UKIP now have their first MP, former Conservative MP Bob Spink, who resigned/was kicked out of the Conservative Party last month. I doubt that he will be missed much, if the claim that "you won't find many tears being shed over this in the Conservative Party - more like the sound of popping corks" is true.

When an MP defects, a by-election should be held. Not if they move from a party to none, but if they move from one party to another. The political system in this country means that although votes are cast for individuals, the vast, vast majority of people cast their votes for the party, not the person. There are few MPs who have a personal vote. The same as Quentin Davies should have.

Now it comes down to the next general election and how much of a personal vote Bob Spink has, and how much it comes down to the colour of the rosette you pin on the donkey. Somehow I doubt that the UKIP purple will get as many votes as the Conservative's blue.

Instead of letting MPs claim money to have a second home in London, it has now been suggested that we buy them a block of flats to use instead:

Buying a block of flats or hotel for MPs is not a good idea. The Westminster village is insular and incestuous enough as it is, without hemming them in together at all times during the working week. MPs need to experience real life as much as possible, and this sort of proposal - even excluding the physical impracticalities - will just make MPs even less connected with the rest of us than already.

Rather than this idea, why not just cut the amount that MPs will be given towards a second home to the average mortgage payment or rent nationwide? If they want nicer accommodation than that will pay for as a second home, they can pay it themselves from their not-inconsiderable salaries.

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said there was "no intention" of MPs having to go "into any detail" about the work they pay family members to do. Erm, why? We, the poor suffering taxpayer, are paying for them so why should we not know what work they are doing?

Besides, what exactly would the point of just having a register of who has family members working for them without any further details? The issue with Derek Conway wasn't that he was employing his sons, but that he was paying them over the odds to do work that they weren't actually doing. If the details are not known and recorded, why bother creating this register? It's a waste of everyone's time and our money in that case, and worth nothing except as an attempt to appear transparent rather than to be transparent.

And it seems that even the European Parliament - despite it own great problems over Members finances - are to go a significant step further than Westminster and ban MEPs from employing family members.

This is a step too far in my opinion. All that is needed is a proper register of what family members do and the payment they received - not a piss-poor attempt like that suggested for Westminster, but a proper full register. Otherwise there's no point.

Do it properly or not at all. Half-measures help no-one.

Uploading Parliamentary debates to YouTube is currently banned. But why?

Why should debates in our Parliament not be "allowed" to be put on YouTube or other video-sharing websites?

I agree completely with Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson when she said:

Parliament belongs to us, the people, and so should the official filming of any and every debate held in it.

If Parliament wants to connect with the people, then it has to do so fully, by allowing the use of video of it in session by the people! Besides, it's not like they can stop them being put on it, really. But this current way just means that only the politically partisan bits are uploaded by political fanatics, rather than it all being available for everyone to see.

A. Tory has got out his "Excel geek" hat, put it on, and analysed MPs expenditures for the last parliamentary session. He has then awarded those who have shafted the taxpayers - that's you and me, folks - the most. And unsurprisingly all of the winners bar one are Labour MPs. And the only non-Labour MP? Angus MacNeil of the SNP. And the winners are:

Total expenditures: Shahid Malik, spending £185,421 of our money
Office and staff costs: Barry Gardiner, spending £123,852 of our money
Car travel: Janet Anderson, spending £13,851 of our money
Rail travel: Alan Milburn, spending £15,785 of our money
Air travel: Angus MacNeil, spending £30,560 of our money
Staff travel: Mohammad Sarwar, spending £4,500 of our money
Stationery and postage: Siobhain McDonagh, spending £49,107 of our money
IT: Liam Byrne of the Labour Party, spending £2,545 of our money
Staff cover and other costs: Joan Ryan, spending £19,068 of our money.

That's one hell of a lot of our money. Visit Letters From A Tory for more details, even though he hasn't published the entire Excel spreadsheet [which he should].

