Expenses – they’re still at it

By James Valentine

Sir Christopher Kelly’s report, out this week, sets out a view of how MPs’ expenses should be dealt with in the future. There have already been angry reactions to his recommendations from some MPs. I think the problem for the public isn’t so much the (rather boring) detail of how our representatives get paid as much as their pronouncements about the issue, and what’s revealed by them.

I’ve just had another look at this wonderful video clip of Eric Pickles, back in March, making a twit of himself on Question Time. The discussion was ostensibly about MPs’ second homes. But what makes him look daft was his apparent insistence that, as an MP, he needs special arrangements to get to work on time. For ordinary mortals, he implies, it doesn’t matter:

One would have thought that our politicians have learned their lesson about incautious media reactions to the expenses issue, but no.

Step forward, David Blunkett.

Writing in the Guardian, he is “mystified” by the Kelly report because it “misunderstands the nature of an MP’s job”. MPs who need to split their time between Westminster and constituencies, he says, have a “disrupted life”. Blunkett admits that the life of an MP is not quite as tough as a miner or steelworker but he refers darkly to the number of by-elections that used to be brought about by MPs’ deaths. What killed them? “It was the hours”, apparently. And under the Kelly regime, without wodges of cash to support them, he implies that the Grim Reaper will strike their ranks again.

One response to these poor souls who find their lives so tough is to say, move over, guys, there are plenty of other candidates who would do your jobs without complaining.

And there are still many unanswered questions for me about how some of those who are supposed to represent us actually get so cut off from everyday life.