| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:MPs expenses | |
| Posted by: | Fraser Pearce | |
| Date/Time: | 21/05/09 10:51:00 |
| Be our guest with the new thread, James. If anything though, this expenses issue has demonstrated that MPs have been paid more to do less. The issue then is not what MPs are paid but whether they provide value for money – and frankly, compared to previous generations of MPs, they don’t. This in itself points to the wider crisis of our democracy, in that the expenses scandal is symptomatic of a national parliament in decline, marginalised, trivialised and subverted. The building’s still standing but the institution’s been hollowed out. If around 80% of laws and regulations now come from Brussels, you could argue the EU has perhaps been the major factor in this steady, systemic undermining of parliament. The cabinet know it, the backbenchers know it, the press know it – about the only people who don’t are the poor sodding electorate that pays for this mess. Consider this, Cameron and Brown will fight the next election for the right to frame 20% of the laws that govern us, that’s all. This means parliament can only act as a check and balance roughly 20% of the time (with research last year showed Cameron’s official Opposition only opposed 21% of government legislation, the least in living memory). With parliamentary authority undermined and power stripped away, its members have tended to re-focus on the trivial and, in many cases, go hell for leather in troughing our cash to make a quick buck. Give parliament back its power - and then we’ll see a rise in parliamentary standards. Alternatively, give MPs an 80% pay cut to reflect how useful they actually are. |