Where The Huntsman leads, the hounds follow

"Watch Out! There's A Thief About!"
And the Home Secretary
should know, shouldn't she?

Nigh on two years ago I first wrote, in indignation, of the wretched state of affairs concerning MPs expenses. Whilst not the first so to do but well before the bandwagon hove into view, I proposed that MPs expenses must be place in full, unexpurgated, unredacted beauty online as are those of MSPs by the Scottish Parliament. I also proposed some swingeing prison sentences for those who cheated. I now recognise my errors.

My indignation was aroused by the Maclean Bill which sought to exempt MP's expenses from scrutiny via a Freedom of Information Act request, a shameful and disgraceful plot which would have put MPs above the law, a place in which they should never be put. That attempt was defeated because, notwithstanding its utterly shameful passage through the Commons (inter alia voted for, surprise, surprise, by, Harry Cohen and Tony McNulty and, as we shall see below, a certain other MP), no Peer could be found to touch the thing with a bargepole, not even those of their Lordship's House who themselves know a thing or two about feathering their nest. Since then, however, we have seen just how fierce has been the counter-attack of its supporters and how they have managed hitherto to keep their expenses under wraps.

We now know, however, what we then suspected: that there was a jolly good reason why MPs were prepared to risk the opprobrium of granting themselves special exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, namely that the opprobrium that would be occasioned by letting details of their expenses ever see the light of day was considerably greater. And so it has proved.

Back then I was persuaded that the vast majority of MPs were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. With each passing day, however, my willingness to make such a concession diminishes and is diminished by the sweeping tide of revelations of just how deep the malaise is.

Though there will yet be further Tory victims swept away by this particular tide of sleaze, the vast majority of malefactors will prove to be representatives of ZANU Labour, entirely in emulation of their Zimbabwean counterparts. Thus is explained why it was in May 2007 Labour's Whips turned out in such numbers, as I wrote back then:

Far more significantly, however, out of 13 Government Whips, 11 voted during various divisions on the Bill, of whom all were in favour of the Bill. These were Jacqui Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Whip) Alan Campbell, Claire Ward, David Watts, Frank Roy (Lords Commissioner), Liz Blackman, Ian Cawsey, Michael Foster, Huw Iranca-Davies, Stephen McCabe and Jonathon Shaw (Assistant Whips).

Pausing there a moment, and reflect, if you will, upon the name of the leader of the gang back then: none other than Jackboots Jacqui herself, who was then Labour's Chief Whip before she was plucked to wield her incompetence on the office of Home Secretary. Although she did not vote (perhaps with an eye to the future?) in the 3rd. reading of the bill, she had voted throughout that day on various divisions upon Maclean's Bill.

Given the depth to which she has personally shoved her loathsome snout into the public purse, her orchestration of the Whips who in turn were able to procure such a sizeable Labour turnout that day is explained in its entirety by what we now know of her venal, self-enriching, thieving ways. She was, in short, looking after Number One (and, indeed, Numbers One to Three Hundred & Fifty) just as she has been looking after Number One all these years.

And to those of you who would opine that this is 'all within the rules', I have to say to you that I, for one, care not a fig for your opinion. Nor, lest any of the people I have named herein is inclined to sue for Defamation, would any member of your average English Libel Jury. It may be within the rules, but there is, as one is taught at Law School, a world of difference between that which is lawful and that which is immoral.

Much of what has been going on here is utterly immoral. Some of it may also be criminal: at least one of these shysters is under investigation by The Met (which laughingly describes itself these days as a 'police' service), but in the way of these things I am not holding my breath on their account.

There is, however, more to this particular business than it being a tale of greedy, thieving, venal, lying, cheating MPs robbing us blind to set up their retirement trust funds.

There is something else which underlies this despicable state of affairs, something which goes to the heart of our failing democracy.

It is that the position today of MPs in our body politic has been well and truly rumbled by the electorate. They understand only too well that MPs have shuffled off responsibility for about 80% of our lawmaking to unelected, unaccountable foreigners in Brussels and elsewhere by virtue of our cessions of Sovereignty over our affairs. The electorate understands only too well that MPs now do precious little that is of real importance and, given ZANU Labour's utter contempt for Parliament and its Zimbabweanization of our economy and of our political life, that MPs actually count for next to nothing in the great scheme of things. Were they shouldering responsibility for the affairs of a fully Sovereign Independent Nation State, the electorate might be inclined not to take such a dim view of their kleptomane ways. But as they simply nod through and rubber-stamp 80% of our laws (and. let us remember, the bits that really count) whilst they loot and pillage the public purse, the public whose purse it is finds itself no longer willing to be mugged on a daily basis.

So, as almost every member of the Cabinet, our discredited Home Secretary, our ineffectual Chancellor of the Exchequer, grasping Geoff Hoon, Bilking Beckett, Uncle Tom Cobley & All, shove their thieving paws deeper into our pockets, let them understand that we are not merely angry about them and their ways, but about the system over which they preside.

Therein lies grave danger for The State. Revolutions have started from the sorts of positions in which we find ourselves today. When the governing class so sets itself apart from the governed whom they pretend to represent, such that, for example, they effectively exempt themselves from paying a tax (Stamp Duty ) which everyone else has to pay come what may, the result may be a very different one from that which they envisaged when they first decided upon looting and pillaging as a way of life.

It will, therefore, not be enough for Hattie The Harpie to promise , for the umpteenth time, that something will be done. It is simply time for these expenses to be put online, now. We will then be the judge of them, as is our right. And if individual MPs find that their electors care not for what they find, then they only have themselves to blame.

But the real problem lies elsewhere. And thus we must now wrench back control of our affairs to ourselves from the Brussels Diktat and force Parliament once more to become the final arbiter of our fate. With that high responsibility will go just and proper reward. Right now, however, the swine presently resident in the Palace of Westminster may have to be hurried off to the political abattoir.

I wrote at the top of recognising my errors in this affair. My principal one was to propose in my draft Bill some wholly inadequate sanctions for MPs who made false statements to get expenses. I now reckon that they ought to be treated as on a par with organised drug dealers, paedophiles and rapists.

Having a string of MPs carted off to start some really condign sentences would be a satisfactory and welcome start to this particular programme.

I may not quite have been the first to get on this case, but I reckon I got it right back then. Where The Huntsman leads, the hounds follow.....

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