Thought for the day

DW

(Is that a hat tip to Boris then, Fraser?!)

john problem

The Code of Conduct for MPs (in existence since 1994) has these two first principles:

Selflessness
Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.

Accountability
Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.

There appear to be grounds for accusations of dereliction of duty here!

John Goulding

The fact is we (the taxpayers) are being robbed blind by these vile self-interested so called officials. Harriet Harman, the court of Public Opinion finds you not fit for public office!
They should all be wearing masks as their careers are more daylight robbers than MPs.
Dear Members of Parliament you are neither guardians of your constituencies or honourable!

Stepney

Mr Brown said the expenses system doesn’t work and has to change, and added progress was being made in doing that.

He said, “the system doesn’t work, it’s got to be changed because we keep getting caught” and said he was doing all he could “to abolish this allowance, to make sure everything is properly registered because unfortunately we weren't able to suppress it in January".

“We are making progress, there will be a new system in place in the next few months and the green shoots of the recovery will bathe us all in a shimmering light.”

“Politics goes up and down, politics can be very personal, but I’m getting on with the job. I am a teapot. Have you seen my camel. Janice is a woopsie. Woof. Wibble. Doing. Woof woof..Go back to your consituencies and prepare for an audit. Ziggedypibbles."

Death or Tory

Oh, Plato - where are you when we need you most?

He can count on my vote...

John Page

Oh yes, Plato. Now there was someone who understood public opinion and how society works. Not.

If there's a worthwhile point behind your post it passed me by.

Lance Grundy

Yep. Stick ‘em in a hostel, feed ‘em in a mess, pay ‘em a squaddies’ wage and don’t let ‘em anywhere near our gold or silver – lest they flog it off. Sounds like a vote-winner to me.

Death or Tory

@ John Page

Come on JP, don't be so 'crusty' - it's obvious what the purpose of Fraser's post is - or have you just had a bad week?...

NorthernJohn

Come on - this is nonsense. We talk about wanting politicians to live in the real world...

No private property?
Common messes, living like soldiers together in a camp?

It's potty.

The problem here, as with the social security payments, is the incentive structure provided by the system. There really isn't a great deal of difference between the idle benefits claimant and the MP. They are both human beings doing what the system incentivises them to do.

Nicholas

"Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest."

All the cabinet need to be reminded of that, but especially Andy Burnham, Jacqui Smith, Harriet Harmon and Gordon Brown who have too often sought to impose their personal beliefs, preferences and prejudices through their proposed or imposed legislation.

The unfortunate New Labour conflation is government, party politics and personal hobby horses assumed to be representative of everyone. A recipe for disaster and the oppression of the majority by the minority.

New Labour is a government which has crossed the boundaries of the British parliamentary tradition and legacy to the extent of becoming hostile to the interests of the majority of people in the country.

Demetrius

But where's his mission statement? And what about the discounted rate of return on capital?

Thrasymachus

Not quite so simple my friend.

Plato clearly based this idealised Guardian community on the Spartans of his day, who he had experience of during the rule in Athens of the Thirty Tyrants.

Every effort was made to ensure a communality and a non-attachment to private property. In Plato's state it would be "unlawful for [the Guardians] to touch or handle gold or silver," as you say. Similarly, Spartan money was minted from iron in order to curtail greed.

A direct result of this courting of virtuous poverty was that Sparta was rife with corruption. Herodotus tells us that no Spartan could resist a bribe, while Aristotle affirms that this unnaturally excessive moral severity made Spartans rather prone to licentiousness.

But, as Russell tells us in the History of Western Philosophy "it was not Aristotle's Sparta that persisted in men's imaginations; it was the mythical Sparta of Plutarch and the philosophic idealization of Sparta in Plato's Republic... The resulting union of idealism and love of power has led men astray over and over again, and is still doing so in the present day."

Denis Cooper

John Problem

Yes, and that Code of Conduct for MPs, available here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmcode.htm

also says:

"III. Public Duties of Members

4. By virtue of the oath, or affirmation, of allegiance taken by all Members when they are elected to the House, Members have a duty to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors, according to law.

5. Members have a duty to uphold the law, including the general law against discrimination, and to act on all occasions in accordance with the public trust placed in them.

6. Members have a general duty to act in the interests of the nation as a whole; and a special duty to their constituents."

But it says nothing at all about MPs having a duty to their party.

In fact, it also says:

"Integrity

Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties."

That's clearly contravened if a person's election to the Commons, and then his prospects for re-election, depend almost entirely on his nomination as the official candidate for his political party, which is subject to approval by the party leadership.

