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I have quoted it before but Napoleon’s question to Marshall Ney on the latter extolling a young Cavalry Officer for promotion, still rings true to this day: “Yes Ney, but is he lucky ?”

In this context and despite the recent narrowing of the opinion polls that seem to indicate that Labour is still in with a chance, I never believed them for one minute. Labour just doesn’t have a prayer and the reason is Gordon Brown, surely the unluckiest of all Prime Ministers and for us the luckiest of citizens when he and his Government are no more.

The Latest Twist

Well who would have ‘Thunk it ?’ Three former Labour Ministers, Byers, Hewitt and Hoon all caught up in a Channel 4 “sting” over supposed “Lobbying Roles” for cash at the rate of £3-5,000 a day. Red handed and bang to rights…

Quite apart from the fact that all three are standing down at the next election, it beggars all belief that they were caught in this way considering they were all around during the dying days of the Major Government in 1997 and all the “sleaze allegations” which I am sure they all made great play with at the time. I am sure if they were awake at the time, last year’s “Expenses Scandal” cannot have passed them by silently either. What a bunch of total Muppets !

Brown is Bolloxed Either Way…

As all three of these MPs were really “Blair’s Creatures”, Gordon Brown may well feel aggrieved to be ‘undone’ by them but such is the nature of politics currently, the public don’t listen that attentively whatever the Politicos think so all they will hear is “Labour Sleaze”. I would not be surprised to see that in some strange way, something in the Budget will also come flying back in Brown’s face like a ‘homing turd on steroids’, he is truly that unlucky ! We will most certainly see three political careers end in ignominy, I wonder if Brown will join them or be allowed to slink off quietly ?

On a More Constructive Note…

Leaving aside personal greed and plain stupidity, this incident does show up a major reform that I believe should come out of the MPs Expenses “Scandal” which as I have commented on before, I found hilarious. Although Jaqui Smith’s behaviour and some others on all sides of the House, did demonstrate totally the wrong attitude and regardless of the specific details, the idea of Moat cleaning and building Duck Houses, appealed to me because of its total eccentricity, not very corrupt but terribly English.

Unfortunately and likely caused by an electorate totally fed up to the back teeth with Brown and Labour, the anger and “high dudgeon” that followed have prevented any rational debate of the ‘problem’ and any development of an appropriate resolution. All politicians were, still are, running scared of the whole thing which whilst understandable, is not really helpful, we of these Islands need to come up with a “better solution” to these issues which in some part is the reason for this current ‘scandal’, we need to engineer a sea change in attitudes and expectations on both sides of the fence.

All three of these MPs were ‘standing down’ at the forthcoming election and whilst two may well have been ‘frustrated’ in not getting EU jobs due to Brown. However what is clear is that none of them made “Big Money” during their time in politics. True as former Ministers, it may be the case that their “expectations” compared with normal people have become overly inflated along with their egos but reform is needed in terms of the “politician’s pay package”.

The Cause and Root Problem

Going back over 30 years, no Prime Minister was prepared to openly increase MP’s salary and as a consequence a whole system of subterfuge payments arose which were never going to look pretty when they came to light and hence all the brouhaha.

But there was also another issue, because the House of Commons was a “sovereign body”, MPs were treated differently to the rest of us in terms of their tax affairs, they were self regulating and this has made matters considerably worse.

One might well say that as politicians have surrendered so much power to the unelected of Brussels, they have lost the right to be considered a self governing supreme body in any sense and therefore MPs should be treated the same as the rest of us and herein lies the solution.

Elements of a Solution

All MPs should be paid gross as virtually self employed, the talk of their current salary is nonsense. Take that, add to it all their other expenses and pay them that amount gross and let the Inland Revenue ‘police’ them the same as the rest of us. I would abolish their final salary pension scheme and force them to pay 10% of their gross into a Personal Money Purchase Pension which they take with them on leaving Parliament.

One might consider whether MPs should be time limited in terms of how many years or Parliaments they may serve in – 3 Parliaments or 15 years whichever the longer plus the ability to serve in Parliaments if an elected member would hit their maximum mid Parliament. The Severance Package on completing their maximum term might be a rebate of all personal taxes paid on their Parliamentary income for the previous 12 months.

Peter Mandelbum described the behaviour of Byers, Hewitt and Hoon as “Grubby” and he was right so we need to balance this out. On the one hand we need to ensure that MPs realise that this is “Public Service” that is time limited, part of their life, not a career so that they need to prepare for a life after Westminster by keeping their job skills current plus, we need to ensure that a suitable severance package is in place to cushion their departure.