Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/519/3730
From The Socialist newspaper, 6 February 2008
Their hands in our till
MEMBERS OF Parliament are worried about their tarnished image. And they should be. After the furore over "dodgy donations" from big business came a series of scandals over MPs using the large expenses that they claim for personal, or family, gain.
Two Tory MPs, Ann and Nicholas Winterton, claimed £165,000 in Commons expenses for their £700,000 second home in London six years after they paid off the mortgage. They claimed this 'rent' and put it into a family trust for their two children, also ensuring a sizeable reduction in their children's inheritance tax.
Another Tory MP, Derek Conway, was suspended from parliament for ten days for paying his sons over £80,000 (from public money) as 'researchers' while they were full-time students and performed no visible research. Conway could see nothing wrong in what he did. "I am not a crook," he claimed.
Nobody denies that MPs are entitled to some expenses. But 170 MPs are paying family members for 'help'. Conway also paid his wife £291,616 over a seven-year period while she was working as his secretary.
Sir Christopher Kelly, chair of the public standards committee, hopes standards can be maintained by appeals for "greater openness and better monitoring of anti-sleaze regulations".
Socialists believe that being an MP should be an opportunity to represent people and not to feather their own nests. From 1983 to 1992 Dave Nellist, now leader of Coventry council's Socialist Party group, was a Labour MP.
He and two other MPs supporting Militant (the Socialist Party's predecessor) stood for parliament as a 'workers' MP on a worker's wage', receiving the average wage of the working-class people they represented and donating the rest to workers' campaigns and working-class appeals. All expenses were legitimate, reasonable and accountable to their constituents.
That meant these MPs were not insulated from the lives and hardships of other working-class families. Other MPs, in contrast, because they benefit financially from their position, can become very remote from the needs and problems of their constituents.
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In The Socialist 6 February 2008:
MPs' insult to low-paid workers
Protests as multinational grabs health centre
Rich avoid paying £25 billion tax bill
War and terrorism
Bush and Brown's Afghan strategy lies in tatters
Socialist Party women
Fight attacks on abortion rights
Socialist Party news and analysis
Victory! Bristol campaign saves library
Victory! Hull youth workers save jobs
Inspiring victory for Polish workers
Shell output is down, but profits hit new record
Young workers and Students
Protest against university fees
Refreshing student work in Bangor
International Socialist Resistance website
Environment and socialism
Incinerators: Our health at risk!
Stop the Anglesey nuclear time-bomb
Socialist Party debate
How can an alternative to the main political parties be developed?
International socialist news and analysis
Kenya: Workers' movement must provide an alternative
France: LCR votes to launch a new party
Workplace news
Birmingham: Thousands on strike against pay cuts
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