We're looking for a Mumsnetter to represent us at a 'News Comment Special' about MPs' expenses

robes - I shuddered at the linking of them.....

Though you might get flustered and arse-lick in error.

PDubya - do you get expenses? Or a cream bun?

Whilst I do imagine many MP's will have made valid claims, I think what has annoyed me is the snivelling apologies that have ensued. All the MP's seem so shocked and horrified at the revelations. Yet it was they who bought the kitchen/tv/moat and so it seems odd they would be surprised.

I'll vote for the next man/woman/cylon who says 'it was good while it lasted but now you have all found out I'll stop it. I'll pay back if you insist but would rather not as I'm sure you can imagine'

At least that would be honest.

Surely arse-boring and face licking could be combined in a daytrip?

ps I will be in London on Wednesday, coming down from the snowy northern wastes, but I will be busy boring the arses off a load of Dept. of Justice types, so I formally delegate my licking tasks to policy.

I just know she will do it it so well.

policy - if you do go, can you please lick Helena Kennedy's face for me?

it's tough finding an admirable politician, outside of Tony Benn, but I don't expect anyone to lick his face on my behalf....

Good lord Pee Dubya, you really are taking over the world aren't you.

Anyway I have to go and judge an under-7s fancy dress competition now. Now THAT'S power.

I take your point Robes.

But if you want ever to get into government, you simply have to be in one of the two main parties. Because our electoral system is an anti-democratic crock of shite.

So you can have all the principles you like; if you join the Greens or the LibDems or whatever, as things stand you will never, ever be in a position to affect national politics.

I think that's what motivates a lot of people; they're prepared to squish some of their beliefs in exchange for a realistic shot at power. I'm not sure I blame them.

No, not all corrupt, sure. But what would motivate anyone to bcm a major-party MP these days? I can't believe it is political principle, bcs none of the major parties represents distinctive political principles anymore.

Another useful measure is those who opposed the proposed exclusion of MPs' expenses from the Freedom of Information Act in January this year. This was a parliamentary order proposed, shamefully, by Harriet Harman (and I don't enjoy writing that, I like a lot of what she's done) after lobbying from the Conservative 1922 committee.

Those on the record as opposing the exclusion: LibDems (Conservatives supported it at first and then changed their minds); see list on the right of this page

I don't think it's quite true that decent people are only to be found in pressure groups; here's a Google spreadsheet of what we know about MPs' expense claims. Note the ones in blue - they didn't claim additional costs allowance, even though they are entitled to. (Admittedly, there aren't many of these: Philip Dunne (Cons. Ludlow); Malcolm Wicks (Lab., Croydon North); Martin Salter ((Lab., Reading West); Rob Wilson (Cons., Reading East); Geoffrey Robinson (Lab., Coventry); Anne Milton (Cons., Guildford); Richard Benyon (Cons., Newbury); Adam Afriyie (Cons., Windsor))

Note the ones with relatively low expense claims, even though their consituencies are distant from Westminster. Note the ones right at the bottom of the list: Philip Hollobone, Cons., Kettering; er, Tony Blair (I guess this is because he hasn't been around much); Dennis Skinner (Lab., Bolsover); Michael Martin and Alan Williams (Speakers - not sure why this is); Dr Richard Taylor (Independent, Wyre Forest); Sir Nicholas Winterton (Cons., Macclesfield); Virendra Sharma (Lab., Ealing Southall and good egg IMO); Desmond Swayne (Cons., New Forest West); David Winnick (Cons., Walsall North).

It would be unjust to write off all MPs as corrupt bastards just because some of them are. How many have the Telegraph named directly now - fewer than 100? Out of 650. So unless the Telegraph is holding a lot back, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that it didn't find anything very terrible on about 5/6ths of MPs?

I agree with Marina Hyde that we could do with a lot more independents. Party politics stinks.

it is revolting that any MP should go on about 'benefit cheats' when they have been abusing the system for their own benefit as a matter of habit. And agree that a second home should be sold and revenue put back into public spending pot when MP's job ends.

(hit post too soon)

...increasingly anti-liberal attitudes of govt. So the members compensate for that by asserting their dignity in other ways -- big expenses, and (as artichokes points out) the pointless self-preening use of staff to generate pseudo-scrutinising questions to ministers

I wouldn't be able to tell wonk anything about politics or fashion but being Robespierre I could go as her mass-showtrial-and-public-executions adviser.

The thing is, parliamentary sovereignty is pretty much a fiction anyway, with the lobby-fodder there and the

"WE, THE PEOPLE, DEMAND THE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT."

This must be from the socialist worker lot is it?

It's a bit like discovering an affair; it isn't so much the sex, as the lying. MPs have not been open and honest, and have fought tooth and nail not to have their expenses made public record.

And when someone is trying to ensure something stays secret, then there's usually something corrupt.

And I agree with treedelivery -- party politics is decadent, bankrupt. All the good people are campaigning in pressure groups.

Twinkle, I agree there is an element of truth to what you say: of course MPs need adequade expenses to cover a bilocational life, and staff,etc. And of course public scrutiny can easily get sensational and gleefully faultfinding -- that is presumably the respectable element of some MPs' desire to keep their spending secret.

But that shouldn't draw criticism away from the genuinely unacceptable parts of their spending.

The best way to damp down public faultfinding would be to have a sensible expenses system in the Commons. The current system is so lax and cynical that the MPs can't have failed to notice, despite the suddenness of their conversion to morality.

The difficulty is the sovereignty of parliament, which has to be maintained. In any business, the expenses would be controlled by the entity whose money was being spent. In this case that means control by the taxpayers. The Treasury, I suppose, is responsible for keeping a tight rein on spending public money. But parliament can't be answerable to a government department: it has to be an independent check on govt.

Still, I imagine that some sort of arm's length Treasury body (or Treasury/Commons hybrid body) should have control of the pursestrings for MPs.

It is depressing. At first it's insulting -now it's depressing.

Even if there was a revolution and parliament was disolved - really, what good would it do? Who would replace them? Another shower.

Party politics. Am sooooo over it

I feel profoundly depressed about all this. It's corrupt but who will stop the corruption? Not the MPs, that's for sure.

Am I the only one who thinks "the public" are getting a wee bit silly about this now? I have no problem at all in paying for my MP to have somewhere to live when in London on parliamentary business (which should be fairly often I would have thought?). Anyone who objects to this on principle, as opposed to objecting to those MPs who take advantage, is just plain unreasonable and jumping on an ever growing bandwagon.

It would be entirely wrong, and not in the country's best interests, for only well off people to be able to become MPs because of the need to fund two homes (including one in London) on one modest salary. However, this seems to be what most of the public want now. Bizarre.