Where were you when the UK government imploded?

There is probably not a reader of this column who has not been part of a ‘where were you when?’ conversation. Where were you when Nelson Mandela walked free? When Princess Diana died? When the Twin Towers crumbled?

The last few weeks, in the UK, has been a ‘where were you when’ sort of time. Events have not been as dramatic as the assassination of JFK, but rather a slow build-up towards a ‘where were you?’ crescendo that is on its way.

This accumulation has concerned the revelations by the Daily Telegraph about UK members of Parliament’s (MPs’) expenses. The culmination will, at the risk of making wild predictions, be the collapse of the once dominant Labour Party of Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown. The process will reach its pinnacle when Labour loses the general election next year.

The revelations of how MPs from all parties have used expense accounts have been damning. MPs can claim expenses for costs of running a second home because most have to live in two places, that is, in their constituency and also in London, to attend Parliament. MPs can claim up to £24 006 (in 2008/9) for this ‘additional costs allowance’. They can claim things such as mortgage interest payments on second homes and utility bills. However, officials have allowed MPs to claim for furnishings, maintenance and food. Until recently, claims up to £250 did not even 
require a receipt.

The most shocking claims have included a claim for £1 645 for a ‘duck island’ (a little wooden house where your ducks can sleep, if you are wondering), expenses to clean a moat around a large house, £1 000 for the removal of ivy from a wall, household maintenance and refurbishment worth thousands, new toilet seats, trees, bath plugs, trouser presses, TVs, carpets and mock Tudor beams, not to mention all sorts of food claims.

What is even more worrying is that an array of politicians have engaged in ‘flipping’. This is the process whereby they claim one house as their second home, carry out necessary maintenance and refurbishments, and then flip to their ‘first’ home, claiming it then as their second home. Expenses for that property then follow. Other politicians have been even more crooked, claiming mortgage interest for properties on which they no longer owe money, and couples who are politicians claiming for the same property.

MPs, however, argue that their claims are, generally, within the rules. The rules, however, state that costs can only be claimed for those “incurred . . . wholly, exclusively and necessarily to enable” them to “stay overnight away from my only or main home for the purpose of performing” duties as an MP. But anyone can see that MPs have been using allowances to literally feather their nests, increasing their property values and lowering their daily expenses through having their grocery bills supplemented. Are such claims necessary to perform governmental duties?

Of course, not all politicians have been engaged in such practices, although most must have known about the system and its excesses. A number of ‘more guilty’ MPs have resigned. Others are attempting to pay back some of their extravagant claims. But even in making these repayments, most seem to continue to miss the point.

Many persist on defining their repayment as a benevolent gesture for an error in judgment that took place within the context of the rules. But, to the person in the street, this just smacks of insincerity because everyone knows the rules have been abused. There is the letter of the law, but then there is the spirit of the law. The actions of many UK MPs are, at best, ‘generally corrupt’, and, if such actions took place in Africa, no one would hesitate to condemn the whole system as endemically corrupt.

So, my MP friends, where will you be when the UK government comes crumbling down? Cleaning your duck pond or down on your knees begging for forgiveness?

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on  12 June 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.