MPs expenses: how will politics look on the other side?

By Gabe Trodd

The first four days of revelations about MPs’ expenses published in the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph boosted net circulation of the two titles by around 220,000 copies. Whilst the Telegraph continues to strategically bolster its income and circulation in the name of ‘public interest’, there is a more enduring, political narrative emerging from Westminster’s wreckage. The public fury at the storm of irresponsibility at the heart of our democracy runs deep and the genealogy of the crisis needs to be explored if Labour and British democracy itself is to come out the other side as stronger, more transparent and more inclusive. The current predicament is the Shawshank Redemption, and British democracy will have to be Andy Defresne, crawling to freedom through five hundred yards of foulness.

The last few months have seen the thunderous re-emergence of people-power in the UK and this should be harnessed. It’s up to the Government to provide the mediums to channel the public mood on this issue in a democratic way – to clear the Westminster rot.

However, in the eyes of the general public, Parliament has become a distant, unfathomable and unedifying corporate authority to be resented and fought against, complete with its own bonus-driven, anything-goes culture. In terms of recent events, the scale and tone of the mood of the public is interwoven with both the recession and realisation of the scale and implications of the City’s bankers’ bonus culture (see Sir Fred Goodwin and the G20 demonstrations). In the short-term, the next to face the rejuvenated court of public opinion should be the web of tax havens and tax loopholes, used by the richest few companies and individuals in the country to further their own wealth. MPs’ expenses would pale into insignificance. In the longer-term, I don’t think David Cameron and George Osbourne’s slick, corporate-esque PR machine is the most suitable face of British democracy, in moving forward.

Fraught with emotion over the MPs’ expenses scandal, Tony Benn was interviewed in the BBC news studios on Friday – on a personal level, he quietly restored my faith in the virtues that Westminster can and should have. He lambasted a gross culture that had grown and festered behind the Palace of Westminster’s gates from the seeds of the parliamentary reforms of the 1980s and talked fondly of his time serving his Chesterfield constituents. He recalled an era where politicians themselves bought the stamps on letters to constituents and, touchingly, described democracy itself as ‘precious’.

Constituents need a chance to permanently expel those MPs who are beyond the pale of our political system. But we should also celebrate the politicians who haven’t let us down – step forward people like Ed Miliband and Alan Johnson. If the BNP and similar groups are given a foothold in our democracy next month, the place in history of Westminster’s ‘Punch ‘n Judy’ partisanship and inaction on this crisis, as well as the blanket, hysterical anti-politics agenda of the right-wing media might be a dark one.

From now on, Westminster needs to strive to become transparent, earthy, accessible and inclusive in everything it does – from easily accessible public consultations, more referendums, more direct democracy, published online expenses and lots of chances for communities to come and see first-hand, how Westminster and their MPs works for them. Public discussion and debates should be initiated and our MPs should become honourable role models – organic roses, stemming from the grassroots of our communities, batting for the people they were elected to serve. Ultimately, this crisis and the justified outrage of the public is a chance to usher in a fresh, transparent and people-power driven culture in Westminster and for Labour to reclaim the future.