Daily View: MPs' 'abuse' of expenses staff
Commentators discuss accusations that several MPs have verbally abused expenses watchdog staff.
In The Daily Express, Theodore Dalrymple thinks the behaviour makes it clear what some MPs really think:
"They swore, they intimidated, they threatened. These MPs must think that they were elected to be masters and not servants. They must think that the right to do what they like is a recompense for the time-consuming and humiliating business of soliciting the public's vote.
"They are entitled to what they ask for, therefore, and no one is to question it; a justified expense is by definition one that they claim."
The Telegraph editorial says the affair has highlighted that MPs still have too much power:
"One MP who reportedly complained to Ipsa did so accompanied by three of his staff: why does a backbencher need three subordinates? This aggrandisement of the MP's role is a notable development of the past 25 years, and is partly responsible for the belief that took root in Westminster that the world somehow owes its inhabitants a good living. It doesn't. MPs should be reimbursed for the legitimate expense of being away from home, for travel and for subsistence, on the production of receipts and within agreed limits."
In the Daily Mail, Quentin Letts argues that the new level of bureaucracy MPs complain of is no different to what most people have to deal with:
"Is this not exactly the type of thing which goes on at government agencies throughout the United Kingdom?
"Have you ever tried getting through to a human being when pursuing an urgent problem at, say, 'The Identity and Passport Service' (as the old Passport Office now insists on calling itself) or at the Ministry of Agriculture?
"Farmers have for years done battle with the Rural Payments Agency, an arm of Whitehall so obtuse and abstruse that some smallholders have gone bankrupt and even committed suicide while awaiting their dues. MPs, with their expenses watchdog, have only been getting a taste of what modern British officialdom is like."
There is some defence of MPs coming from Michael White at the Guardian who argues that enough mild mannered MPs have complained to make him conclude the fault lies with the watchdog. In addition, David Blackburn argues in the Spectator that the the expenses watchdog, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) was created without much thought:
"The hypocrisy of MPs, which has accompanied the expenses scandal at every turn, is stomach-turning, indicative of latent amorality and fatuous arrogance.
"The continued deceit, self-entitlement and bullying mask an important issue. The solutions to the expenses crisis were rushed by a government that produced half-baked policies like trailer-trash pop out kids... Neither a general election nor the new system has proved cathartic; what will? Scrapping IPSA and starting again (with a little thought this time) would seem the sensible option."
Labour's Denis MacShane told the BBC he was one of the MPs implicated. In the Times Mr MacShane argues [subscription required] that power has shifted from MPs to civil servants, turning MPs into "petty clerks":
"[T]his weakening of MPs' status comes with a price. We are seeing the slow transformation of the Commons into a bunch of worried, uncertain MPs firmly under the control of the Civil Service. Most of Ipsa's staff, along with an increasing number of Commons officials, have jumped ship from the Ministry of Justice and other Whitehall departments. They bring with them a Whitehall mentality that has no understanding - and often an open dislike - of the rough and tumble of politics. They want MPs to move in Civil Service-approved grooves."
Links in full
• Theodore Dalrymple | Express | Greedy MPs who are foul-mouthed bullies as well
• Telegraph | MPs expenses: abuse of power
• Quentin Letts | Daily Mail | If you don't like expenses being scrutinised, don't abuse staff. Resign
• Michael White | Guardian | MPs and Ipsa - frustration at a flawed system?
• David Blackburn | Spectator | MPs in four-letter tirades against IPSA staff
• Denis MacShane | Times | We MPs are being turned into petty clerks
