MPs expenses - a retrospective!

Now that it appears the Daily Telegraph have stopped serialising the MPs expenses soap opera ot might be possible to have some slightly more sober reflection on the issue. Here, for what they are worth, are my thoughts so far...

It seems to me that the vast majority of the cases "revealed" by the newspapers demonstrate administrative incompetency, forgetfulness or a lack of judgment as to how claims that were perfectly legitimate within the rules might be perceived by the public. those areas are matters for concern, of course, in a MP who one would hope would be administratively competent and, especially, have good judgment about the perceptions of the public. But they are a long way short of being dishonest or criminal. stupid, perhaps, but neither criminal or wicked.

Much has been made of the fact that it's not good enough for MPs to say that their claims were within the rules - because the rules themselves were flawed. I think that the rules certainly were flawed. But a few things are worth remembering:

• Yes, the MPs themselves did make the rules - but we were the people who elected them again and again after they had made them. So we, the electors, bear some responsibility for what those rules were along with the MPs.
  
• The reason the rules were set up as they were, mostly by the last Conservative government it should be remembered for those who may be into political point scoring, was that it was deemed politically unacceptable to pay MPs bigger salaries than they currently receive. These salaries are significantly less than you might earn as a secondary school head, a GP, a senior officer in a local council or in a senior role in almost any company. I think we do need to ask whether we really think it's the best plan to pay, let's say, the head who implements the law on education in one school less than the people who pass the laws on education for all schools
• The MPs who passed the rules in the first place account for only some of the current MPs. The newer MPs, in particular, were encouraged to see the allowances as a part of their salary. That might have been naieve on their part but I think most people in their first day in a new job, especially in a place as intimidating as the Palace of Westminster, would be inclined to accept the advice of the "experts" deployed to advise them.

None of this is to excuse the fact that almost all the claims showed a lack of political judgment, that many were venal and some positively selfish and maybe fraudulant. But I do think that as a Christian I need to take a perspective that acknowledges the universal sinfulness of people, including me, and therefore ask myself questions as to whether envy might lie behind my condemnation and assume.

Three final observations spring to mind.

The first is that, generally, countries get the kind of MPs that they deserve. So what does it say about our society that our many of our MPs, like many of our bankers, seem, for to be more interested in themselves than others?

The second is that I think we need to recognise that there are other people here with an agenda. The owners of the Daily Telegraph, in particular, are wealthy on a scale unknown to almost all MPs, and have recently been accused, with some legitimacy it seems, of trying to bully the electors of an entire country (Sark) into voting a particular way in an election. The paper they own sold more and more copies the worse the allegations seemed - so they had a clear interest to spin the story to make the abuses seem as bad as possible. The person who leaked the documents (which were shortly to be published in any case) made a lot of money out of it. No doubt many foreign governments in states with much less interest in democracy than ours and chief executives of FTSE 100 companies (whose pay increased to an average of around £4 million).

The third is that, whilst undoubedly MPs pay needs sorting out, you've got to ask whether it's really worth three weeks of front page news - global warming anyone? abortion? third world poverty? war in Afghanistan? the moral and spiritual decline of almost all of Europe?