Just over a year ago, I argued that most MPs had not been unethical in their expenses claims. I went on to try to persuade readers that being "ethical" in this context meant principally to abide by the rules and the spirit of those rules, and that the "spirit of the rules" is largely a matter of behaving in a similar way to one's colleagues and in a way that those determining the paying out of allowances would, upon full disclosure, still be prepared to grant allowances.
I felt that the hatred of MPs whipped up over this matter was wrong from the start. It was also a turning point for me in my respect for David Cameron, personally. Up to that point, though I had not always agreed with all his policy choices and political tactics, I had nonetheless felt that, as a leader, he was a fine figure, composed under pressure, resourceful and resolute. The expenses scandal exposed a ruthlessness about him that I found more difficult to respect. The reality there was that a very rich man who had himself made amongst the highest claims for allowances in Parliament chose to spin matters such that the claims he had made on his very large mortgage were portrayed as whiter than white whilst less affluent MPs who couldn't afford to blow all their expenses in that way but instead needed to claim for more mundane items such as televisions, food, or bathroom equipment (and did so entirely within the rules) were abandoned by their erstwhile leader to a braying, hateful and irrational mob - indeed a mob he often led. If you made an expenses claim for trees to be cut in your garden, you were mocked in every media outlet going and ejected from Parliament without apology, regret, or sympathy. If you made an expenses claim for bushes to be cut in your garden, you were hailed as leader of the Conservative Party.
I could go on with the poor way that Cameron treated his MPs over this matter, but they have their own memories, and the fact that 118 of them - presumably the vast majority of the surviving backbenchers from the last Parliament - defied Cameron over the 1922 affair was surely not unrelated to the sense of wrong they feel.
I remain unimpressed with his dealing with this issue. Media reports suggest that Cameron attempted to persuade David Laws not to resign. If true, how could he even contemplate that? Other MPs were administered Cameroon summary justice for claiming a few hundred pounds within the rules, and did not merely lose their frontbench positions but were ousted as MPs. David Laws appears to have broken the rules, with the consequence that his partner received £40,000. People are calling for understanding of David Laws, many are saying that he shouldn't have gone, that the "Lagos principle" should have been applied, and that he should soon be back. I see their point. But where was the understanding of why Cheryl Gillan would have ended up accidentally claiming £4.47 for dog-food? Where was the sympathy for Douglas Hogg or Anthony Steen or Peter Viggers? Who said that they hoped Jacqui Smith would soon be back after her claims in respect of allowances for accommodation with her relative?
The reality here is that the misjudgement bar has been set so low here before one's career is destroyed entirely that there was no scope at all for exercising discretion and common sense in respect of David Laws. And since Cameron was chief cheerleader of the mob, it would have been rank hypocrisy for him to do anything other than demand that Laws, as someone who did not merely make claims of a few hundred pounds, within the rules, that look bad when presented a certain way, but in fact appears to have broken the rules to the tune (and personal financial benefit to his partner) of tens of thousands of pounds, pay the price.
I would prefer we lived in a world of understanding, forgiveness, redemption and restoration. I made my small struggle against setting the bar so low at the time, but almost no-one joined me. So precedent has now been set, and will take decades to un-set. Laws' apparent offence was way, way above the bar. Laws had to go, and Cameron (if indeed he did so) was quite wrong to try to save him or defend him afterwards.
[Update: I see there is some huffing and puffing about the Telegraph's role in Laws' resignation and now the Alexander allegations. Be careful before you make such declarations to ponder for a moment: back last year, were you amongst those proclaiming that the Telegraph had done a great service to the nation by exposing MP expense claims? And if it was not wrong to refer to claims from years before then, why would it be wrong to refer to claims from years before now?]
