‘Why are they picking on me?’
So, much too late Sir Thomas Legg’s report into MPs’ expenses is released, and it’s far gentler than it would have been had it been written by the average tax payer.
Still, it points out that the nation’s lawmakers abused the system, wrote the rules to benefit themselves, intimidated the civil servants they hired to run the lavish expenses system they created, and, in general, behaved like tinpot dictators in their own third-world government.
And we let them get away with it.
With typical stiff-upper-understatement Sir Thomas writes of a ‘flawed’ system, in which MPs could submit expenses with no receipts or underlying evidence, and receive thousands of pounds without question. A system in which the taxpayer became the Bank of the British Parliament, and a very generous bank at that.
A system in which MPs allowed themselves more in expenses each year than the average British worker earns in wages.
Of the three MPs and one lord now facing criminal charges, The Centrist’s favourite was MP Jim Devine, who bewailed his innocence and said with bewilderment, ‘I don’t understand why I was picked on.’
If it ain’t fixed…
What Sir Thomas didn’t say in his report is that this flawed system cannot be fixed. It cannot be fixed because the people who made this flawed system still run the flawed system and still benefit from the flawed system.
And never in the history of mankind has somebody who benefits from a system altered it in a way that made sure they could never benefit from it again.
So the problem is not the expenses system. The problem is the entire governmental system of this nation.
Britain has no true balance of powers. And that is where it all went wrong, and where it will always go wrong.
Who is going to overlook a revamp of MPs expenses to make sure that MPs follow the same rules the rest of us do?
The unelected lords? The Prime Minister (who is the head of the party in power)? The still shaky legged and fawn-like Supreme Court (also made up entirely of lords)?
When the people’s representatives are grifting the system, who protects the people’s treasury?
One nation, under the thumb
The British parliamentary system is designed to give one party power over all elements of government in every inch of this nation. From London to the Outer Hebrides, from a tiny town in Surrey to central Liverpool to rural Yorkshire, with minor exceptions of rebellion easily quashed or out-manoeuvred, whichever party is in power holds all of the cards.
They are judge, jury and executioner on all issues.
The SNP has a bit of power in Scotland, but if the party in charge in Westminster turned off the cash flow, they wouldn’t last five weeks. So they only rebel so much.
A conservative council in the southeast will talk a good game, but they still must meet targets set by the party in power in London, and when their conservative constituents aren’t looking, they all quietly step to it.
Absolute power, absolutely
The question is, what can we do?
How do we get ourselves as taxpayers in the position to redesign this government so that one house of Parliament really does balance the other? So that the Supreme Court is supremely independent and can act as a counterweight to the government in charge? So that there is an executive branch independent of the parliamentary and judicial branch to provide a third balance in a delicate triptych of power?
Given what such an elegant system would do to the British tradition of ‘to the victor goes the spoils’, The Centrist does not believe that any political power with any chance of ever being elected would ever agree to enact such a system.
They would be too unwilling to give up the tantalising possibility of absolute power, should they win an election.
Absolute power with all that such power implies. With all the damage it could do to their immortal soul… and how much fun would that be along the way?
If they won’t do it, and we, the taxpayer can’t make them, what will happen?
Get to work, Dimblebore — you and all of your ink-stained friends
Well, this is where the media comes in.
This is where the Fourth Estate gets off its Docklands barstool and pulls its own weight for a change. This is where the media learns there’s more to a job at a national newspaper than good Christmas parties and junkets to Thailand.
There’s a price to pay.
It’s time they put their necks on the line and took real chances in the names of the people they write for. It’s time they started educating and protecting, and quit pandering to the lowest common denominator among their readers.
The press should begin a national discussion about the British governmental system. What works and what doesn’t. And how it can be adapted to the age in which we live.
How to extricate the royal family from its historical role completely.
How to ensure a balance of powers within Parliament to prevent corruption and to protect the people from their duly elected MPs.
In order to make Britain a healthy, empowered democracy.
It’s time.
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