All the expenses claimed by MPs are to be published. Good. If they're spending our money, we have a right to know how it is being spent. What shocked me was the 'John Lewis' list:

And money can be claimed by MPs for this in the following ways:
How the hell can this be justified at all?! I don't begrudge MPs being paid some money off-set the cost of a second home - which their job requires them to have - but unless this money claimed on a second home is to be paid back when the second home is sold, it effectively amounts to a very nice payment of at least £22,000 extra per year. Plus any profit made through the increase in house prices.

With second homes, either Parliament should own them and just allow the MPs to use them or MPs should pay us back at least the savings/benefits that they generate from owning a second home at the taxpayer's expense.

MPs should also have to provide a receipt for every single claim they make on expenses. If it is too small for them to bother with a receipt, it's too small for them to mind paying for themselves.

The expenses that MPs should be subject to audits to ensure that they are not defrauding the taxpayer. I doubt that many are on a massive basis, but when it is our money that they are spending it needs to be checked. The expenses should also be made public on at least a quarterly basis, so that we know what the representatives that we elect are charging us.

Nick Clegg proposes such a plan. Now the flippant answer to this is simple "remove the Lib Dems, then". But this doesn't answer the question. And besides, there never will be 150 Lib Dem MPs to remove.

On a serious note, Clegg's justification doesn't work. He wants to remove 150 MPs from the Commons - taking it to around 500 - to save money. Well, primarily to save political parties from having to raise money from big donors. Let's have a little pop quiz:

So why do political parties raise money?
a) To pay MPs
b) To run the rest of the party
c) So they can swan off on holiday

So Clegg's idea that fewer MPs equal less need for party fund-raising just doesn't make sense... especially since he also wants more state money to go to political parties. Which would eat up the £30m savings he said would be generated by cutting the number of MPs. There is, of course, another way of saving money - cutting MPs salaries or expense allowances.


The idea of cutting the number of MPs also raises other questions - such as the potential impact on democracy. Is fewer MPs a goof thing? Not in and of itself. If anything, actually, more of a bad thing as MPs become more and more distant from their constituents. Any reduction in the numebr of MPs would have to be matched in devolution of powers to local councils, or as part of a proper devolution system - equal English, Scottish, and Welsh parliaments.

The plan to reduce the number of MPs sounds good in a press release or a speech, but in reality it isn't much cop. The downsides of the loss of representatives simply isn't worth the tiny amount of money that is [supposedly] to be saved.

The news that the Lisbon Treaty has now formally been passed by the House of Commons has been very much slipped out, without very much - if any - fanfare, with MPs voting by 346 votes to 206 to approve the EU (Amendment) Bill, despite the extreme importance of the issue.

They just won't give us a referendum on this important issue, despite every MP in the Commons having been elected on such a pledge.

Now we can only pin our hopes on the unelected House of Lords to do what is right and democratic and give us, the people, our referendum.

Liberal Democrat MPs walk out of the House of Commons...

...in a huff as part of a pre-arranged stunt after their ridiculous call for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU - rather than over the current Constitution "Treaty" being debated - was denied by the Speaker.

Are they now going to stay out of the Commons?

Please, please do.

At least for the rest of this debate.

Please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

It's not as if they add anything to the discussion, anyway!

So MEPs are stealing £100 million from the European people every year. But this isn't really all that surprising - pretty much the lot of them are just pigs with their snouts in the trough. What is most disgusting is the piece of the article that follows the revelation of the obscene amount of taxpayer's money being stolen:Excuse me? You can't make reform if the people know how corrupt you all are? How does that make sense? That level of security stinks of a cover-up of an even greater level of corruption and criminal abuse than already revealed. Even so they have the audacity to claim that "the document is not secret. It is confidential." - and to flatly reject an inquiry by the EU's own anti-fraud office. One rule for us, another for them.

