Watch tomorrow's House of Commons order paper for confirmation that the key House of Commons expenses committee will swap one anti-reform DUP MP with another.
Despite not having attended a single meeting of the Members Allowances committee the DUP are retaining the minority party place by rotating Nigel Dodds with Jeffrey Donaldson.
My whips sources tell me that this is much more preferable to the Government than seeing a Scot Nat like Pete Wishart or John Mason, who argue for maximum reform of the expenses system to follow the example of the Scottish Parliament!
31 comments:
The only thing the Scots at Westminster hate more than the English, are other Scots who want to bring their gravy train to a grinding halt.
It makes you wonder how much reform they are really wanting. I've been wondering how much support Cameron has really got over the expenses reform he wishes to make with his backbenchers, and how many are going to become pains in the proverbial if the majority isn't too high in the years to come.
As to the lack of snp I'm not really that up-to-date on the sottish expenses system and how it's been reformed recently.
Why are Labour trying to avoid a Scottish Parliament like system?
Holyrood publishes all expenses details regularly and has recently reformed the expenses system. Why ignore an example that is transparent (and considerably more cost effective).
I am not a Scot, but I find Gordon Brown's vindictive attitude towards SNP politicians simply becuase they are political opponents pretty odious and childish, and says a lot about Brown himself.
Interesting.
With John Mason being a Chartered Accountant I'd have thought he could have made a particularly worthy contribution, not to mention the fact that Holyrood up here in Edinburgh have things ticking over very smoothly indeed.
Gordon Brown's visceral hatred of all things SNP on show again or something less sinister?
Lol just heard a quick precise on Scottish expenses on 5 live.
Iain, what you and the blogosphere joined with the DTP haven't bugled is that Brown is now playing to his backbenches ( who gives a diddly squat for the country) just to survive.
Today's PMQs, the outpourings of Harperson and the lunacies of Stuart Bell are just dog whistles to the bovine herd that (to change metaphor) are heading like lemmings to the cliff.
I was disgusted by the Tories in 1996/7 but this Labour rabble trying to defend the indefensible defies all common decency and puts themselves below all previous majority parties.
The mere fact that Brown couldn't say that some of his MPs had behaved unethically is the final nail in his coffin.
Going off-topic straightaway, Kevin Maguire and Andrew Pierce were both red hot on Sky a few moments ago. Maguire went out of his way to praise the Telegraph for its scoop, and poured a swimming bath of cold water over the idea that MPs should be paid more. As he said, bankers said they needed exorbitant pay to do their jobs - and look where that got us. A very good five minute exchange.
No one will have the slightest confidence in any committee this government sets up. None, zero, zilch.
Pierce made the interesting suggestion that instead of having yet another MPs review, the Inland Revenue should be asked to investigate. And take what action it thought fit under the law of the land rather than the rules of parliament.
Interesting times.
The clunking fist can't resist meddling and exerting control, can he?
Payback for the 42 days vote then?
I wonder how Labour MP's and members are feeling about their party cosying up to a bunch of religious bigots including rabid homophobe Iris Robinson? And there's plenty more like her in the DUP!
We should not be surprised at this action by New Labour in excluding SNP MP's from the Commitee.
The Damian McBride inspired "Smeargate" of opposition politicians may have gone temporarily underground at Westminster but New Labour's Scots acolytes are still busy in the Scots media every day smearing SNP politicians such as Alex Salmond.
What they don't appear to understand is that their childish antics are counter-productive as the electorate can now see that New Labour has no morals or scruples or policies any more - they are just the anti-SNP party in Scotland and nothing more than that.
How NOT to respond to allegations that they have been living high on the hog: listen to this by Lembit Opik:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kctks/Victoria_Derbyshire_13_05_2009
from 0:44:10 to 0:59:33
Peevish, boorish, devoid of contrition, aggressive are just some of the adjectives which come to mind.
The problem, exemplified by PMQs today, is that Brown and Harriet, without any democratic support, are playing to their backbencher gallery, as is Speaker Martin, to support/sanitise these Spanish practices.
As a former Blair voter, I am disgusted at the way the party in power is conducting itself.
Cameron has his faults, but he does respond to the public meme.
Quelle Surprise?
The MPs just do not seem to get it people outwith the village of Westminster are not interested in any committee made up of their numbers having any further say in how their expenses are structured.
They want all control taken away from them and given to a truly independent body who will say this is it, take it or leave it. Those who accept stay in politics those who disagree get out of politics for ever.
Nothing else will satisfy a public who have seen that when it comes to self-regulation MPs are as hopelessly corrupted by greed as Bankers.
