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The Case of Derek Conway is an interesting one, a man who used his Parliamentary Allowances to pay his two sons, at different times, an income as his “researchers” and it would appear that they did nothing much in return to earn the money. Now that in itself and as every parent of teenagers will attest, is not unusual, at an early age they learn to take the money for cleaning the car but somehow, not get round to performing the service.

However and in this case, instead of stumping up the dosh from his own pocket, Mr Conway claimed the funds as part of his allowances and in so doing, effectively defrauded the Public Purse. After all the recent scandals that have battered the Labour Party concerning “funding issues”, I am sure that it must be quite amusing for them to see a well established Tory MP being caught out in this way. However, there are perhaps more important issues to look at than just this one case which is likely not isolated and there will no doubt be others spread right across the House.

Now whilst it is not for me to judge either the man or the situation because that will be for others however, I do note he has stated that he will stand down at the next General Election, but I do find the overall situation rather odd. I have for quite some time now been convinced that the House should be culled and numbers reduced to around 300 instead of the current 646 and have no problem with the “survivors” being paid substantially more as there will be fewer of them.

I will not digress too much on this particular issue (how many of them) but an amusing speculation given that this ship of fools will pass the European Constitution and therefore make themselves totally superfluous to the needs of Brussels whence 80% of our Laws now emanate from. The consequence is that we should really only have 20% of these creatures left – 129 instead of 646 which might be sufficient numbers to create a rota for them to staff Guided Tours for Tourists most days of the week during the year and them still being able to enjoy long holidays.

Employ Family Members or Not ?

The problem with the current crop of “Professional Politicians” is they will wax long about being honourable men and women whilst missing the point that these days they are just self important artisans no different from newspaper and TV people and as such, practical employment solutions are required. The “should they be allowed…” debate currently going on is frankly daft and whether they decide to employ members of their family, is up to them but with one small difference, we change the way we pay them.

Currently they get a salary of about £65,000 on top of which come various staffing and sustenance allowances which I am given to understand amount to a further £100-125,000 pa. Why not pay them a gross amount of £170-190,000 pa and require them to produce properly audited accounts as any other small business has to ?

The principles are simple and well established :-

Gross turnover less the costs incurred equals net taxable amount. The Inland Revenue will decide whether a wife, son or daughter is actually contributing anything to the ‘business’ and therefore whether any monies paid to them were deductible from the MPs gross income. If they decided not, he would be taxed at his highest rate on his largesse and indeed if it was deductible, whether the recipients tax affairs are in order too. The advantage of this is that it exposes MPs to the real world issues that the electorate face, imposed upon them by these same fools so, they should suffer this too.

As an aside, if MPs had to work like this, can one imagine Peter Hain making the total Horlicks of his election funding as he did ? Might he have been more aware of the potential dangers of being ‘cavalier’ with his accounting ?