thetorydiary

Gaffe of 2009

Jonathan Isaby's pick: As we pointed out earlier in the month, the Prime Minister has committed a number of gaffes during the year. But the top prize surely goes to Gordon Brown for that cringeworthy YouTube performance promising action on MPs' expenses, complete with weird smile and odd body movements. It was even the subject of the following day's sketch by Simon Hoggart in The Guardian. Watch it again here:

Tim Montgomerie's pick: I was on holiday in the Lake District when I first heard Anthony Steen's interview for Radio 4's World at One. My mouth fell open and stayed open! Steen blamed "jealousy" for constituents' anger at his claims for trees on his country estate. He said that the public had no right to know what he did with taxpayer-funded allowances. If Peter Viggers' Duck House most symbolised MPs' abuse of expenses the Steen interview did most to typify MPs' arrogance.

> Previous Pick of 2009 was for The Best Blogger.

Moment of 2009

Jonathan Isaby's pick: It was the story that broke during the evening of Thursday 7th May and came to dominate the political agenda for so much of the rest of the year: the Daily Telegraph had bought the discs with the full unexpurgated, unredacted details of MPs' expenses claims going back to 2004 and it was going to make the most of it. Running stories day after day for what seemed like forever, it was explosive stuff and led to the ousting of the Commons Speaker and has caused numerous MPs to exit the Commons - with possible criminal charges yet to follow for some. Whilst the paper's blanket coverage did a disservice to some in the way that it sometimes failed really to differentiate between the worst offenders and those who were merely acting on the guidance of the Fees Office, it was the defining story of the year and has meant that long overdue reforms to the system of MPs' expenses are finally being implemented.

Tim Montgomerie's pick: I agree with Jonathan's choice but needing to pick something different I'll choose the Left's reaction to The Sun's endorsement of David Cameron. Although The Sun's decision was more of a response to Tory ascendancy than a cause of it, CCHQ are very glad to have Britain's best-selling newspaper on side (even if it sometimes goes over the top). My moment, however, is the reaction of the Labour Left to The Sun's decision (captured in the video below and in these words from Harriet Harman). The reaction gives us a taste of the lurch to the left that is underway within the Labour movement. If the retiring generation of Blairites are not replaced with equally strong figures, union leaders like Tony Woodley and left-wing bloggers will dominate Labour in the years to come.

> We have already named our Backbenchers of the Year and Frontbenchers of the Year.

The right to sack bad MPs should be centrepiece of Cameron's 'we-get-it-on-expenses' manifesto

There are persistent rumours that The Times' Chief Leader Writer, Daniel Finkelstein will become head of the Downing Street Policy Unit if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister. I have no idea if those rumours are true. I don't agree with Danny on everything but he's one of politics' nicest people and his commitment to the social justice agenda would make him a good choice. He is highly qualified for the post; (1) He has worked closely with two of the people who will be leading players in a Cameron government, George Osborne and William Hague and (2) he served inside Downing Street during the Major years. His advice on MPs' expenses is certainly worth heeding. This is what he blogged on Friday:

"I am still not convinced that political leaders realise how improtant this issues is going to be at the election. It will form a vital part of the local campaign fuelling an anti-incumbent feeling and it will undoubtedly break through into the national televised campaign too, in some form, even if we don't quite know how. It will become a major test of character and leadership and help decide the election result. Because MPs hate this issue so much, they shut their eyes and hope it will go away. It won't. More than that, party leaders should see it as a positive opportunity to show they are on the voters' side."

I think a lot of the anger towards MPs is over-done but it shows no sign of abating. The News of the World carries a story about "dozens of MPs [pocketing] thousands of pounds in extra taxpayer-funded expenses because of a loophole in House of Commons rules." The Mail on Sunday's BPIX poll captures another element of voter anger. 75% want the Prime Minister's salary to be cut by 20%.  The Tory leader has already promised a 5% cut in ministers' pay as part of his 'we're all in this together' message.  He challenged Gordon Brown to match that commitment at Wednesday's PMQs. Mr Cameron has also promised to cut the number of MPs by 10% by the time of the next General Election. That is a very tricky commitment which could cause countless selection battles in the second half of the parliament and encourage MPs to look to their local Associations' concerns more often than to the whips.

David Cameron needs to be alert to the issue of MPs' expenses re-emerging as an issue.  He has still not committed to the idea of 'recalling' MPs mid-term if they lose the confidence of voters. It is also worrying that Julie Kirkbride's ambitions to stand again remain alive. If she were to stand again she would blight the chances of Tory candidates throughout her region. I'm also hearing that her husband Andrew Mackay is set to be enobled. That would be a very unwelcome move, sending out all the wrong signals.

Credit to John Bercow for today's Mail on Sunday revelation that the Speaker plans to sack the official behind MPs' expenses. The promise came in an interview for Iain Dale's Total Politics magazine.