This suggests another attempted stitch up.
Perhaps Cameron and Clegg should demand that ALL parties are involved, to ensure total acceptance.
Brown just cannot be trusted. It is always the small print with Brown.
Why is Gordon Brown still in office? Why is the Speaker still there? Why hasn't anyone resigned yet? Why hasn't a general election been announced? Why, Why...WHY????
I'm exhausted from constant fury at this wretched government!
To B. Griffith,
Brown has always been little more than a partisan thug, glad you recognize that.
In the run up to the Scottish Parliament elections he went on national tv north of the border and said he would not work with Alex Salmond as First Minister were he elected.
He then refused to contact the Scottish Government for one and a half months after it was installed, and finally was forced by his underlyings to call Salmond acknowledge he was FM, and congratulate him on his victory.
Brown has temper tantrums like a small child, and seemingly all the governing capacity of one. He is damaging the country (however you want to define that) in his own selfish interests again, and "disgrace" does not adequately cover this state of affairs.
The issue here clearly is how tight the clunking fist wants to hold onto control. Committee after committee after committee - it's so much a walled garden I can see the ivy strangling anyone trying to peer through the gate.
Brown knows that Cameron stole his thunder. Now the fun begins.
And Gordy is still refusing to even mention the word "England" and still pretending that English legislation applies to Britain - basically trying to hoodwink the people of England into thinking that devolution has made no difference. And he represents a Scots constituency, so over 70% of the legislation his government passes does not apply to his own constituents. 21st Century democracy for England.
Wasn't there a kerfuffle in the last round of expenses reforms about what would and wouldn't apply to the Northern Irish MPs?
There's more reasons for keeping the DUP on board than simply an excuse to exclude the SNP.
Well it won't won't be Angus Robertson.
I suspect he'll be getting the sack from Salmond soon so he can spend more time with his home cinema.
Dodds and the DUP are the biggest pigs of the lot when it comes to the trough. Not content with just second homes they also misuse the constituency office allowance. How about renting their offices from other family members?
Yes they really do, and there "is nothing in the rules" to prevent them.
[vomits]
More disgusting insults to Scotland. May I tell your first 'anonymous' poster the Scots DO NOT hate the English, they detest the Westminster government system.
The more you pedal that myth Anon I think you're making a desperate attempt for people to vote for a particular mainly Engish party.
Your lies do nothing to affect the relationship we have between our English neighbours. Many more have tried this drivel before you and have failed.
Iain,
I did a radio interview with Mr Donaldson last week, during which he insisted that he has actually lost income since going into politics. Oh yes. So give him a break, he is obviously slumming it and needs all the loot he can get!!
A bit tangential to the topic, but am I correct in thinking that we have Speaker Martin because of the machinations of a certain Ted Heath?
I stand to be corrected but would like to know
The only thing the Scots at Westminster hate more than the English, are other Scots who want to bring their gravy train to a grinding halt.Those dirty Scottish bastards are a right bunch of bigots, huh?
The strpng point of devolution over a unitary state or separation is that the different units can try different policies & the country as a whole will learn which works. he Scottish Parliament has been more of a horrible warning than a good example on most things but on disclosure of expenses we clearly can provide a good example.
The Westminster government is not English. It is the British government and it rules England directly and with incredible malignancy and bias using MP's from foreign countries ie Scotland, wales and NI to cement its power over us. It has never shown any restraint in plundering England to subsidise the other countries of this so-called "union".
Brown is simply running true to form. He is the genuine product of Scottish Labour ie devious, hate-filled, scheming and brimming over with loathing for England. Not that he can even bring himself to say the name of our country.
And very many Scots have made it excessively plain they do hate England and the English.
England would be well shot of this moribund twisted union. Try asking the English for their opinion of it and my comments will be mild by comparison.
"Anonymous" talks about the "many" Scots who hate the English.
Perhaps he should know that 1 in 8 members of the Scottish Parliament are actually English.
Ninety percent of English residents of Scotland say they have experienced NO anti-Englishness.
Many English-born residents of Scotland comment that they resent the way the media (in England and Scotland) exaggerate tensions and differences between the English and Scots.
These English people probably wouldn't welcome your bile any more than I do.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/proct03/english.html
Have a read - direct your bile at the Labour Party, not at Scots. The majority of us (apart from in Labour's rotten boroughs) don't want Labour either.
The scavangers north of the border
! Dispicable brown should be trussed up like mussolini ! what shambles the jock labour has done to England with the help of the EU and all the anti English politicians ! we need civil war to sort it out !once and for all !
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