MP Expenses
Congratulations to the Conservative Party for publishing the expenses of Conservative MPs. David Cameron is following exactly the right policy in taking this courageous action. He should inform those few MPs that have refused to disclose their expenses that the Whip will be withdrawn from them. Glancing through the claims it is quite clear that the majority of Conservative MPs are being perfectly reasonable and sensible about their claims. It is also clear that a few are abusing the public's trust. Their Associations should put pressure on them to bring them into line.
That will then leave the MEPs to be dealt with. As we have said before, the re-selection process should be re-run with all candidates included in the total lists for ranking by Party members, after Party members have been told which MEPs refused to comply with full disclosure. Let the members vote.
13th July
European Democracy?
This week it was decided that for political groupings to get taxpayer funding from the European Parliament they must have at least 25 members from at least seven countries. It is quite wrong that these political groupings should get any funding at all, but if there is to be funding it should go to each individual MEP regardless of whether they are in a group or not. The two big groups of the Socialists and the EPP have come up with this undemocratic scheme. It is an affront to democracy. It will also put increased pressure on the Conservative Party in the next parliament if they wish to be independent from the EPP. Rather than becoming more democratic the European Parliament is going in the opposite direction. It must be stopped.
Shame
This week was a week of shame for our parliamentary democracy. MPs decided against reform of their expenses. Credit to David Cameron and the Conservative front bench for voting in favour of reform, but shame on the Conservative backbenchers that did not support them.
Support
This week is the David Davis by-election. I hope that he gets a big turnout, thus demonstrating that the people are interested in defending our freedoms. If you can go to Haltemprice and show your support. This is a critical issue. Anthony Barnett has written a compelling article on the opendemocracy web site. It is well worth a read.
Trialogue - How democracy is subverted.
Under the Trialogue system the European Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Minister get together in secret and decide on legislation to be put before the European Parliament. No less than 72% of legislation was dealt with in this way for the first reading. Isn't it cosy. All sorted out before we the people know what is happenin
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