Trixy has the transcript of an email sent by the President of the European Parliament, asking MEPs to submit a declaration of their financial interests "within two months". Which is a long time. And yet this isn't the even first time a request has been made for this, originally made back in November. So they've had four months already, and get another two months grace now. That's six months before they even start chasing them up. Absolutely ridiculous. And I thought giving British MPs two months to submit a list of any family members who work for them was ridiculous.

I was going to say "well at least it seems that our elected representatives really aren't all that corrupt after all". But then I realised that MEPs in the European Parliament are our elected representatives as well.

The Wardman Wire has seen some very good articles over the past week on the subject of MPs and the money they claim, both as salary and expenses. It's not my intention to weigh in on that debate, but use the opportunity to examine the role of MPs in our democracy.

Read the rest at the Wardman Wire.

Why do MPs have until April 1 to declare details of family members they employ? Why do they need so long? Why shouldn't they have to declare them by the end of February? Next Friday? Or even, why not this Friday?

It's not like MPs either employ that many people or have so many relatives that it would take three months to list them all. MPs should know who of their employees are family members and how much they are paying them. It's not like I object to MPs employing family members, just that they should have to declare them, and immediately.

There is no excuse for MPs not to declare how many - and who - of their relatives they employ right away. Any who wait until the deadline to make their declaration should be viewed with great suspicion by the electorate.

The only reason I can think of to pick April 1 as the deadline is to thumb their noses at us Fools.

Why is there such a furore over the bugging of Sadiq Khan [Labour MP for Tooting]? He wasn't being bugged, but the person he was visiting. That he is an MP should make absolutely no difference.

MPs should be exempt from bugging personally because they are MPs, but bugging shouldn't have to be restricted with regards to other people around them. MPs are just citizens who happen to be allowed to site of the House of Commons for a while by kind permission of the electorate. Maybe this is something they forget?

It shouldn't be allowed to bug MPs just because they are MPs, but if there is any national security reason to suspect an MP or anyone else of a breach of national security, just the mere fact that they are an MP or come into contact with an MP should be no reason not to bug them.

MPs should have no extra rights to the rest of us. There should be a good reason before any of us are bugged, and that applies to MPs as well. But should a good reason rise, bugging should take place, regardless of whether they are or not an elected Member of Parliament.

Whatever the reason behind this bugging, whether it was made by the police without consulting ministers and whether or not the officer who did the bugging was pressurised into it makes no difference at all. Sadiq Khan MP was not being bugged; the person he visited in jail was. He just happened to be there.

On another note, MPs exist to be bugged. Just by their constituents, rather than the police...

Seventy Conservative MPs - including David Cameron - and "about 12" Lib Dem MPs employ members of their family. Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have made no declarations of the number of their MPs who employ family members, though 33 Labour MPs are said to have admitted they do.

I can't see any issue at all with MPs employing members of their family. Derek Conway wasn't "employing" his children, but just passing them money under the guise of employment. But actually just employing them to do a job is no problem - so long as they are actually doing the work. Like I wrote before:

This is what appears to be happening voluntarily in the Conservative and Lib Dem parties, and piecemeal with Labour.

However, the fact that David Cameron is employing his sister-in-law "as a correspondence secretary in his private office... paid £15,000 a year out of Conservative funds to work three days a week at the party's headquarters" is a complete non-issue. This money is not coming out of the taxpayer's pockets, but out of the donations made by Conservative party members and donors, like myself. There is no compulsion to donate in the first place, and I for one have no problem with him employing a member of his family so long as she is doing the job she is being paid to do.

Lib Dem MP Greg Mulholland has been accused of "unparliamentary language" after this little outburst in the Commons [via Tory Radio]:

Greg Mulholland: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Lewis: We are all fed up with it. I return to the substantive issues.
Greg Mulholland: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Lewis: I will not give way.
On regulation costs, I shall consider the question of the consultation that the Healthcare Commission is undertaking—
Greg Mulholland: He’s an a*******.

