Government suffer further setbacks

Gordon Brown's beleaguered Government, still reeling from a series of recent embarrassments, has suffered yet another setback as part of its rather hastily-laid out proposed Parliamentary clean-up legislation was defeated by 250 votes to 247.

The rejection of the new law, a defeat described as "scandalous" by a Commons spokesman, would have brought an end to Parliamentary privilege - meaning that recorded Commons debate would become admissable for use as evidence in courts. This would have effectively made it much easier to secure prosecution in "cash for questions" cases, when an MP receives payment from a third party entity or individual outside Parliament in return for asking questions intended to bring benefit to that third party.

The poor old UK Parliament is looking about ready for the scrapyard these days...
Image by Dave_7, taken from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Several MPs have complained that the law could also prevent them from tabling questions related to issues raised by their constituents. Though defeated by a very narrow margin, it will bring further embarrassment to Mr. Brown and his party as it comes so soon after a different section - intended to make the proposed new code of MP conduct legally enforceable - was also dropped. That concession was made shortly after the Government was forced to agree that the Iraq inquiry should be carried out in public, which in turn followed Labour's disastrous performance in June's elections and the publication of details on expense claims which, though damaging to all parties, are particularly problematic for Labour as they have sullied the Government's reputation amongst voters to a greater extent than that of Parliament as a whole. This week, they have also had to change plans to partially privatise the Royal Mail and announce that British citizens will not have to carry compulsory ID cards.

The electorate have expressed widespread and extreme anger over MPs' conduct in the wake of the expenses revelations and the Government are keen on being seen to be doing something about it. Nobody - with the possible exception of those MPs who are now wishing for the good old days when they could live a life of luxury at the tax-payers' expense - has any doubts that new legislation is desperately needed because the Commons has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to regulate itself. Public opinion of the Government is lower than it has ever been and, if that is to be improved, changes need to happen.

However, hurriedly cobbled-together legislation such as this, designed to be rushed through and entered into the statute book in time for the summer recess, is not the way ahead. Haste, according to the old proverb, makes waste - this new bill must be carefully and intelligently thought through in order for the public and MPs alike to be certain that it contains no loopholes and will be effective in preventing the widespread abuse of expenses and other Parliamentary systems that we have seen in recent months.

Take your time, Mr. Brown. We all know you want to get this done as soon as possible so the Conservatives are prevented from stealing any more marches on you, and we all know that you want both yourself and your party to look good ready for the next General Election; but this is more important to the future of this country than who gets the biggest share of the vote next June. This legislation must be as near as possible to perfect - the negative effect on public perception of Parliament created by cock-ups will be far greater than the positive effect of successful sections. We've already seen that many people's disenchantment is so deep that they are willing to vote for extremists, even the BNP, just so long as parties of that type advocate radical change, which a huge percentage of voters believe is necessary if they are not to fall prey to what they perceive as a huge scam ever again.

...But all she needs is a bit of loving care, attention and elbow grease at the hands of Uncle Gordon and she'll be good for a few thousand miles yet.

Image taken from Wikipedia, used in accordance with the GNU Free Documentation License.

For the public, it's a bit like deciding whether or not we need to buy a new car. The kids are telling up to get rid of the old wreck because it keeps breaking down. But you, Mr. Brown, can be the wise uncle who recommends prudence, gets his spanners out and shows us how the old girl can be given a new lease of life. It doesn't matter if getting these new rules right takes until next year, and it doesn't matter if David Cameron becomes the next Prime Minister - you just need to ensure you do get it right and show us that once Parliament's had a bit of a sprucing-up and a few minor tweaks it'll be good for a few thousand more miles.

If you can manage that, we may even look back in a few years time and start thinking you were a great Prime Minister after all. That'll reflect well on the Labour party, which you claim to love, too - it might not be until after a few terms with a Conservative Government, but what a way to achieve immortality.

The Big Fight

George Osborne claimed yesterday that he had been prevented by the Government from seeing the Combined Online Information System database containing details on spending in 12,000 key areas. Shadow Chancellor Osborne says that he made two requests to examine the database but was denied permission on both occasions.

Lord Mandelson has now stepped in, saying that Mr. Osborne must withdraw what he calls a "very serious allegation" which he states is untrue.

FIGHT!

One man is going to be exposed as a liar, but who will it be? Both have a dubious record. "Uppercut" Osborne has been caught up in the expenses row after it emerged that he had repeatedly "flipped" his designated second home, netting himself a cool £748,000 in the process. Meanwhile, "Mangler" Mandelson (we thought about calling him "Marquess of Queensbury" Mandelson, but he has plenty of titles already) has twice been forced to resign after allegations of shifty goings-on and was also caught up in the notorious Deripaska Affair.