Tim Montgomerie 

Open thread on MPs' expenses

Today the House of Commons authorities have published the details of the expenses claims from MPs for 2008-2009.

See them all here.

I have already highlighted Gordon Brown's claims this morning.

The Guardian's Andrew Sparrow has a busy live blog picking out many of the stories making waves and Henry Macrory at CCHQ is posting regular Tweets on the matter. There are also live blogs at The Times and Daily Telegraph. I will try and highlight some of them below.

• Labour minister Helen Goodman claimed £600 for husband's office advice - Telegraph
• More than 50 MPs "flipped" their homes last year - Guardian
• Harriet Harman say there will be legislation on the Kelly reforms after all - Gary Gibbon's blog
• What the party leaders and other big hitters have claimed - Politics.co.uk
• A variety of claims from Labour MPs: Phil Hope claimed £2 for a burger maker; Shahid Malik claimed for 'solid oak bathroom vanity unit suite with Pheonix Stone basin & mirror'; Elliot Morley claimed for a plastic hawk; Frank Cook and John Reid both claimed for toilet seats  - via Henry Macrory
• Labour MP Quentin Davies tried to claim £20,000 for a 'bell tower' on his home - Paul Waugh
• Tory MP claims highlighted by Peter Henley: James Arbuthnot bought three garlic presses from QVC at £12.22 each; the year after he claimed for a Duck Island MP Sir Peter Viggers sent in a £115 invoice from a "Bird proofing/cleaning" company.
• David Cameron's expenses dissected - Guardian
• The TaxPayers' Alliance blog notes Sir Michael Spicer's internal redecoration of wardrobes and cupboards for £3,025.
• I have posted separately here on Labour MP Kali Mountford.
• Jeremy Hunt MP to repay £9,500 for 'misinterpretation of rules' - Guardian
• Lib Dem Andrew George and Labour's Lindsay Roy had claims for hairdryers refused - Telegraph

Jonathan Isaby

Tory peer facing possible police investigation over housing claims

Tomorrow's Sunday Times carries the following story about Lord Taylor of Warwick:

"A Tory peer has been caught using someone else’s home address to claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses. Lord Taylor of Warwick, a 57-year-old former barrister, told the House of Lords that his main home was a terrace house in Oxford which he neither owned nor lived in.

"The property’s owner, Tristram Wyatt, a university academic, said he was unaware that his address had been used as the peer’s main home. Wyatt’s companion is the peer’s step-nephew, Robert Taylor, who admitted to The Sunday Times that his uncle has never lived at the house. “He doesn’t live here, he hasn’t lived here,” he said."

More here.

Jonathan Isaby

Tories ramp up questioning of why the Kelly Report was not included in the Queen's Speech

Scroll down for later updates.

In his response to the Queen's Speech, David Cameron pointed out in the Commons that no measures recommended in the Kelly Report were mentioned in the Government's legislative programme. Here's what he said precisely:

"Then there is the biggest omission of all, and frankly it will infuriate the British people whom we are here to represent. The Prime Minister said—hon. Members will remember this—that the whole reason for delaying the election, the whole reason he could not go to the country in the summer, was that he wanted to clean up the mess of MPs’ expenses. Yet there is no mention of expenses or the Kelly report in the Queen’s Speech. To implement Kelly—to clean up expenses—11 separate measures still need to be passed into law. So where is the legislation? Where are the laws that we were promised? Why are they not in the Queen’s Speech?

"Let me make this offer to the Prime Minister: if he brings forward legislation to implement the rest of Kelly we will support it and help him to pass it through this House and the House of Lords. I will give way to the Prime Minister so that he can stand up and say that he will bring forward this legislation and together we can take it through Parliament. Will he do it? No. No one watching will understand why this vital work is not being done in this Parliament. Why do we not show them that we meant what we said? Instead of the measures in the Queen’s Speech—most of which will not become law by the next election—the expenses changes, the Kelly changes, could become law by the next election.

"Let me give the Prime Minister another chance, now that he has finished consulting the Leader of the House. Let him stand up now and tell us that together we can pass the laws to implement Kelly in full. He tells us that he is serious about cleaning up politics, but when it comes to the crunch—absolutely nothing."

The Conservatives have tonight issued a list of the 11 separate measures (see below) to which David Cameron referred. They include entrenching the independent determination of MPs' pay and pensions with the new regulatory and ending the right of MPs to also be a member of a devolved legislature. The Tories have also re-iterated their offer to support such legislation if the Government brings it forward after all.

Meanwhile, Sir Christopher Kelly himself has expressed disappointment at the Government's failure to act oin his recommendations - as they had promised they would - and issued the following statement:

"It is disappointing that today's Queens's Speech did not contain measures to address the changes we believe to be necessary affecting the remit, powers and independence of the new body being established to regulate expenses. There is no reason why the relatively straightforward legislation needed in this area should prevent the new regulatory body from getting other important changes underway."

