Some MPs not just greedy but criminal

The expenses scandal has shown that lots of MPs a greedy, keen to maximise their expenses. Some MPs, however, are not just greedy but criminal:

Jim Devine MP is a Criminal

There is overwhelming evidence that New Labour’s Jim Devine MP is a criminal who has produced faked receipts for almost five thousand pounds.

The Herald has been doing an excellent job of digging in to Devine’s expenses. Last week they uncovered a “receipt” he submitted for 2157 pounds for rewiring. The company name, address, postcode and VAT number all proved bogus.

It could have been that Devine did pay for the work, and was given a fake receipt. But that seems less likely given this week’s revelation. Devine claimed 2326 pounds for 60 metres of shelving at his constituency office in Blackburn, West Lothian.

Just think how much 200 feet of shelving is. A huge amount. About 2,000 books worth. But the Herald says that there is no shelving at the constituency office.

Greedy behaviour is to a certain extent excusable; we all care about looking after our own interests. But fraud is something else entirely. Whether it’s non-existant mortgages, MPs employing their children to do jobs that involve no work, or fabricating fake receipts, where there is evidence that an MP might be a criminal, that evidence needs to be brought before a court to let the jury decide if the behaviour constitutes a crime.

New opinion poll puts Labour on 16%

An opinion poll suggests Labour will get 16% of the vote in the European election on Thursday. The full figures are:

CON 30 LAB 16 LD 12 UKIP 19 GRN 10 BNP 5

My gut feeling is that while Labour will get more than 16%, they will probably get less than 20%. My reasoning is that the got 22% in the 2004 Euro election, and are less popular now than they were then (the year later they went on to win the general election, something they would certainly fail to do now).

Nigel Griffiths claimed £3600 for a TV

My MP, Nigel Griffiths (Labour – Edinburgh South), claimed £3600 for a TV for his London flat. But the Fees Office refused to accept the claim:

When his £3,604.99 claim for a television, DVD and digital radio was queried, he wrote: “As a Scottish MP, I can only keep in touch with events during the day, which might affect my constituents, by tuning into the Scottish radio stations which the digital set provides.

“Likewise, I record the Scottish TV news and Scottish current affairs programmes, which feature issues in Scotland and in south Edinburgh. In a cramped London flat, flat-screen TV is the sensible option.”

Unimpressed, the fees office wrote back four days later to tell him it had not changed its mind: “Whilst we understand your explanation for the need for the purchase of these items, it is the level of your purchases that remains under question. “An amount of £3,604.99 is not considered to be an appropriate use of public funds when other more reasonably priced options are available.”

I’ve just had a look on Amazon.co.uk, and they do a 19″ flat screen TV for £194. Of course, they also do much larger flat screen TVs, but you wouldn’t want a big one in a small flat, would you? I wonder what Griffiths did — did he walk into a shop and ask “what’s the most expensive TV you’ve got, ‘cos I’m buying it on expenses?”

Edinburgh South is one of the most marginal seats in the country — Griffiths’ majority is 405 — and this is got going to improve his changes of retaining the seat.

Open letter to Alan Johnson

Since everyone seems to be giving politicians advice regarding the constitutional crisis, I thought I’d have a go, in an open letter to Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Health, who recently called for a referendum on proportional representation.

Dear Alan Johnson,

On the 4th of June, Labour will probably do badly in the European election. In fact, they are likely to do worse than the 22% of the vote they got in the 2004 European election; if this happens it’ll be their worst result in a nationwide poll since the 1910 general election. This will make it even more likely that the Conservatives will win the next general election. The last time they won power, they held on to it for 18 years. I’m old enough to remember Thatcherism and I have zero enthusiasm for a repeat performance.

The Times: Johnson should lead Labour

The Times thinks Brown should resign or be removed as prime minister, to be replaced by Alan Johnson, who should then call a general election:

[The Cabinet] could choose action. This would involve a Cabinet minister (or ministers) resigning, voicing in public the frustration with Mr Brown’s leadership that is common currency among them. Senior resignations would trigger a leadership contest that, with the slightly mysterious emergence of Alan Johnson as the likely winner, would lead in short order to a general election.

Voters don’t buy Cameron’s rhetoric

I’ve written before that I’m extremely sceptical of the reform package offered by David Cameron. Well guess what? The voters don’t buy it either:

David Cameron yesterday called for a ‘massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power’ in the country, arguing that it was time for citizens and parliament to claw back some control from the state.

But the public are highly sceptical over whether he would be quite so bold if he actually became Prime Minister.  Overall, a strong seventy per cent majority felt that Cameron’s actions in office would be more cautious than his recent speech suggests.

Under a quarter (twenty three per cent) reckoned that he would carry through with such a radical redistribution of power.

The only group who felt that Cameron would live up to his words on gaining power were Conservative supporters, and even these only by the slender margin of fifty four to forty four.