Although Labour Minister Ivan Lewis may well be almost certainly is an "a*******" - I can't say for sure because I know bugger all about him, but the fact that he is a Labour Minister means that more than likely he is - I'm going to call Greg Mulholland an a******* as well.

For suggesting this:
Erm, no it doesn't - well unless they're a retard, of course. Anyone with even half a brain can tell how large the glass of wine they have is, either on (a) it's size; (b) the amount of liquid in it; or (c) the length of time it is taking you to drink it. Or, of course, they could always ask how big it.

The reason that "[m]any licensed premises only sell wine in 175ml and 250ml measures" is because those are the sizes that people want. Why have pubs and bars stop selling 125ml glases of wine? Because people don't want 125ml glasses of wine.

The a******* - Greg Mulholland, that is - should stop trying to interfere with what individuals and private business do [of course, so should the other a*******, Ivan Lewis]. People do know how much they are drinking, at least pretty much. But it certainly isn't up to anyone, let alone an a****** of an MP like Mulholland to force pubs, bars and restaurants to serve 125ml glasses of wine. "Liberal" Democrats my a***. But then again, they're hardly "Democratic" either...

So Derek Conway has resigned. He really had no choice after the revelations that he had employed both of his sons at the taxpayer's expense for minimal work, and Cameron withdrew the whip from him. Personally, I appreciate Iain Dale's stance on Derek Conway: he's a friend, so anything he wants to he'll say to Derek's face. Simple human decency. It appears to be a dying breed.

But after the furore that has risen around Conway, there appears to be suggestions to ban MPs from employing family members. Really, this is a very bad and frankly stupid idea. So long as the relative is doing the job they are paid to do [and properly], I can't see any reason why they shouldn't be allowed to do so. Rather, we the taxpayer are likely to get more work of - and thus better value for money - from MPs relatives working for them than a non-relative on the same level of pay.

There is also a large number of administrative issues with this idea, as pointed out on the Three Line Whip blog:

Rather than a blanket ban, it would be far better to instead make it necessary that all MPs declare all employees with whom they have a blood or legal relationship with, what the relationship is - and how much they are paying them to do the job. You could also say that any relatives should only be paid at the bottom of the advised parliamentary pay scale for their role.

A blanket ban on all MP relatives working for them, however, is a very bad idea indeed. Instead of banning it, just make the process transparent.

Tory MP Derek Conway has been outed as employing his son as a parliamentary researcher whilst he was a full-time student and paying him £1,000-plus per month, with a total of around £13,000 salary - plus bonuses. And all from taxpayer's funds, for work that wasn't done. Certainly not work to that value, anyway.

There is no excuse for what he has done. It is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable. He should have to repay every penny that has been wrongly taken. Every. Single. Penny. From his own money.

Just giving him a suspension from the House of Commons is not enough of a punishment - and the wrong sort of punishment. By suspending from the House of Commons, the people who are suffering are his constituents. What should instead happen is that he should have to continue working, but receive no pay.

I don't agree, however, that this "should be the last-chance saloon for the scandal of MPs expenses. It should mean that MPs finally come clean and reveal full details of who and what is being paid from the public purse." Because that isn't fair on the individuals who work for MPs for their salaries to be public knowledge. Instead, MPs should have to reveal whether they are employing any immediate or close family member and any payment they receive- and why. That is as it should be - but not for all personnel. Just those who are related to them.

Like ConservativeHome, I think that Cameron's reaction hasn't been decisive enough. But I don't think that the removal of the whip from Conway is the way to go. Instead Cameron should have declared that the Conservatives will be imposing a significantly greater punishment on Conway than the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. After all, if they ejected him, they'd only end up bringing him back in eventually and reincarnating the whole story then. Far better to get it over with right away, and try and cut out as much comparison with Labour's sleaze issues as possible.

Watch the video of Hague's hilarious demolition of Gordon Brown in his speech on the EU (Amendment) Bill below [via Harry Hook].

Or read the text here at Daily Referendum.

Even Miliband can't help from laughing!