9.30pm update:

Hee is the full list of required legislative measures identified by the Committee on Standards in Public, as published by the Conservatives this evening:

Alan Duncan cleared of breaching expenses rules

Sky News has the story - more to follow...

The Press Association reports:

Shadow prisons minister Alan Duncan has been cleared of wrongly claiming tens of thousands of pounds in mortgage interest payments on his second home. The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said there was nothing in the Tory MP's mortgage arrangements that breached Commons rules. Mr Duncan referred the case to Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon himself after it was reported he had claimed the mortgage on his designated second home, even though he had owned it outright for more than a decade.

In his report to the committee, Mr Lyon said that it was "entirely reasonable" of Mr Duncan to have taken out a £271,000 mortgage secured on his London home - which he had owned outright since 1991 - so that he could buy a property in his Rutland and Melton constituency. The commissioner said it was equally reasonable for him to claim the interest on the mortgage as it had been taken out solely for the purpose of purchasing the property in Rutland.

"The arrangement was relatively simple in that there was no other mortgage on the London home," he said. His mortgage interest costs were necessarily incurred to enable him to have a second home based in his constituency in order to fulfil his parliamentary duties."

You can read the report on the Standards and Privileges Committee website.

Jonathan Isaby

Tory MPs' wives consult lawyers after Kelly recommends ending their Commons employment

Christopher Kelly has launched his report and it contains few surprises. Nearly all Conservatives will, I suspect, welcome the proposal to abolish the Communications Allowance (already David Cameron's policy) and to allow MPs to retain outside paid interests.

We had confirmation that those within a one hour commute will not be allowed a second home and all MPs will have to rent from now on, ending the mortgage assistance scheme.

The one area of greatest controversy for the Conservative parliamentary party will be the issue of employing family members.  Kelly has recommended the ending of employment of all family members within five years but MPs' spouses are talking to lawyers in order to establish if this can be consistent with employment law.

Eve Burt (interviewed here), Suzy Gale and Sally Hammond have issued a press release insisting that their employment is defensible:

"We are a highly professional group of people, dedicated to serving our MP’s constituents.  Like other workers we have Contracts of Employment and we are paid to scales scrutinised and approved by the House authorities.  If anyone wishes to follow an “audit trail” our records of work are open and entirely transparent."

11.30am: Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance has called for the report to be implemented in full:

“Sir Christopher has produced a firm and fair set of proposals for reforming MPs’ expenses, which do justice to taxpayers’ concerns. These rules would allow Parliament to take the first step on the road to regaining public confidence. It is now essential that his recommendations are adopted by Parliament and the new expenses Authority immediately and in full. People will not stand for another fudge or any more obstructive behaviour. The Kelly Report is the way forward for Parliament, and it must not be watered down or cherry-picked in any way.”

Tim Montgomerie

David Cameron reiterates Tory opposition to Tony Blair becoming EU President

I am just back from David Cameron's monthly press conference where he made several announcements.

Tim has already blogged on what Mr Cameron had to say about All Women Shortlists in response to my question about candidate selection.

Blair for EU President?
On the potential for Tony Blair to become EU President, he reiterated that he didn't believe that the EU should have a President and that he didn't support Blair in that role even if there is a President. If such a role had to exist, he would rather it were a "chairmanic" role rather than the "all-singing, all-dancing, all-acting" Tony Blair. He later said that William Hague had made the party's position on the issue of Blair clear and that he had himself always made his position clear whenever asked by visiting European politicians . The Mail's Quentin Letts asked what he thought a former leader like Blair should be doing. "I've got so many things to worry about, that what Tony Blair does with well-funded retirement is just too far down the list... I thought he was solving the Middle East? He could carry on with that for a bit."

On Lisbon, he repeated his previous commitment that if Lisbon comes into force, then new circumstances will exist and he would set out the position as to what to do about it then.

Looking at the disincentives to work
On the back of what he said at conference about marginal tax rates for the poorest in society, he said that some families' marginal tax is in fact over 100%, meaning that they would be better off on benefits than in work. He said that he was instructing George Osborne, Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith to consider the disincentives to work created by the present benefit withdrawal rates and develop a "lasting and affordable policy solution".

Priorities for Government
On the basis that he wants people to be confident that change can happen under a Conservative government, he said he wants ministers to have "a clear idea of what they want to achieve and how to go about it". He has therefore asked every member of the shad cab to set out their reform priorities - "not a dream wish list or vague aspirations or vacuous pledge card promises" - but rather three, four or five key priorities for which he, as Prime Minister and the people could hold them accountable. With transparency being one of the most important things, he said that these priorities would start being published next week.

Peers' residences
Having led the way on dealing with the MPs' expenses issue, he announced that Lord Strathclyde has today written to all Conservative peers who claim expenses to clarify which is their main home.

