StephenTall.org

What’s the correct response to the news that Lord (Chris) Rennard has been cleared by the Clerk of the Parliaments of any wrong-doing over his allowances claims? I ask because I think there are some important issues at play here for how we, the Lib Dems, as a party can help restore trust in democracy. First, [...]

All this week, LDV has been compiling a full list of the findings of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiries into MPs’ expenses as they related to the Lib Dems’ 63 MPs. We are adding to this list as information is received by us or published elsewhere. We now have information on around two-thirds of the Parliamentary [...]

PoliticsHome (yes, I’m still reading it, despite everything) published an interesting poll today, taking the temperature of public opinion on MPs’ expenses, post-Legg: … [the poll] suggests that more than half the population believes the recommendations were ‘not tough enough’, 57% have ‘no sympathy whatsoever’ and 60% are as interested in the story as they ever [...]

On Tuesday, LDV began compiling a full list of the findings of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiries into MPs’ expenses as they related to the Lib Dems’ 63 MPs. We are adding to this list as information is received by us or published elsewhere. We understand the party’s whips office has recommended all Lib Dem MPs [...]

The south-west’s Western Morning News has the report: A WESTCOUNTRY MP has told an official inquiry into the Parliamentary expenses scandal that politicians should be able to profit from their taxpayer-funded second homes. North Devon Lib-Dem MP Nick Harvey made the case in a six-page letter to the Committee on Standards in Public Life which has received more than 700  [ Read More ]

Nick Clegg has today penned an article for The Daily Telegraph urging the Labour and Tory parties to take action to reform Parliament in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Here’s an excerpt: The new political season is beginning. Spring and early summer were defined by the expenses scandal, but what will the autumn be like? Will demand for  [ Read More ]

Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack – the grandees’ grandee – isn’t alone in thinking MPs are under-paid. The Times recently reported (under the oh-so-impartial headline, 'MPs hijack expenses inquiry with complaints and demands for pay rise') that Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life inquiry into Parliamentary standards has been inundated with MPs' responses including demands - especially from Tories - that their pay be increased. The debate has been well-rehearsed. Gone are the days of amateur MPs, men with means who could afford to regard being elected to Parliament as their public duty and/or an amusing hobby. Paying members of Parliament is an essential pre-requisite of a democracy of all the talents. How much they should be paid inevitably plunges you into the murky realms of envy, greed and compromise. On a rational supply and demand basis, it is perfectly obvious that MPs should be paid not a single penny more. Political parties in winnable seats have no problem in finding candidates: more people want to do the job than there are vacancies available. It’s an employer’s market, and in this case the employer is the taxpayer: why should we cough up more cash?

Nick Clegg has been putting the quiet days of summer to good use, attracting considerable media coverage. Yesterday saw the launch of the party’s pre-manifesto A Fresh Start for Britain. Today Nick fired a broadside in the Telegraph against Labour for failing to address the real problems underpinning public anger over the MPs’ expenses scandals: If you had said to  [ Read More ]

Here are the allegations, as summarised in a Lib Dem press release issued this afternoon: George Osborne used his second homes allowance on a London property and then switched it to a large farmhouse in his Cheshire constituency of Tatton. He bought the Cheshire residence ten months before he won his Tatton seat in 2001. Instead of taking out a  [ Read More ]

Even to suggest today there are 2 Big Stories other than The One Big Story seems a trifle daft – the news that spread late yesterday evening of the death of Michael Jackson has dominated, and will continue to dominate, news coverage this weekend. RIP the ‘King of Pop’, of course, but spare a thought, too, for Farrah Fawcett, whose  [ Read More ]