking people?

That Cameron and Huhne, to name just two out of 600+, are sick; are liars; and are not therefore to be trusted, means they are surplus to requirements - and in this age of austerity, one in which savings have to be made, can happily be culled.


*Update: FactCheck have now reported and it shows the rat has ratted!

MPs shocked at electoral plan

The Guardian reports that MPs were shocked at revelations encapsulated in the proposed plan to make voter registration one of choice, rather than being compulsory as at present. So they should be - and would be if I had my way; they would be provided with 240 volts on a continuous basis until such time as they begged to be allowed to grant a referendum on EU membership - but I digress.

We have Roger Mortimore from pollsters Ipsos Mori warning that the poor, young and ethnic minorities may be disenfranchised by these plans. Well stap my vitals - or as dear Anthony Aloysius Hancock used to say, stone me - we can't have the downtrodden ethnic minority section of our society disenfranchised, what ever next?

That 10% of the electorate may then not be included in voter registration is another example of smoke and mirrors. Looking at voter turnout since 1945 until 2010, it peaked at 83.9% in 1950 and between 1945 and 1997 it remained in the 70% region. It then plummeted to 59.4% in 2001 (so the first 4 years of Blair wiped 12% off the figure of those voting) and in 2005 and 2010 steadied in the mid 60% range.

So between between 1997 and 2010 approximately 35% of the electorate either registered and did not bother to vote or some registered and some didn't. In any event, who is to say that this 10% about which MPs are getting in a tizzy is not already part of the 35% who chose not to vote?

The interesting statistics are those for the estimated turnout by age from which it could be surmised that the poor educational system we have had for the past few decades has not equiped some of those eligible to vote with the necessary ability to know what an 'X' is and where to put it - but again I digress.