Other issues which came up

• He said he would not debate against Nick Griffin in an election leaders' debate - the debates should just be between the three main party leaders;
• He said that the party will shortly be announcing two more all-postal primaries, as used in Totnes to select Sarah Wollaston;
• He accused those attacking the new European Conservatives and Reformists group in Brussels as waging "a totally politically-driven campaign" based only on the premise that they don't like the fact that the Conservatives are now part of a group that doesn't go along with everything Europe does.  He dismissed the attacks on our sister parties and their leaders as "complete nonsense".

Jonathan Isaby

A pay rise for MPs right now would be totally unacceptable

Today's Telegraph carries news that I imagine will stupefy most people right now: Gordon Brown is reportedly planning to give MPs a pay rise (funded by a cut in ministerial wages) "to make up for a loss of income from expenses claims" which they will soon no longer be able to make:

"With MPs growing increasingly fearful of a stricter regime, he [Brown] wants to offer them a deal that effectively buys their silence. “If we show that ministers are being paid less and the overall bill in terms of salary is not going up then it could be done,” a Downing Street source said... Mr Brown hopes to persuade voters that the move would make MPs’ pay more transparent and less reliant on “top-up” allowances."

The Telegraph report - albeit already being played down by Downing Street - includes the full arithmetic of how the ministerial wage bill would be cut to fund a £3,000 rise for all MPs.  

Tim Montgomerie has previously proposed that MPs take a 5% temporary pay cut and that ministers take a 10% pay cut throughout the next Parliament, whereas David Cameron has already pledged a pay freeze for ministers throughout the next Parliament.

Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack, meanwhile, recently made the brave proposal to double MPs' pay to £130,000 and abolish their allowances.

For far too long MPs of all political colours have been complicit in their opposition to taking a pay rise in return for increased allowances for food, cleaning and the like. As such, there is a case for making MPs' pay completely transparent and paying them a higher figure, including some of what was previously given in allowances but which they had been encouraged to view as part of their salary.

HOWEVER, it would be totally unacceptable to go ahead and do this now. In the wake of all the expenses revelations, MPs are held in such contempt by the general public that such a move would seriously risk alienating voters yet further and giving succour to parties on the extremist fringe.

The political class needs to demonstrate a little humility and austerity which might just help restore people's faith in politics and the political process.

Yes, there does, in the longer term, need to be a proper review of the level of MPs' pay, but while the country as a whole is having to tighten its belt, talk of raising MPs' pay is simply unacceptable.

Jonathan Isaby

The angry mob and the good MPs

Midday: Iain Martin at the Wall Street Journal has agreed with the thrust of this post.

***

Paul Goodman was good enough to confide in me before he announced his decision to stand down at the next General Election. Another MP who I greatly respect has just told me that they are seriously considering retiring. At a constituency event on the day that Gordon Brown had been ordered to repay £12,000, hostility was not directed to the PM and the others making paybacks but to all MPs. This MP was given a clean bill of health by Legg but the “hatred was overwhelming and becoming exhausting”.

“Hatred” is about right. The BNP website and Guido Fawkes tell us that it's us against all of them. All of them. They're not MPs but dehumanised “troughers”. The Daily Telegraph uses tabloid-sized headlines for Expenses-gate that are more appropriate for the declaration of war.  Tories who would normally oppose retrospective lawmaking or rule-by-quangocracy are silent when Sir Thomas Legg requires repayments that none of us would accept. Little if any distinction is being made between grades of offence - between mortgage fraud and claiming for lots of light bulbs - let alone between MPs who have offended and those who have not.  Very good MPs like Frank Field are being caught in the net. Now it seems that existing MPs are to be forced to end their employment of spouses even though those arrangements have become entirely transparent.

I think ConHome has been tough on those MPs who have overstepped the mark - Derek Conway, Andrew MacKay, Julie Kirkbride and Alan Duncan can all testify to that - but we're now in lynch mob territory.

A ban on MPs employing family members will produce new wave of retirements

Last Sunday Jonathan produced a list of Tory MPs retiring at the next election. Because of David Wilshire's resignation that list is already out-of-date.

More retirements are still expected. "At least a dozen, perhaps twenty" was the verdict of one Tory whip talking to ConHome earlier this week.

Sir Thomas Legg's report has been difficult for MPs - and if, after due process, Sir Thomas Legg requires some MPs to make very large repayments a number of MPs will retire - but Sir Christopher Kelly's review into the future expenses system is likely to be even more significant if this morning's Times is correct.

MPs had expected Kelly to ban new MPs from employing relatives but The Times suggests that existing MPs will have to stop too:

"A senior Commons official said that Sir Christopher believed that would create a “two-tier House of Commons” in which older MPs would enjoy privileges that the “Class of 2010” did not. Sir Christopher is said to believe that severe measures are needed to restore public confidence in Parliament. Having been asked by Gordon Brown to overhaul the system, the former civil servant is understood to have sat in on focus groups to experience the depth of public anger. The sessions are said to have strengthened his resolve."

