MPs' expenses: This crisis has revealed what is really wrong with Britain
A culture of rules and regulations has stifled morality in modern public life and wider society. It is now time to try a different approach, says Iain Martin.
Amidst the horrors, there have been a few moments of unintentional comedy. Of all the myriad excuses from MPs in the last week, I have a favourite.
Stewart Jackson is the Conservative MP for Peterborough. He made an expenses claim in relation to his swimming pool and attempted to explain it as follows: "The pool came with the house and I needed to know how to run it. Once I was shown that one time, there were no more claims. I take care of the pool myself. I believe this represents 'value for money' for the taxpayer."
How, precisely, does one operate a swimming pool? Surely it's not difficult. You fill it full of water and, when it's sunny, you jump in.
Note also that Jackson says "the pool came with the house", as though his estate agent had neglected to mention the fact: "There's something we forgot to tell you, sir. Your new house. It has a swimming pool." I imagine Jackson with his head in hands: "Good God, man, why on earth didn't you warn me? That's simply awful." Estate agent: "Shall we have it removed, sir?" Jackson (wearily): "No, don't bother. I'll just have to live
with it."
In contrast, the country is not in a mood to live with politicians who claim for moats or who make manifestly dodgy mortgage claims. A feeling abounds that there must be punishment. But then what?
Traditionally, the British have preferred to avoid too much introspection, regarding an excess of self-examination as embarrassing. But, from time to time, it becomes unavoidable and a crisis prompts the country to ask itself whether it is content with the direction in which it is headed. If the answer is no, the consequences for those who rule or govern can be highly unpredictable.
Think of the abdication crisis in the Thirties, the calamity of Suez in the Fifties or the winter of discontent in the late Seventies. The most recent event with which the MPs' expenses scandal compares in terms of public feeling is the tumult around the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales, in 1997. At the time – before and during that mad September – a large body of opinion had formed in favour of much greater informality in public life. We got it, including the election to power of New Labour in May.
And what was the result? In politics, there was the disaster of sofa-government and a growing contempt on the part of Number 10 for "stuffy" traditional institutions such as the Cabinet, the intelligence service, the Commons and the Lords. Of course, these developments are not to blame for the decay of Parliament and the crisis presently consuming British democracy, but they hardly helped.
What is clear this weekend is that there is now a revolution of sorts coming. The question for existing MPs is whether they attempt to participate or are swept away by forces and candidates yet unknown.
This means the pro-reform camp within Parliament has very little time to act. The cross-party campaign to remove the Speaker – which will table a motion tomorrow – must succeed this week. A new occupant of the office – Vince Cable or Frank Field, perhaps – should then lead the demoralised institution through immediate and radical reforms. MPs who reject this approach fail to realise that narrow party-politicking has never been a more inadequate response. Sure, deposing the Speaker will not be enough when the country wants the long arm of the law extended. But it would demonstrate that public pressure can produce results.
Next, bring on a grassroots rebellion: a wave of deselections ahead of the next general election; the emergence of strong independent candidates to defeat the most tarnished incumbents; for the election after that, primaries to choose candidates.
It should not be forgotten that before these events there were good MPs who understood that the relationship between the electors and the elected was changing, and who ordered their affairs accordingly. But they were outnumbered by those trapped on Planet Politics, who refused to believe that their world was ending. They know now. Heading back to their constituencies, after modern Parliament's worst week, a good number looked absolutely terrified.
Why is the country quite so angry? Well, it has become clear that, as the economy headed for the rocks, those paid to pay attention were otherwise occupied filling out expense claim forms. Voters, forced to adjust to an age of austerity, want the pain shared.
But I would argue that it is about much more than that. There has been an inchoate sense for some time that Britain no longer functions effectively, despite the vast sums spent maintaining it. Virtually every activity the law-abiding undertake seems to have become entangled in a web of energy-sapping orders from officialdom.
What ails Britain – beyond our economic problems – is that we have allowed a bossy Commons (the same body which has ripped us off) to legislate our society piece by piece, to the point where modern life is excessively rules-based.
This obsessive culture of compliance was there in the Baby P case: everyone involved could point to boxes that had been ticked, to show they had followed the rules. The City was hardly under-regulated when the 2,500 staff of the Financial Services Authority spent their time forcing banks to fill out forms.
In both cases, the problem was not an absence of rules. It was that there were so many rules that they crowded out any space for judgment or the exercise of individual morality. Free individuals encouraged to act ethically are more likely to arrive at the right answers than an over-mighty bureaucracy.
Such impulses are instinctively conservative and anti-socialist, and they have formed the basis of David Cameron's best speeches in the last three years. "Labour trusts the state, we trust society," he said on Friday. His response last week was judged by many to be first class, particularly when compared to the moral and strategic collapse of Gordon Brown. Cameron got to the moral heart of the matter: what matters is what is right and what is wrong. He will be good at the business of being prime minister.
In the circumstances, isn't it highly instructive that the first response of many of our elected representatives on being exposed by the Telegraph has been to say that they were acting within the rules? It illustrates Britain's problem perfectly.
We need more individuals in Parliament who are prepared to exercise judgment and to know the difference between right and wrong. We must all ensure we get them. But a new spirit of personal responsibility is needed outwith the walls of the Palace of Westminster too. It must flood into every corner of our national life.
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