MP Expenses and The Daily Mail

It is always amusing when a scene from the Houses of Commons flashes onto the news, and the attendance at a debate or vote is so miserably sparse that it will have my father effing and blinding at the television about the state of democracy. It is even more amusing to see pictures from tonight's House where "Gordon Brown has suggested scrapping the controversial second home payment for MPs in a shake-up of allowances" (BBC News Online)... the place was packed to the rafters.


Any slightly scandalous story about MPs' expenses makes for an easy groan. It is nothing short of a wet dream for readers of The Daily Mail. Richard Littlejohn was so outraged that a £10 bill for pornography got onto Jacqui Smith's expenses claim that he felt compelled to write TWO (emphasis added for tabloid effect) pieces on the topic in one day, one entitled "Not even in the Augean sleaze of the Major years did we have a Home Secretary claiming porn on expenses," which he followed up with, "MPs' snouts are so deep in the trough we can't see their curly tails". Littlejohn was incensed with rage, and comments ranged from the far reaching,

"The Smith-Timneys epitomise the kind of institutionally-corrupt, smug New Labour entitlement junkies who believe that the taxpayer should pick up the entire bill for their work, rest and play - even if that includes hard-core porn."

to the absurd,

"She looked guilty. She is guilty. The sooner someone like Smith or McNulty is put in the dock at the Old Bailey, the better."

to the admittedly rather funny,

"I visited the Television X website to check out the schedule. In alphabetical order, it starts with 'Anal Boutique' and goes downhill from there."

I am not sure MPs deserve to be strung up for using their expense accounts. For their average level of professional experience, a salary of £70,000 is not by any means vast, and many MPs who are former lawyers, political advisers or city types, would fair much more favourably in financial terms in the private sector. Therefore this income is supplemented by generous expense allowances. In 1976, when Michael Foot was leader of the House, MPs wanted a pay rise but it seemed insensitive to commit to such a thing amid trade union tensions, so allowances increased and this is how it remained.

This is not to say the expenses system is working. MPs need clearer guidelines about what they can and cannot do, rather than some wild notion of using personal moral judgement to decide how much is claimed. Some MPs whose constituencies are less than a one hour commute from Westminster should be pressured or forced to rethink their arrangements. A second home should be just that, and have clear stipulations on the number of nights per year that must be spent in an address in order for it to be called a 'main residence'.

The calls for the 'self-serving pig' MPs to step into the dock for trial, however, are a little sad and show an incapacity for an intelligent input. Littlejohn seems to be confused about the difference between theft and expenses. As the highest paid journalist at The Daily Mail (he earns £700,000 per annum for two columns a week) who dodges tax by living in a Florida mansion for a big chunk of the year, Littlejohn should pick his targets more carefully and try to use some evidence, proportionality, and balance in his writing. Its just so dull. If we believe The Daily Mail is little more than a tax on the ignorant, and borrow a little of Littlejohn's bent rhetoric, then he is just as guilty as the MPs he complains about. In the meantime, someone needs to get him a stiff drink to calm him down.