The expense claims of many Labour MPs are unforgivable does any of them know what the parties about?

Clause IV – Aims and Values

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service. Wikipedia.

Oh but I forget Blair ditched Clause IV back in 1995 I guess we should have seen the writing on the wall – well at least on the back of our membership cards where clause IV was printed. It was replaced with:

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect. Wikipedia.

All reference to workers and common ownership erased. And to those who say

It’s hard, however, not to agree with the actor Stephen Fry, that the blizzard of petty corruption revelations, orchestrated by a newspaper whose owners live in tax exile in the Channel Islands, has got out of hand. We shouldn’t confuse wisteria claims, he suggested, with “what politicians get really wrong, things like wars, things where people die”. Compared with the revolving door deals, which have propelled 28 former New Labour ministers into lucrative corporate jobs on the back of their Whitehall connections, and who then help bid for government contracts, MPs’ expense fiddles are small beer indeed. Nicholas Watt, The Guardian.

No it is very hard to agree with Stephen Fry – the greed of expense claims made by many Labour MPs shows what little regard they hold for Labour values – it’s time for them to resign: in fact it’s time for a general election.

We’ve had revelations about the exorbitant expense claims of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs but are there any MP’s who haven’t taken advantage? There must be some.

I’ve heard some describe it as small beer – and anyway don’t we all fiddle our expenses? To be honest I’ve never been in a position where I could claim expenses – how about the stationary cabinet? Haven’t we all taken a few pens over the years? You know I’m not sure that’s the same – I’d have to steal a hell of a lot of pens and to be honest I can’t remember the last time I used a pen from the stationary cabinet – personally I use a fountain pen and you won’t find ink in the stationary cupboard these days – you know this is off the point – one person doing something wrong is no justification for others wrong doing.

Well the MP with the lowest expense claims for 2007-2008 according to the BBC is Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering at just £47,737 although £22,999 of that is for the ubiquitous second home allowance – still that’s considerably less than the £187,334 that Eric Joyce, Labour MP for Falkirk claims. So a quick scan of the figures reveals that no, perhaps there aren’t any good MP’s.

Chris Dillow has an excellent post on MP’s salaries.

It’s insufficiently appreciated just how well paid MPs are. Their annual salary is £64,766. According to the IFS, a single person on this income is in the top 3% of earners. If he has a partner earning £30,000 a year, this couple is also in the top 3% of household incomes.

If a single MP claims £20,000 for waxing his drawbridge on top of this, he enters the top 1% of earners.

Even if an MP has a non-working partner and four children, his salary, plus £20,000 of second home allowance, puts him in the richest one-fifth of households.

Even if we concede that an MP works longer hours than average and look at hourly pay, MPs are still better off than most – in the top quartile for single persons.

However you cut it, then, MPs are unrepresentative of their constituents in terms of earnings.

What could justify this?

The Times argues that MPs should be paid £90,000 a year – similarly to GPs or head-teachers. This, I think, is mistaken. It takes years of experience and training to become a GP or head-teacher. No such qualifications are necessary for MPs. And GPs and head-teachers must exercise considerable judgment. MPs don’t. As Alice Miles writes:

With honourable exceptions — Labour’s Frank Field particularly stands out– MPs do little to apply any individual thought to the legislation before them…Watch an MP go off to vote: he will ask colleagues en route how they are supposed to be voting on this one.

So how should we pay MPs? Much of their time is spent dealing with constituents’ housing or immigration issues. Which suggests they should be paid like social workers. And the average social worker earns less than £30,000.

Yes, MPs should get more than this to reflect the fact that most of them must incur the expense of a second home. But the idea that they are under-paid now reflects, I suspect, the media’s “middle England” fallacy – the mistaken belief that high incomes are far more common than they in fact are. Stumbling and Mumbling.

I like Chris’ thinking, especially if you’re a social worker – linking MP’s salaries to social work will lead to some hefty wage rises in the sector.

Politics tests character, often to destruction. The character of some ministers, their shadows and MPs of all parties has been wrecked by ­exposure of their ­expenses. How can those caught pilfering from the public purse denounce benefit fraud? How can those with state-purchased silk cushions support the cash-limited social fund that denies beds and blankets to families sleeping on bare boards? MPs with fingers in the till will blush to justify paying the unemployed £60.50 a week to live on. Nor can they rant convincingly at City greed or tax-dodgers fleeing to Guernsey.

The one character who has been tested to final destruction is Gordon Brown. The music stopped on his watch, first for the economy and now MPs’ sleaze, for which the government of the day takes most blame. Labour used to lay claim to higher moral ground, while the right always said greed was the motor of growth. When he first talked of his moral compass, Brown should have cleaned up party funding, MPs’ expenses and honours – and linked these reforms with curbs on the power that money breathes over the nation’s affairs. The expenses mess would not be fatal if the prime minister were upright and strong. But Labour is already ­dangling over a cliff, and this affair prises its fingers off the edge.

It’s all over for Brown and Labour. The abyss awaits. As long as he remains leader, there is nothing that wretched Labour candidates can plausibly say on the doorstep at next month’s European elections. They are struck dumb. Why should people vote for them? The horse manure bought on expenses is garnish for a decomposing government. The heart of the matter is the economy, and Brown’s responsibility for the bubble years. He personally is to blame for Labour’s failure to ensure that ordinary people on median incomes and poor people at the bottom received a bigger share in national growth: it turns out that they fell back and only the wealthy prospered. Labour made the rich richer and the poor poorer: growth for the few, not the many. Polly Toynbee, The Guardian.

I find it impossible to disagree with Toynbee’s analysis, but who should succeed Brown? Toynbee believes it should be Alan Johnson – I’m not so sure, but I don’t have a better idea- anybody else got a better candidate?