MPs may also have to sell existing second homes and rent in future.

Shadow cabinet publishes repayment amounts being repaid under Thomas Legg

In another welcome example of transparency from the Tory leadership the following facts about the shadow cabinet have been released regarding letters from Sir Thomas Legg.

Five members of the shadow cabinet "have no issues at all": Mark Francois, Michael Gove, Philip Hammond, Theresa May, Grant Shapps and Theresa Villiers.

Eight members have been asked for more information but have not received payback requests: David Cameron, Chris Grayling, George Osborne, Greg Clark, David Willetts, Francis Maude, Jeremy Hunt and Dominic Grieve.

Eleven members have agreed to make repayments:

1. Eric Pickles: £300 on cleaning
2. Owen Paterson: £911.21 for repairs, insurance and mortgage (plus more information requested)
   
3. Oliver Letwin: £613.70 for service and maintenance (plus more information requested)
4. William Hague: £642.78 for mortgage overpayment
5. Sir George Young: £104.68 for utilities
6. Patrick McCloughlin: £4,058.42 for cleaning and mortgage (plus more information requested)
7. Nick Herbert: £699.98 for mortgage (already repaid) (plus more information requested)
8. Andrew Lansley: £1782.22 for mortgage (plus more information requested)
9. Cheryl Gillan: £1884.23 for mortgage (plus more information requested)
10. Caroline Spelman £2,400 for office costs
11. Ken Clarke: £4,734 for gardening and cleaning although there is some ongoing discussion about the precise amount. 

You add up all the shadow cabinet repayments and they don't come close to twice Gordon Brown's payback!

In addition on some fundamental factual disputes there are unresolved issues with Liam Fox, Andrew Mitchell and David Mundell.

Tim Montgomerie

Cameron tells Tory MPs to pay back expenses as instructed by Legg - or stand down

Tim has already touched on the Legg letters this morning; but David Cameron has now made a very robust pronouncement: if Conservative MPs refuse to pay back the money, they will not be Conservative candidates at the next election.

He told breakfast television:

"In the end, if people are asked to pay back money and they don't pay it back, in my view they can't... stand as Conservative MPs."

There is more on the BBC website.

Jonathan Isaby

12.30pm Sky News reports on David Cameron's ultimatum to his MPs and Ann Widdecombe's anger at Legg's rewriting of the rules. Any business that behaved like Legg would be up in front of an employment tribunal, says Widdecombe.

MPs who didn't break rules are asked to repay money but Jacqui Smith (who did break rules) does not have to repay

Do any readers have any sympathy for MPs this morning?

The Daily Mail has none. It thunders:

"Many backbenchers say they’ll refuse to pay back their share of more than £1million they’ve overcharged. They whine that Sir Thomas Legg, the ex-civil servant trawling through their expenses claims, is unfair to lay down ‘retrospective’ rules limiting how much they could legitimately claim for cleaning (£2,000 a year) and gardening (£1,000). The Mail has said it before, and we’ll say it again: they just don’t get it, do they? Anyone with an ounce of moral sense must see it was wholly wrong of MPs to charge taxpayers huge sums for services that ordinary mortals have to finance out of their own earnings."

The Times takes a different view.  Here is an extract from today's leader:

"Because the application of the rules by the fees office proved unpopular, Sir Thomas has created a new set of rules and, extraordinarily, applied them retrospectively. Some of his judgments are baffling. Why should one MP be told that there is a new, backdated limit on cleaning bills, while another is informed that it is fine to charge up to the limit for his mortgage? Your house can be too clean, it appears, but not too large. Attached to these mysterious conclusions are massive bills — people on professional salaries are being asked to stump up thousands of pounds or be ruined politically. Of course, Parliament must satisfy public opinion. That is what elections are for. But Britain should be governed by the rule of law, sound administration and democratic elections, not panic inquiries, retrospective fines and free- wheeling political lynch mobs."

The party leaders have correctly concluded that public antipathy towards politicians is so great that there is no sense in complaining about the retrospective nature of Thomas Legg's rulings. Privately there is an almost universal sense of unfair treatment. It is not just the retrospective nature of the Legg judgments but also - as The Times argues - there is the sense that people who maxed out mortgage claims are treated much more leniently than those with large gardening bills.

On Sunday Jonathan Isaby listed the Tory MPs already retiring.  That list is likely to grow significantly in the weeks and and months ahead.

Tim Montgomerie

> Watch Jacqui Smith's apology to the Commons.

According to yesterday's Newsnight the Standards & Privileges Committee - which is normally balanced between Labour and opposition MPs - was dominated by Labour (five-to-one) when it judged Jacqui Smith's case and decided not to ask her to repay. It should not have met but waited until a more balanced membership was present.

