Thursday, December 31, 2009

Even more thoughts on Djanoglys' expenses


I followed a link on Guido Fawkes' Order-Order blog to this Guardian piece by Heather Brooke. This sets out the way our MPs are muddling the system to their advantage. I also found this quote from the High Court ruling on publication of expenses:

"The House of Commons expense system has a shortfall - both in terms of transparency and accountability. We have no doubt that the public interest is at stake. We are not here dealing with idle gossip, or public curiosity about what in truth are trivialities. The expenditure of public money through the payment of MPs' salaries and allowances is a matter of direct and reasonable interest to taxpayers."

What I find strange about all this, is it is the Courts and NOT The House of Commons who are standing up for the rights of the citizen. Indeed the unelected House of Lords have done more to preserve our Civil Liberties than the House of Commons. The MPs, with notable exceptions, are more worried about their own rights than the public who put them there.

This Parliament is on its last legs. Soon there will be a General Election. This constituency has a choice to make. It is not a choice on who is the next Government. This will be decided elsewhere. What the Huntingdon constituency has to decide is who we want to represent us. We can either vote for Djanogly or vote for another candidate.

To my mind voting for Djanogly means I would be voting for someone who made many expenses claims. He has paid back £25,000 but who has dodged* being held to account for those claims by his constituents. The High Court found these claims to be a "...matter of direct and reasonable interest to the taxpayer".

Djanogly seems to think otherwise and that is one more reason I'm not voting for him and will be voting for Jennifer O'Dell, the UKIP candidate. This is a rotten Parliament. Lets get rid of Djanogly and send a message to Parliament these expenses claims will not be tolerated.



*dodged = Not holding a public meeting over his expenses as advised to do by his Party Leader. The non-publication of his Legg Letter. The non-publication of the claims he paid back £25,000 for.
Wikipedia page for Heather Brooke.

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