The Culture Secretary’s options are now very limited.
It makes no sense to task IPSA with recommending a plan, and then to reject it when they produce one.
The Cities of London and Westminster MP makes the case for the body’s MPs’ pay proposal.
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. At first glance, there only a loose connection between an inflation-busting 12 per cent pay rise for MPs, which apparently will be announced today, and Ed Miliband's wish to bar Labour candidates at the next election from outside earnings of more than £10,000 above their MP's salary. The pay […]
After the expenses scandal broke, David Cameron was skewered by the Morton's Fork of having to choose between the voters and Conservative MPs. The former wanted the latter to return public money; the latter believed that their claims had been correct, and that for them to be compelled to make repayments was unjust. Many were […]
IPSA has cost the taxpayer well over £6 million, has consumed well over half a million pounds in lawyers' fees and spin doctors, and does a nice line in furniture. It wasn't needed in the first place (the Fees Office was in good order once it had been purged and had its rules tightened following […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. This morning's Times (£) reported that David Cameron, John Bercow and Andrew Lansley have "paved the way for new rules governing the heads of select committees" in the wake of the Yeo controversy. The paper also claimed that Select Committee chairmen themselves want changes, naming Keith Vaz, the Labour […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. I ask the question simply because I argued yesterday morning that they should be barred from having such interests – at least, if they clash with their role as Chairmen – and have yet to hear a good reason why they shouldn't be so banned. Can anyone offer one?
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. There are two conflicting ideas of what MPs should be. The first is that they should be citizen legislators, who are thus free to earn and work outside the Commons. The second is that they should be professional politicians, who are not – and are thus dependent on the […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. In an attempt to learn from what James Surowiecki calls "The Wisdom of Crowds", I asked yesterday on Twitter what difference a statutory register of lobbyists would have made to the Patrick Mercer case. The best answer I got was, first, that Mercer would have checked the register and, […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. My mother's father and brother were both professional soldiers. My grandfather survived the First World War more or less unscathed, but my uncle was not so fortunate during the second: he lost the use of a leg, and the partial use of an arm, at Anzio. Then again, fortune […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. It was the visit to Eastleigh that changed my mind about the right of recall. The notices tacked up on front doors – sometimes sealing letter-boxs, to prevent material coming through them – read: "NO MORE ELECTION LEAFLETS, PLEASE, or NO LEAFLETS. I AM NOT VOTING, or variants on […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter In my sole venture into school drama, I played Arthur, "a very junior Home Official official", in Tom Stoppard's New Found Land. I might otherwise have been cast as an Parliamentarian in the two-part play between which it is sandwiched, his Dirty Linen: indeed, the play boasts no fewer […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter There’s a small item in today’s Sun that ought to make big waves. It concerns the subsidised food and drink in Parliament, and how certain politicians are working to block price rises. Apparently, MPs are insisting that the costs remain frozen, for reasons including that, “breakfast in the Commons would […]
That’s to say, we need proper open primaries, a robust right of recall, fewer MPs and Ministers – and the Commons controlling its own business.