MPs' expenses returns to the top of the political agenda

The revelations over MPs' use and abuse of parliamentary expenses dominated the political agenda during the spring in the run-up to the June elections, with the papers  leading on the story day after day for weeks as the Daily Telegraph published details of the claims made by parliamentarians.

Yet as MPs return to Westminster tomorrow after their 82-day summer recess, the issue is again set to be the talk of the Tea Room - and the media.

For as the Sunday Telegraph reports today, tomorrow Sir Thomas Legg - who has headed an official independent inquiry into MPs' expenses claims between 2004 and 2008 - will be writing to each MP telling them one of three things:

• They must repay money for having made claims he deems inappropriate; or
• They must provide him with further information about certain claims before he can decide whether any further action needs to be taken; or
• They are completely in the clear.

The Telegraph report today states that only half of the 646 MPs will be given the all clear, suggesting that 325 will have to repay money or provide further documentation to back up their claims.  Yesterday's Times reported the figure to be a much more modest "up to 100".

Either way, anyone who thought that the controversy surrounding MPs expenses would die down is likely to be proved wrong.

Update: The BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown is expected to be forced to pay back some money.

Jonathan Isaby 

David Cameron proposes a ministerial pay freeze throughout the next Parliament (and no more subsidised food and drink in Parliament)

David Cameron ha just given a speech on cutting the cost of politics, which repeated a number of announcements he has made previously about delivering "more for less" such as:

• each and every quango having to justify its existence
• every item of government spending over £25,000 to be published online
• all public sector salaries over £150,000 to be published online
• opposing new MPs getting a final salary pension scheme
• getting rid of the £10,000 yearly ‘Communications Allowance’ that every MP gets
• abolishing Regional Assemblies
• scrapping the Standards Board for England
• reducing the number of MPs by 10%

However, there were several significant announcements which I believe are new proposals:

• Ministerial salaries will be cut by an immediate five percent, but on top of that, those salaries will be frozen for the lifetime of the next Parliament - "That means a further pay cut when inflation is taken into account and a saving of over a quarter of a million pounds a year for the taxpayer".
  
• Taxpayers’ cash will no longer subsidise politicians' food and drink, with the cost of food and drink in Parliament "being increased to match the prices normal people pay in cafes, restaurants and bars around the country". That will, he said, save £5.5 million.
• The budget for official government cars will be cut by a third. He said: "There are times when having a car to hand which gets a minister to a certain place on time is absolutely vital to our democratic process – for example, to make a vote in the House of Commons, or to meet a foreign dignitary or open a school. But there is no need for 171 of these cars to be on hand for every government minister, whip – and indeed, myself."
• Public sector bodies will be stopped from hiring consultants to lobby politicians, to save £10 million a year.
• He also demanded that the Electoral Commission must be run more efficiently, saying it had overreached its role "with advertising campaigns and wasteful marketing initiatives" and that under the proposed quango review, "we will identify all the unnecessary functions it has assumed and see what savings we can make for the taxpayer".
• A Conservative Government would also demand that the Parliamentary authorities must cut costs by ten per cent, banking the taxpayer £50 million.

Jonathan Isaby

Draft #1 of a speech for David Cameron to give at the Party Conference

Throughout this week, 31st August to 6th September, ConservativeHome is reaffirming some of our core themes. We started yesterday with our hope that the next Conservative government will act to renew a sense of British history and pride. Jeremy Hunt MP explores that theme today - examining sport's contribution to national identity.

Today in a very draft set of suggestions for the speech that David Cameron will give in a month's time - at the Manchester Party Conference - I've put together other topics that are regular concerns of this blog. It is not a 'wordsmithed' speech but underlines the themes we hope the Tory leader might address.

DRAFT #1

I want to start by thanking every person in this hall and members of the Conservative Party listening or watching at home for all you do. Most of you do not get paid. Supporting the Conservative Party actually costs a lot of you a lot of money. You do it because you believe that the country you love can be better. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. No Conservative MP would be elected if it wasn’t for you. I promise that I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget that it is a privilege to be the leader of this great party.

QUICKLY INTO> In recent times some MPs did forget their privileged position. They were a minority but they brought disgrace to every politician. Saying sorry is not going to be enough to put things right. So let me offer some concrete steps that will start us on the long, hard road back to the point where the British people might begin to respect their Parliament again:

• Every MP will publish their expenses online so that every voter can see how their taxes are used.
• We don’t need as many politicians and that is why I’ll cut the number of MPs by 10%.
  
• I’ll cut ministers’ pay by 10% and I’ll cut the number of ministers by 20%. We now have more ministers than when the British Empire stretched all around the world [CHECK FACT].
  
