Cameron’s crusade against crooked MEP conmen
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Dear Gary Titley,
As leader of the Labour MEPs you managed to have your two-cents worth of publicity after David Cameron released his proposals to overhaul the rules for Conservative MEP expenses. You were presumably a little smug that “after eight years, the Tory Party has caught up with the Labour MEPs’ regime for dealing with expenses” but I think you are being a little hasty when it comes to taking the moral high ground.
As a member of the Conservative Party, I have no time for any MP or MEP who drags their heels about publishing their expenses. The rules for MEP expenses are an absolute joke and allow them to make off with tens of thousands of euros (in addition to their comfortable salary) without having to break into a sweat. Cameron has obviously seen this and told all MEP candidates and MEPs seeking re-election to publish their expenses claims every six months from the start of the year, or face expulsion from the party. In addition, MEPs will be barred from using family members and private companies to boost their allowances. Naturally, some Conservative MEPs were angered by this move because they are crooks who are playing the expenses system for all that it’s worth. Their threats of legal action ring hollow in my ears as Cameron can presumably set whatever standards he wants for members of his own party, and good on him for putting the pressure on.
Labour seem to making out of this situation pretty well, seeing as the Conservatives are having to fend off accusations of sleaze - but wait. The ‘Open Europe’ think-tank asked every MEP to publish details of their expenses and only 16% of Labour MEP agreed, which is about 30% fewer than the Conservatives. I wonder why that is? I would have thought that if you are so squeaky clean, a request for your expenses would be easy to respond to as your Labour MEPs have clearly never broken any rules or abused the expenses system. And then I read this about the Lib Dem MEPs on the ‘Open Europe’ blog yesterday:
“…we do know that four Lib Dem MEPs are paying their staffing expenses directly into the Party. That would be worth £6.5 million over a decade, making the EU the Liberal Democrats’ biggest donor. So far Nick Clegg has kept schtum about this – not least because he used to do the same thing when he was an MEP. But at some point it could be a very big story. At least the Tory and Labour leaders can say they didn’t know anything about what their MEPs were up to. Not so Mr Clegg. Only a lack of media interest in the Lib Dems prevents this from becoming a big story.”
So, you see, if I was in your position I would be keeping very quiet right now. You are playing with fire by criticising the Conservative MEPs as it is plainly obvious to anyone who follows politics that there is a lot more headlines about MEP expenses to come – and I wouldn’t bank on it being about the Conservative Party next time.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
I `m not quite as judgemental as you on the expenses but your view is that of many .One thing is clear. Cameron is cleaning the closet now . Brown cannot afford to and come the election the current MAD since Conway will break down.
I wouldn’t say I’m judgemental but when I see MPs and MEPs opposing moves to make expenses more transparent and open, there is only one conclusion that I think should be drawn.
I`m sure you are right I always sigh when I see a workable infromal imperfection replaced with some modern thing .
My point was that the Conservative Party are getting their muck out early , there has been a standoff for the last few months and Cameron is racing to be clean in order to attack at the right time.
Politically its brilliant IMHO( also Peter Oborne`s )
I think it’s awfully easy to sit on the sidelines and scream bloody murder. It’s a lot harder to create real-world solutions to real-world problems. The fact is, being an MEP does incur expenses, and were these ‘perpetrators’ citizens using corporate expense accounts, most of the fingers-in-the-till stuff would be seen either as ‘fair game’ or just as one of the perks of the position.
MEPs emphatically aren’t privately employed, but they’re also not arbitrarily selected – we the taxpayers are the people who voted for them. We can’t really democratically elect somebody and then complain that they’re the wrong person. They’re the right person by definition – the ones voted for by the people. Such is democracy.
David Cameron is allowed to do whatever he likes, and in the cases where rules have indeed been broken he is right to act swiftly and decisively. However, despite what Guido thinks, and however much the media want to stimulate a bru-ha-ha, I don’t think any of this is as big an issue as it’s being made to be.