One member of the House of Commons rose to the occassion, although I later learned that a few, a very few, others had been campaigning against the sharp practices undertaken by some of their colleagues in parliament!
Mr Frank Field is one of that select band of MPs whose opinions I value when there is talk now of 'reforming' this
Fraudsters' Parliament.
Immediately after the
Conway scandal I merely asked questions assuming that there was one rotten apple in the barrel. I was stunned when
Mr Field stood up in parliament and asked why there had been no effective action about the scandal and there was no effective reply from the 600+ members! I logged onto the internet that evening and found a recording from parliament of his statement. He compared the Commons' response to the Conway disclosures to their response if similar practices had been discovered in the equivalent of the parliamentary canteen!
As the extent of the fraudulent practices by a large number of MPs started coming into the public domain.... the penny dropped! There were very few who could be trusted to put the voters' interests before their own financial gain.
MPs, with the exception of Mr Field and a very small band of others, could no longer be trusted - at all!
We now (December 2009) need an election to get rid of all the fraudsters, from whatever party and whatever level of seniority, in this travesty of a democratic institution.
Far too many appear to have graduated from the MUGABE SCHOOL OF DEMOCRACY (Financial division) with 'honours'.
As a taxpaying citizen, I no longer want MPs to be beholding financially to any outside body! I do not want them even to have 'ownership of the rules' governing their behaviour and their ability to 'spirit away' their misdoings.
I want this in much the same way as I
do not want the local burglar fraternity to have ownership of my house keys, my car keys, or the keys of any 'main' home I may have been designating, for the purposes of further defrauding the taxpaying public!
The new members of the next parliament must show that they are totally free of conflicting interest or outside financial influence - unless membership of parliament is to be deemed a 'part-time' activity. At sometime in the future ... ten to fifteen years down the line from here- can we review this question when it has become the norm for MPs' claims to be
fully and independently audited with the
full results in the
public domain.
And when the next
'clean' parliament has hopefully been installed sometime next year, perhaps we can begin to address the abuse of influence in the Lords which has come to light recently!
Further searching of the internet disclosed the name of one individual who had for years been attempting to throw some light onto the 'goings on' in official circles in the UK- Heather Brooke, a journalist wwho was amazed at the lack of transparency she found in large areas of British governance. I checked out the website
http://www.yrtk.org/ (the website of the
Your Right to Know organisation). I would suggest that any
taxpaying citizen voter should make frequent visits to this website. I bought a copy of her book '
Your Right to Know: A Citizens Guide to Freedom of Information' and my concern score in relation to MPs and theeir expenses, increased from 1 ('mildly concerned') to 5 ('getting annoyed')!
Now for some more serious stuff! I had a look at Wikipaedia and found this information on The Fraud Act 2006. Look particularly at Sections 2-4 ('Fraud by false representation', 'Fraud by failing to disclose information' and 'Fraud by abuse of position');-