John Bellman

What a lots of Johns on this thread...

@John Page: I can see one obviously pertinent point: that they should have common messes and live "like soldiers in a camp." Build a 600-room dormitory somewhere within access of the Jubilee or District Lines. They could call it 'The Home for Heroes'. An additional advantage would be that they would be free to conduct their nasty little adulterous affairs, plots, off-the-record briefing and vindictive back-biting away from their largely blameless compatriots, who currently have to suffer the indignity of having these blighters living near their children.

I might suggest that such a building should be maintained to the same standards as that tolerated by the MoD for single soldiers, but that would probably be cruel and unusual. Still, it would at least test their dedication to public service.

Alternatively, if they don't want to live in spartan squalor, they should be prepared, like leaders in the forces, to contribute out of their own pocket to improve the standards of decoration. So let them subscribe to funds from their salaries, just as those in the corporals, sergeants and officers messes do: the property fund, the silver fund, extra messing etc, all paid for from after-tax wages.

David Ossitt

Plato.

"They’ll spend their whole lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, more afraid of internal than external enemies, and they’ll hasten both themselves and the whole city to almost immediate ruin"

So Plato knew all about our Gordon even back then.

London Calling

Plato's Revision For The Day...

We also have to make sure the guardians do not become like wolves that turn into
sheep dogs and abuse their power to help their fellow citizens. Therefore the guardians will have private property, they will hide transparently, they will be provided for out of public taxes, and they will avoid living together communally. First, none of them should expose any private property beyond what is wholly necessary. Second, none of them should have a house or storeroom that is open for those to enter at will. Third, whatever sustenance moderate and courageous warrior-athletes require in order to have shortfall or surplus in a given year they’ll receive by taxation on the other citizens as a salary for their guardianship. Fourth, they’ll have a house of common and plot together like chavs in a camp. We’ll tell them that they always have a silver service of a divine sort in their kitchens as a gift from the public and so have no further need of human gold. Indeed, we’ll tell them it’s acceptable for them to defile this divine possession by any admixture divine expense, for them alone … it is unlawful for them to touch monies earned say they’d save both themselves and their bank account so that they acquire private land, houses, and currency themselves, they’ll be household managers and pig farmers instead of guardians – hostile masters of the other citizens instead of their allies. They’ll spend their whole lives hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, more afraid of internal than external enemies, and they’ll hasten both themselves and the whole city to almost immediate ruin."

;)

Tiberius

So what's Socrates' view on this?

"Public employees should eat dirt, but beware the Harridan, who proclaims one rule for her tribe but a fate of dust below the serpent's belly for the others, for she will so pi$$ the populus off, that a level of violence as will never have been seen will ensue..."

Archbishop Cranmer

Great minds.

His Grace alluded to this precise passage in his a>.

Common Place

'Give me insight into today, and you may have the antique and future worlds.' Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Victor, NW Kent

When were these cleaning bills for a pad in London incurred? Brown has lived in Downing Street since May 1997.

paul gilboy

plato was a fascist who clearly saw the spartan model as an ideal. And am i the only one who thinks socrates deserved the rope.

John

dick turpin at least wore a mask,its unbelievable how they are all suddenly saying the rules are wrong when they made them ???

Tiresias

Plato - isn't that a kind of washing-up liquid?

Jasper Shawcross

Totally agree with you Tiresias. With lemon zest, too.

These people have just developed rules to compensate themselves beyond their parliamentary salaries.

Nothing wrong with that (oh no?). But why have they HIDDEN it for so long ?

The 'Rules' are basically dishonest.Written by people who, because they wrote them, must also be dishonest ?

Isn't this what we are all saying ?

our albert

"If you suspect anyone of benefit fraud please call our National Fraud Benefit Hotline - free and in confidence - on 0800 854 440."
We should all call this number

BritinGermany

Put an out of use cruise liner on the thames near parliament for their accomodation. Salaries to be paid by their constituencies after agreement between the prospective parlimentary members and constituent voters. Expenses rules to be agreed by an independant body.

Dave D

The problem, as I see it, is that whilst we want our MP's to be greener than green and more honourable than the rest of us, and we have all these codes of conduct written down. Mp's are still human beings and human beings are fundamentally corrupt and naturally dishonest. Granted some of us control it better than others, but with a notable few exceptions, we all have the same failings hard wired within our natures.

Until we can find a way to control human nature through some kind of genetic tampering I'm afraid to say that this kind of dishonesty and corruption will always exist. Having lofty ideals written down can't make people adhere to them, those are just noble words. It's the alteration of human nature that needs to happen, before we can have honest individuals.