(via Liberal Democrat Voice)

Israeli settlements on the West Bank

Clinton says no more settlement building:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said there must be no exceptions to President Barack Obama’s demand that Israel stop its settlement activity. Correspondents say it is the first time in years that US officials have been so vocal in calling for a settlement freeze in the Palestinian territories.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with her Egyptian counterpart, Mrs Clinton said that the president was “very clear” with Benjamin Netanyahu at their recent meeting that there should be a stop to all settlements. “Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions. We think it is in the best interest of the effort that we are engaged in that settlement expansion cease,” Mrs Clinton said.

Netanyahu disagrees:

Israel is to continue construction inside existing Jewish settlements, an official said today, despite a clear call from the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for a halt to all settlement growth.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said today that “normal life” would be allowed to continue inside existing settlements, which included new construction such as enlarging homes and building schools to accommodate growing families.

I wonder who will blink first. Probably Netanyahu, because Israel is dependent on American military and diplomatic help, but the USA isn’t dependent on Israel for anything. Obama has evidently calculated that he can win a confrontation with Israel — or to be more precise, a confrontation between the US presidency and AIPAC — which is why he’s pushing this now, and if he doesn’t blink, he will.

It may be, of course, that Netanyahu’s defiance is merely pro forma talking tough to appeal to his domestic audience, and that he intends to do what Obama wants, provided he is pushed strongly enough on the issue.

Labour and proportional representation

There’s speculation that Labour might introduce PR. Just over 5 years ago (on 11 May 2004, to be precise) I predicted, on my old blog, this would happen. Here’s what I said:

Proportional Representation for Westminster

I think the government may well introduce proportional representation for elections to the UK parliament. Here’s why…

Labour will likely win the next general election, expected to happen in 2005. Although Tony Blair is looking tarnished, not to say dishonest and untrustworthy, the Tories still haven’t shaken off the image of being the “Nasty Party” which has hurt their popularity from the early 1990s. Also, the electoral system is working in Labour’s favour — if Labour and the Tories each get the same number of votes, Labour will get more seats (and will quite possibly have an overall majority in the Commons). And the Tories are starting from a low point: 2001 was one of their worst elections, and they have a lot of ground to make up.

Then there’s Michael Howard. He’s improved the Tories’ fortunes since he took over as their leader last year, but he is still a figure from the past, associated with Thatcherism — something many voters haven’t forgotten, and which Labour’s election strategists are capitalising on.

For all these reasons, I expect Labour to win in 2005, albeit with a reduced majority. But what about the election after that, which will happen in 2009 or 2010? By then, it’ll be two decades since Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister; some voters won’t have been born when she was in power, and many votes won’t remember her. The Tory benches will be full of fresh faces, who will have been elected for the first time in 2005. They’ll probably have a new, fresh-faced leader, who will appear a refreshing alternative to Labour (which by this time may be led by Brown not Blair).

So, what’s a ruling party to do? If Labour look set to lose the 2009/2010 election, they could change the electoral system. PR is already used in many UK elections, for example to the European Parliament, for the Scottish, Welsh, Northern Ireland, and London assemblies. By 2009 it will perhaps be in use in local elections in Scotland. If Labour introduce PR for Westminster, they might do a backstairs deal with the Liberal Democrats to enter a coalition with Labour after the election (it’s likely that between them, they’ll get more votes than the Tories, and probably an overall majority, if past election results are anything to go by).

A Gordon Brown who has just become Prime Minister in 2007, and is looking at opinion polls predicting a Tory victory in the next election, might find PR very appealling. Certainly more appealing than the prospect of going down in history as a half-a-term Prime Minister, a footnote on the Blair years.

Jackart on constitutional reform

Jackart has published a response to my constitutional reform proposals:

This blog has a view on the voting system, which is much the same as its view on everything else: If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

I agree with that motto. But the system is broken. People feel disenfranchised. They feel parliament is remote, unresponsive to their concerns. They think politicians only care about themselves. They felt all this before the expenses scandal, which brought their anger to the boil because politicians were blatantly taking the piss with their claims for non-existant mortgages, their duck islands, their moat-cleaning, their £2600 TVs.

Anger over expenses isn’t the problem, it’s just a symptom.

The expenses scandal was not as a result of a voting system;

It was in part. Statistics show that MPs in safe seats were more likely to fiddle their expenses. Therefore if there were fewer safe seats, there’d be less troughing.

it was a symptom of a culture of entitlement amongst Parliamentarians. I think they’ve got the message, and an election under the current rules would suffice to clean the worst of the stink.

Yes, but to make a long term change you have to change incentives. People respond to incentives, not to exhortations to behave better. (What’s more likely to reduce car theft: the chief of police appealing to thieves not to steal so many cars, or car manufacturers fitting anti-theft devices?)

Without changed incentives, in a few years’ time, politicians will be back to their old ways again.

For supporters of electoral reform must first demonstrate that the system is fundamentally broken, rather than in need of a few running repairs. Does anyone think that the landslides in 1983 and 1997 did anything other than accurately reflect the public mood? Has any really unpopular government won a big mandate without the support of the people?

Under FPTP a government could come to power if 2/3rds of the voters vote against them (Labour won on 35% in 2005). There’s no such things as “the support of the people”, because the people aren’t one big undifferentiated mass.