TWO MEN, ONE FIGHT. TWO LIARS, ONE WINNER. THE FIGHT OF THE YEAR.

Some MPs wanted fewer edits

A number of MPs wanted to reveal a greater amount of information regarding their expenses claims than was left after the heavy editing to which the details published by Parliament was subject, with a House of Commons Commission spokesperson saying that "You could not have one MP being more open than another, they had all to be the same."

Bob Marshall Andrews, Labour MP for Medway, and chief whip Nick Brown both sought to have redactions other than those subject to data protection laws removed, feeling that this greater transparency would prevent some claims from being misconstrued if the circumstances surrounded them were unclear. However, a look at what has been published reveals that officials responsible for the editing must have got through several truckloads of black marker pens - there's almost as many big black blocks as there is useful information.

The Mother of Parliaments is almost unrecognisable under vast expanses of thick, black ink.
Image adapted from one at Wikipedia, used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation License.

Many people have expressed dissatisfaction at what has been made available, feeling that the Commons is trying to prevent us from getting the full story in a desperate effort to protect what little is left of their reputation following what has become the biggest Parliamentary scandal in many years.

Although MPs have been informed that, should they wish to do so, they can publish further details themselves on their websites, many people are now going to think that those who were prevented from revealing as much as they wished to do were forced to submit to the Commission's will only in order to prevent the electorate from finding out about those members with something to hide.

The days when the British population assumed good faith, and would accept that information witheld by Parliament was held back for reasons in our own best interests, are long gone. On the other hand, if the Government continues to make decisions such as this one and their similar reluctance to hold the inquiry into the Iraq War in public, they will increasingly be less likely to return - so at least some good may yet come of the scandal.

Iraq Inquiry to be public?

Following anger expressed by both opposition parties and campaigners - and just before a possible defeat at the hands of back-benchers next week, something the Cabinet could do without so soon after their recent embarrassments - Prime Minister Gordon Brown has changed his mind over the forthcoming inquiry into the Iraq War and it looks set to be published openly.

Mr. Brown's smile has not been a common sight in recent weeks. Image adapted from one at Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons ShareAlike2.0 license.

Although Defence Minister David Miliband has stated that all but the most sensitive details would be made available, Tory leader David Cameron accused Labour of "an establishment stitch-up." LibDem MPs said they were planning to boycott the inquiry altogether. Mr. Brown faced further attacks from his own party, with Ed Balls saying that he would "prefer it to be as open as possible" and Gordon Prentice (Pendle) saying he was "not prepared to accept a secret inquiry into Iraq." Families of servicemen killed in the conflict have also condemned the decision; Rose Gentle, the mother of Gordon Gentle who was killed by a roadside bomb in 2004 after just six months' military training, says "we have fought and fought for this but it will be no use and it could all be for nothing behind closed doors" and adding that she and others would continue in their efforts to have the inquiry made public.

The inquiry is scheduled to begin next month and is expected to take more than a year to reach a conclusion about the war and the controversial decisions that led to Britain joining it, which LibDem leader Nick Clegg has called "probably the biggest foreign policy mistake that any government has made since Suez."

Mr. Brown has faced increasing demands for greater transparency recently following the MPs' expenses scandal, which led to the investigation into claims made by Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik - which was originally going to be kept secret - becoming a thorn in the PM's side as he was forced to publicise it in order for the electorate to be certain nothing was being kept quiet and nothing untoward was taking place. A No.10 spokesperson has claimed that it was never an "issue of theology" as to whether or not the inquiry would be made publically available - however, earlier statements that he needed to take into account national security and the worldwide reputation of British military are thought by many to be coded excuses for excess secrecy since nobody expects anything other than a version in which confidential data of this type will have been edited out. We'll all just have to make our minds up over whether or not this secrecy was indeed excessive and why it may have been thought necessary, since all we can be certain of is that if there is some information revealing that the war should not have taken place it'll have been removed before we get a chance to see it.

Lord Mandelson - who for all his many faults is perhaps the finest political tactician Parliament has seen in many years (which is why he's still around despite his career having seemingly come to an end on many occasions) - recently made a few suggestions that he felt Mr. Brown needed to take on board if he is to survive as Labour leader. One of these was that the PM needed to start "listening to people," in order to rid himself of his reputation for riding rough-shod over other people's opinions. Could it be that his party's disastrous election results the week before last were enough to make Gordon see sense in Mandelson's advice and decide he'll pay a bit of attention to popular opinion in the future? Stranger things have happened.

Justice for Gordon Gentle