Cash For Questions...

[sandyRoe]

It seems unlikely that the editors of television programmes or newspapers would set out to entrap innocent MPs or members of the Lords. Those who do feature in exposés must already be known in the Westminster Village as people who would sell their own grandmothers if the price was right.
What's to be done to restore the good name of parliament?

[mikey4444]

Keep chipping away sandy, its the only way. Fraud and corruption has always existed in any environment where there are people who can make money, from their position of power. Its not a party political issue. The Telegraph and the BBC are doing their bit and should be praised.

I have said this on AB on more than one occasion but thank God for the Beeb !

[Gromit]

If I were to be found taking bribes in my job I would be sacked with immediate effect. And the police would be called and I would go to prison. That is what should happen to these lot.

But it won't. Instead, they might be suspended on full pay for a while. That is not good enough. So corruption will never be stamped out as long as the punishment is so light.

[mikey4444]

I have never been entirely sure why we have a second chamber at all. Most Parliamentary work is done by cross-party committees these days, and we have seen the good work that they do very openly these last couple of years, so the need for a House of Lords seems to be less obvious than it was.

But why are there so many of them ? 763 of them to be precise. To be honest, the same goes for the House of Commons. It must be costing us taxpayers trillions every year. Just exactly what do they all do ?

We have 1000's of elected Councillors up and down the country, taking care of most of the issues that effect our daily lives. So I can't see why a good pruning in Westminster couldn't be very effective.

[Sqad]

sandy

\\\\What's to be done to restore the good name of parliament? \\\

I honestly do not know.

I would:

1) Increase the salary to £110,000 per annum.
2) Abolish ALL expenses.
3) House of LOrds....what can one do to a comfortable "dumping ground " for politicians?

Well that is about it from me......

[FredPuli43]

My thoughts too, Sandy. You'd never set up a meeting by choosing one of hundreds at random. You'd find your target by asking around. That that produces three candidates suggests that most members are honest; otherwise your enquiries would be met by "Take your pick, most are at it".

Jail every one who is caught. Give him 3 years straight inside. When we had this bribery in the Soho vice squad, and a general over-cosy relationship between the villains and the police,it was met by arranging matters so that such relationships were harder to establish and by jailing offenders. The first is harder to stop with MPs; they meet so many people that meeting,socially, a businessman who might benefit from the encounter must be common; but they could be forced to record all one-to-one meetings of benefit to the other party.

I don't see the need for the House of Lords either. If elected representatives decide something is a good idea, it should not be delayed or affected by the unelected.

[Sipowicz]

"Cash for questions", Desktop would be a millionaire!

[LazyGun]

There is a much stronger mechanism in place now. Rules are clearer as to what can be claimed as an expense, and there are requirements to enter non-partliamentary work on a register of interests. They have also created IPSA, to whom an MP can be referred. Problem is though, that unless they do something lllegal which results in a prison sentence, Nothing else - other than public approbation - can be done. In theory, someone can be elected an MP for a constituency; and promptly go on a 5 year salaried and expensed holiday.

This is why above all else, we ought to have a right of recall - to create a genuine possibility that a sitting MP can be effectively punished if they are demonstrably inept or venal.

As for the Lords - as it currently stands, each successive government appointments sufficient life peers to gain a majority -or at least parity within the Lords - and now we have 1,000 of them. Un-needed. I really do think we need a fully elected second chamber, whose role is to scrutinise legislation and to act as a court of appeal etc.

As with MPs, such elected individuals would also be subject to a right of recall.

[FredPuli43]

Can just see how recall would work. Much the same as a local party refusing to endorse their MP; all it takes is a few disgruntled members to say that they no longer support him or her, there's a meeting and, with luck, the MP survives to fight the next election. Happened to a friend of mine, and it certainly gave him anxious moments, but he survived to continue taking the party line.

Now, who is to say that recall would work with any justice? How would it be done at all ?

[LazyGun]

@ Fred You are of course correct that this argument of a kind of malicious trouble making could make use of the recall mechanism to unseat an unfairly maligned MP.

As it currently stands though, we have a system which allows for systemic abuse of privilege and taxpayers money. In theory, for instance, an MP could be elected then promptly go on holiday for the next 5 years, at the taxpayers expense, with no means for their constituency to replace them. That cannot be right.

What most of the right of recall proposals suggest is that a quorate of the constituency has to sign a petition calling for the local MP to be unseated - typically 5-10% of the constituency, so anywhere from 4000 to 8000 signatures in order to trigger a by-election. This does not seem to me a system that is easily abused, but it would certainly act as a check against the more egregiously superior MP :)

[FredPuli43]

Yes, I can just see 4,000 to 8,000 committed Labour voters trying to force a by-election, when the seat is winnable because of the general unpopularity of a Tory government two years or so after the general election (and vice versa). The party could also engineer these all over the country, in dozens of seats, not just winnable ones.