Labour rent boy resigns over 40k sibling blow out

You know what’s wrong with this parliamentary expenses system?

It’s that once the offending MP gets caught, nothing happens. Their parties don’t disown them, and once they have spewed forth a lame duck apology and perhaps paid back a fraction of the money they have robbed, all is forgotten.

Case in point, junior creative industries minister Sion Simon. He was caught 6 weeks ago having continued to rent a second home from his sister in London despite the rules banning this in 2006. She was paid £40k over  a number of years.

This is as clear cut a case as you will find, yet what’s the outcome? He gets off scot free with a large cash bonus in his pocket.

Clearly, he has been pressured to step down by the Labour hierarchy and today announced that he would do, but it’s hardly a punishment given that first he only paid back half the amount he stole, and second by stepping down he gets a £70,000, tax free golden goodbye.

I do wonder whether people actually realise that when these thieves say they are stepping down before the next election, it means that they get this payout which incidentally equates to employing three staff nurses for a whole year. Expenses fraudsters should be forced to resign which as well as triggering a by-election would cause them to lose their windfall.

It’s been said many times that this expenses robbery has a lot in common with benefits fraud. After all, they’re claiming money to which they are not entitled. Yet no charges are pressed and the MP walks away with their reputation intact and a huge cash bonus for it.

It’s just a shame they cannot be removed from their jobs like anyone else so and all these expenses thieves that have taken the piss like Mr Simon, Ruth Kelly, Hazel Blears, Margaret Moran, Derek Conway and Barbara Follett have basically got off scot free.

The expenses furore has blown over for the most part but maybe it’s time we had powers of recall. Gordon’s already said that he wants to scrap first past the post, so why not implement recall in the process? That way the power would be transferred back to the people and maybe these MPs would realise that they are working on behalf of their constituents rather than being an actor in an isolated, corrupt system.

It is a sad state of affairs when our elected members are all now assumed to be ripping off expenses; something that has isolated the electorate even more than they are already. But you can’t get away from it: they are all tarred with the same brush.

We already know that the New Labour generation of voters have become apathetic. In 1997 there was a 71.4% voter turnout; this dropped to 59.4% in 2001 and rallied very slightly to 61.4% in 2005. In the last election, Blackpool North and South were below the national average with only 57.7% and 52.1% respective turnouts.

A sad state of affairs that only half the people could be bothered to vote, but I think perhaps the ironic outcome of the expenses scandal will be that more people will come out to vote – against their MP.

But does that mean we’ll get a radically refreshed parliament with a whole suite of MPs? Well, no, because with the current election system it doesn’t matter how many protest votes there were: the only candidate that matters is the winner.