Can the country get rid of a Government they don’t like? Yes.

Can the country get rid of a government the majority don’t like, if a sizable minority (40%) do like it? No, as Margaret Thatcher showed in the 1980s.

For in Britain, the coalitions are within parties, not between them. This means that the voter knows in advance what a Government led by one or other of the party leaders will look like. They may think they’re all shit, but at least they have the option to vote for the least smelly turd.

I’d like the voters to have a meaningful choice between more than two parties, so I can vote for someone who isn’t a turd at all. For example, the Pirate Party or Libertarian Party might well, under a PR system (or even AV) turn into credible organisations worthy of my vote.

By joining a party, you accept to some extent that you will not agree with all the policy they come out with.

I’d be happy to join a party who represents my views. The Labservatives don’t, and given my experience of the last 12 years of Labour and before that 18 years of the Tories I have zero confidence that either of them could run a whelk stall let alone a country. Both are stupid and nasty. Labour are bigotted against the rich (hence 50% income tax), and the Tories are bigotted against the poor (hence whatever shite they will come up with if they win the election, shite that’ll pander to anti-poor prejudice but will do nothing to fix the real problems with the benefit system).

Furthermore, without money, and lots of it, you don’t stand a chance of breaking through in a small party- only someone as rich as sir Jammy Goldsmith can influence elections from scratch.

You would do with a different electoral system.

You may argue that many people live in “safe seats” or may be forced to vote tactically in order to achieve a “less bad result” , but whilst this is frustrating, by definition a majority of people in a given area are happy with the chap they’ve got representing them,

This is only true if >50% vote for him.

Proportional representation by party list is an abomination.

Agreed. I am against list systems.

It enshrines parties in the constitution, with the result that party machines choose the representatives, not the voters.

Same as FPTP, then.

The varying forms of Single Transferable vote

(all forms of STV are essentially the same, bar a few administrative details)

are supposed to be “fairer” to parties whilst eliminates the party list element by retaining the concept of voting for an individual. The level of proportionality depends on the number of members in the constituency and the exact formula by which the votes are transferred.

True.

There is the additional problem that parties will have to consider the tactics of who to put up – do you put up a full list, and risk the vote being split between candidates,

No. With STV (or AV), splitting the vote isn’t an issue. That’s in fact the whole point of both systems. I don’t think you understand STV well enough.

Finally there is the AV plus system, also known as Instant transfer voting,

Hold right there. You’re confusing AV with AV plus or (AV+ for short). AV is known in the USA a “instant runoff” voting, a better name in my opinion. AV isn’t a proportional system, but AV+ is. In my original proposal I called for AV, not AV+ but the proposal would work just as well with AV+.

which seems to mean ranking the candidates and then eliminating the possibilities one by one and transferring votes to other parties. I just cannot see how that would make any difference to the outcome in the vast majority of constituencies, except that it would mean that the Labour party and Lib dems would happily give each other the 1 and 2 slots, thus guaranteeing centre left Governmnet for ever.

Only if that’s how the voters voted, in which case it would reflect public wants. (It’s not obvious to me that the voters would vote that way — for example I’d be inclined to vote Lib Dem 1, Tory 2, and Labour 3, if given a choice between those three)

Labour and the Liberals just want to change the rules because they’re losing, and that smacks of sour grapes.

Of course. And Cameron wants to keep FPTP because he thinks he’ll win under it.

My favoured solution (which I blogged a year ago) is that the Crown would be the repository for a petition, which when it reaches a certain number in a set time, would cause the Queen to dissolve parliament.

That’s a good idea.

FPTP is supported by the people, who basically couldn’t care less so long as they can get rid of the rotters, should one Government lose their trust.

It’s reasonably likely there will be a referendum on PR. If there is, I think the majority will vote for it: most people who support the Lib Dems or one of the smaller parties such as UKIP, Greens, BNP, etc will favour PR. Most Tory supporters will vote against. And most Labour voters will vote for PR, since they would prefer a minority Tory or Labour government to the near certainty of a Tory government under FPTP.

PR for a multi-party society

Fifty years ago , the UK had two big political parties, Labour and the Conservatives, each of wihch were supported by about 50% of the population.

That situation no longer holds, fewer people feel alliegasnce to either of the big parties, and in the last nationwide elections held under PR — the 2004 European elections — Labour and the Conservatives got less than half the vote between them.

We now live in a multi-party society. And while FPTP might have made sense half a century ago, it doesn’t now:

Academics talk about a thing called the “effective number of parties.” In the UK, we have an ENP in Parliament of 2.5 but an ENP in terms of vote share of 3.6. That is an alarmingly high missmatch and as the disparity increases the chances of no-overall control increases accordingly. If the ENP in terms of vote share reaches 4, according to Josep Colomer anyway, “maintaining a majority rule electoral system would be highly risky for the incumbent ruling party” – essentially they lose any real claim of having a mandate (see Helen Margetts’ chapter on Electoral Reform in Unlocking Democracy for more on this). If an election were held tomorrow, it would almost certainly push us over ENP 4. In 2010 it may well happen anyway.