• [NEW POLICY] Most ministers will lose their government car. It is time for politicians to share in the sacrifices being made by every family in the land.
• [NEW POLICY] And like every person in a normal job, MPs who do wrong must be sackable. Conservatives will introduce the right for constituents to replace MPs that misbehave even when it’s not election time.
• We’ll cut quango pay. We’ll scrap regional assemblies. Councils who want to make big increases in council tax will have to ask voters for permission. It’s time for voters to have more power over politicians.

Another step forward for democracy will come from a little more honesty from politicians. So let me say this to every person in this country who is thinking of voting Conservative. The party of the red flag has left Britain in the red again. Deep, deep red.

Sir Patrick Cormack calls for MPs to get £130,000 basic pay but no allowances

Giving evidence to the House of Commons the Tory MP for Staffordshire South (who survived a deselection vote last year) argued:

"I have reluctantly become convinced, over the last few weeks, that the most effective way of restoring public confidence in Parliament is for there to be a significant increase in Members' salaries and an abolition of all allowances, save the allowance to pay for staff and a constituency office... 'In order to ensure that Members could perform their parliamentary and constituency duties effectively, and have, where necessary, a second home, the salary of Members would have to be doubled at least."

The Evening Standard has the full story and gives Sir Patrick some support in an editorial.

I've argued before that during these recessionary times MPs and ministers should be taking a temporary cut in pay.  Cameron appears to back this 'sharing of the pain' for ministers.

Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties were quick to jump on the news:

Liberal Democrat MP Ed Davey: "He must be living on Planet Zog to think that doubling MPs’ salary would restore public faith in Parliament. While many people are struggling to make ends meet, it’s outrageous and offensive for such a senior Conservative to propose doubling MPs’ pay.”

Labour frontbencher Mike Foster MP: "'David Cameron tries to talk tough on expenses for the cameras while behind the scenes his out of touch MPs are secretly trying to double their salaries. In these difficult economic times the public are not going to take kindly to MPs awarding themselves a huge pay rise."

Tim Montgomerie

2pm: Over at The Spectator's Coffee House Pete Hoskin calls for direct public involvement in deciding MPs' pay.

5pm: Mark Wallace on CentreRight lists seven reasons why Sir Patrick Cormack is wrong.

The scrutiny of the Conservatives is well and truly underway

The Sunday newspapers don't make easy reading for the Conservatives:

The News of the World attacks Alan Duncan as the "Blabbermouth Tory".  The Sunday Mirror reports that the Shadow Leader of the House is in Bali on a holiday that may have cost up to £10,000.

The Mail on Sunday has a story about a group of independent candidates challenging Alan Duncan and David Ruffley.  Jonathan Isaby has blogged about the campaign here.

The Observer builds a mountain out of a molehill with a story about some senior Conservatives being loosely associated with a report that called for NHS reform.  "Being associated" becomes "backed".

On the face of it the most damaging story is in the Independent on Sunday.  The IoS reports:

"The Conservative leader has accepted more than 60 flights by luxury plane and helicopter from 10 industrialists and plutocrats with a combined fortune of £3bn, figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal."

It turns out that the 60 flights are since December 2005.  That's about 15 flights a year or one a month.  Is that unreasonable for someone who is constantly travelling across the country and has a young family that he wants to spend time with?  And what exactly is the relevance of that "industrialists and plutocrats with a combined fortune of £3bn" remark?

David Cameron planning "big cuts" in pay for ministers in a Tory Government

The splash in today's Guardian announces that David Cameron is planning "significant" cuts to ministerial salaries if he forms a government after the next election.

After the negative coverage created by Alan Duncan's comments about MPs having to "live on rations" in the wake of Expenses-gate - coupled with the overall economic situation - this story emphasises the desire on the part of the party leadership that politicians bear their share of the burden when it comes to finding savings:

The Conservative party high command have calculated that if they are to push through cuts in public services, their politicians have to show they are prepared to "take a financial hit".

A pay cut would also help the party as it attempts to renegotiate public sector pay deals. One senior Tory said a cut as high as 25% was being discussed, which would cost figures such as William Hague and George Osborne nearly £20,000 a year.

If that figure were implemented, it would be to considerably outflank the suggestion previously made by Tim Montgomerie - who proposed here back March that there should be a 10% pay cut for ministers for the duration of the next Parliament.

Speaking on the Today programme this morming, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said that there had not been a discussion to that effect in Shadow Cabinet, and that personally he hadn't thought about the matter.

But the Guardian piece suggests that there have been such discussions on the fringes, reporting that "senior members of the shadow cabinet have in recent weeks become alarmed at private warnings from their leader about the level of ministerial salaries they can expect if the party wins the next general election".

Quite apart from the need to lead the way in finding savings from the public purse, the reaction to Alan Duncan's secretly-filmed comments certainly suggests that public anger with MPs over their pay and allowances has not died down. As such, the proposals for cutting future ministers' pay are timely, although it should be emphasised that they do not constitute an official announcement, coming as they do merely from "senior sources".

David Cameron has already, however, made a commitment to reducing the number of MPs by 10%.

Jonathan Isaby

65% of Tory members want Alan Duncan to resign

A ConservativeHome.com poll of 1,622 Tory members carried out today finds the following;

• 65% want Alan Duncan to resign and 55% think he should be sacked.
• A massive 91% think he should be moved from his current job where he has a role in deciding Conservative policy on MPs’ expenses and allowances.
• 61% are dissatisfied with Alan Duncan's performance. 31% are satisfied.  This makes him the least popular member of the shadow cabinet.
• 38% agreed that "Alan Duncan was telling the truth - the antagonism toward MPs has gone too far."  52% disagreed.
• 65% agreed "There is now a real problem of high calibre people being discouraged from entering politics."  32% disagreed.

Mr Cameron intervened at lunchtime to say that Alan Duncan was safe for now:

"I spoke to Alan Duncan yesterday and made it clear in no uncertain terms that when it comes to the mess of expenses, the words we use, just as the actions we take, have got to demonstrate completely that we share the public's real fury at what went on in parliament. Alan made a bad mistake and he has acknowledged that, he has apologised and withdrawn the remarks."

Watch the Conservative leader recorded by Sky News.

Alan Duncan caught on secret video saying that MPs are treated like "s**t"

Alan Duncan - already very unpopular with the grassroots - won't endear himself to his critics with the news that an undercover journalist secretly recorded him claiming that MPs are forced to live on "rations" and are treated "like s**t".  The Daily Mail has the story.  I can't find the Don't Panic video yet.

To be fair to Mr Duncan he has only been caught saying what a large majority of MPs say privately.  They do feel done in by The Telegraph and Alan Duncan's concern about the "nationalisation" of politics has led Paul Goodman MP to step down from Parliament.

All MPs and public figures have to learn that modern technology means that nearly all 'private' conversations can easily be recorded.

12.15pm: The video is here and Alan Duncan has issued an apology: “The last thing people want to hear is an MP whingeing about his pay and conditions.  It is a huge honour to be an MP and my remarks, although meant in jest, were completely uncalled for. I apologise for them unreservedly.” (Thanks to Paul Waugh for blogging it).

Tim Montgomerie

Eric Pickles warns against "nasty" use of MPs' expenses in campaigning

In an interview with ConservativeHome, party chairman Eric Pickles has warned Conservative candidates campaigning on the expenses issue to be careful not to do so in a nasty way that runs the risk of the backfiring on them.

In Norwich North, Chloe Smith made a contract with voters relating to expenses, and other candidates have been doing likewise over recent weeks. Last week we highlighted a particularly hard-hitting campaign ad placed by Leah Fraser in Wallasey in which she set out her own pledges, but also hit out at some of the claims on the public purse made by her Labour opponent.

Mr Pickles says:

"They [any Conservative candidates using MPs' expenses as a campaign issue] are going to have to be really careful about it. It's going to have to be measured, judged, reasonable, completely truthful... and on a very straightforward basis: otherwise the message will be forgotten and it is the language which will be remembered. Is it going to be a feature of the general election? I'm absolutely sure. And the one that uses it nastily, carpingly will get a bit of the vitriol back at them, so they're going to have to be very careful."

The party chairman said he thought that the Liberal Democrats' negative campaigning in Norwich North - especially its eve-of-poll smears which were nonetheless rebutted through the blogosphere - had gone down particularly badly with voters. And he says that Conservatives campaigning against the Lib Dems in particular should be wary of negative campaigning:

Britain's 'Political Club' costs us £485m

Congratulations to Michael Crick and producer Giles Edwards for their Radio 4 programme broadcast earlier today about The Political Club (available to listen again here for the next seven days).  It was the BBC at its best.

It records the cost of the 29,000 people who work in British politics as elected members or as advisers.  Here's a graphical summary of the thirty minute programme's main findings:

Three people made the most interesting contributions:

1. Nigel Farage MEP openly acknowledged that his party would cease to exist in any meaningful way if it wasn't for the largesse that it gets from its representation in the European Parliament.  He predicted that the BNP could double their numbers of MEPs if they used their allowances in a professional way to develop their party structure in the North West and Yorkshire.
2. Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes was quite proud that LibDem councillors are forced to give 10% of their allowances to central funds or face deselection.  This is taxpayer funding of political parties by the back door as Michael Crick readily acknowledged.
3. Clare Short, now an independent MP, said that this backdoor funding had isolated politicians from the electorate.  If they had to raise funds from voters they might have to listen to them, she said, but they can now (continued a Sunderland Labourite) take party funds from the state and pay new private agencies to deliver leaflets (because of the collapse of any activist base).

Tim Montgomerie

> Harry Phibbs on councillors costing £241.5m