• About Mike Sivier

Mike Sivier's blog

~ by the writer of Vox Political

Tag Archives: practical

Government responds to the e-petition against corruption

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Mike Sivier in Corruption, Politics, UK

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

accuracy, accurate, Act, Andrew Lansley, ban, bill, Care UK, code of conduct, corruption, criminal, donation, donor, e-petition, election, finance, financial, fracking, gain, government, Health and Social Care, Interest, Local Government Act 1972, member, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, money, MP, Parliament, Party, practicable, practical, register, speak, transparency, Transparency of Lobbying Bill, transparent, vote, Vox Political


hm_gov

What interesting timing.

The government has a duty to make some kind of response if an e-petition on its website passes 10,000 signatures. My own e-petition – ‘Ban MPs from voting on matters in which they have a financial interest’ – passed that point several weeks ago, but it is only now – right before Christmas, when people have many other matters on their minds – that it has been graced with a response.

And what a weak response it is!

The petition calls on the government to legislate against MPs speaking or voting in debates on matters which could lead to them, companies connected with them or donors to their political party gaining money.

The response runs as follows: “The participation of Members of Parliament in debates and votes are a matter for the rules of each House rather than for legislation.” How interesting. Every other level of government has legislation covering this – look at the Local Government Act 1972. What makes Parliament so special?

“The rules are based upon the principle of transparency: the registration and the declaration of any financial interests. In the House of Commons, the Code of Conduct requires Members to fulfil the requirements of the House relating to the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to be open in drawing attention to any financial interest in proceedings of the House. The application of these rules are explained in The Guide to the Rules relating to the Conduct of Members.” This raises the question: Why were these rules not applied so that, for example, Andrew Lansley could not speak on his own Health and Social Care Bill because he had received £21,000 of support from the private health company Care UK? Clearly he was in breach of the rules, and it is just as clear that no action was taken. This demonstrates the need for robust enforcement – with a criminal penalty for transgressors.

“Similar rules apply in the House of Lords. These make clear that it is for Peers themselves to declare a financial interest if a reasonable person might think that their actions could be influenced by a relevant interest.

“In both Houses the respective Registers of Interests are publically available and updated regularly.” How often are they checked for accuracy?

Now we come to the meat: “It would not be practicable to prevent Members speaking or voting in debates on legislation which could financially benefit any commercial operation in which they have a financial interest or which has made donations to themselves of their party. A significant number of legislative provisions in any year may have beneficial financial implications for all or most commercial operations. The requirement proposed would impose a duty on all Members to ascertain whether a general legislative provision might be of financial benefit to particular operations in which they had an interest. There are questions as to how such a complex requirement could be policed effectively and what sanctions would apply.”

This is bunkum. There is a huge difference between legislation that is designed to help all businesses and that which is designed to improve the profitability of a particular sector – such as the healthcare sector inhabited by Care UK, in the case of Mr Lansley that I have already mentioned.

Is a particular commercial sector, or an individual company, likely to benefit from legislation? If so, have any MPs taken money from that company, or one within that sector? Have such firms contributed to the funds of the party bringing that legislation forward? If the second condition is met, then that Member should not be allowed to speak; if the third condition is met, then this is corrupt legislation and should not be allowed before Parliament. It really is that simple. How many MPs or Peers have an interest in fracking?

In fact, considering their enormous salaries, why are MPs allowed to have any other financial interests at all?

“The rules of the House of Commons already prohibit paid advocacy, so Members cannot advocate measures which are for the exclusive benefit of a body from which they receive a financial benefit.” Then why was Lansley allowed to bring forward a bill that promised to benefit Care UK?

“In other cases, where legislation or debate affects a body from which a Member receives a financial benefit, that interest must be properly registered and declared.” How often is that checked?

“In relation to political donations and election expenditure, the Government is committed to further improving transparency and accountability, so as to prevent a situation where opaque and unaccountable groups spend large sums of money attempting to influence the political system. Measures to achieve this objective are included in the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill which is currently before the Parliament.” This is a Bill that has been pilloried as an example of the poorest legislation ever put before a British legislative body – it is not a good example to use in defence of a corrupt system.

That is the government’s point of view – for all that it is worth. I think we owe it to the people of the UK to respond – so let us lay this open to anybody who has an opinion.

Do you know of an instance in which the rules – as laid out in the government response published here – have been broken? Please get in touch and tell us what you know – making sure you provide as much evidence as possible. This site is not in the business of libelling honest politicians – we only like to expose those who are crooked.

Please get in touch.

Vox Political is funded entirely by donations and book sales. This site needs YOUR support to continue.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Social mobility? The Coalition’s flag should be the ‘Old School Tie’

18 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Mike Sivier in Benefits, Conservative Party, Cost of living, Education, People, Politics, Poverty, UK

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

academic, Alan Milburn, BBC, benefit, benefits, boss, Coalition, conquer, Conservative, cut, David Cameron, divert, divide, dividend, earning, education, election, government, making work pay, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, old school tie, pensioner, people, performance related pay, policy, politics, poverty, practical, price, reduce, salary, shareholder, social mobility, social security, special needs, teacher, Tony Blair, Tories, Tory, TV licence, universal, vote, Vox Political, wage, Winter fuel allowance, work, working parent


It's not what you know - it's who: This is the only ticket to upward social mobility in David Cameron's Britain - an Eton tie.

It’s not what you know – it’s who: This is the only ticket to upward social mobility in David Cameron’s Britain – an Eton tie.

Congratulations to Alan Milburn for completely destroying the Coalition government’s ‘Making work Pay’ policy.

It was always critically flawed, of course – how could it not be? It was based on the idea of reducing the money available to people on benefits, in order to make the amount taken home by working people seem like more.

Meanwhile, the real winners were company bosses and shareholders for whom the line ‘Making Work Pay’ is a complete misnomer. A shareholder takes home dividends after investing in a company. Such a person doesn’t do any work for that money at all!

Mr Milburn’s study focuses on working parents, according to the BBC’s report. This makes sense because social mobility is historically based on a child managing to achieve more than a parent.

For decades, Britons have been able to say, proudly, that each generation has been better-off than the last; now, the Conservative-led Coalition has reversed that trend. Working parents simply don’t earn enough to escape poverty and two-thirds of poor children are now from families in which at least one adult has a job.

Falling earnings and rising prices mean the situation is likely to worsen – and what the report doesn’t say (but we can infer), is that this is an intended consequence of government policy. David Cameron will not be thanking Mr Milburn for pointing this out.

Mr Milburn has recommended diverting money currently used to provide universal benefits to pensioners, so that the richest senior citizens would lose their free TV licences and winter fuel allowances, in order to relieve the burden on the poorest families.

But Mr Cameron, who knows that pensioners are more likely to vote than younger people (including working parents), won’t accept that. A spokesman told the BBC those benefits will be safeguarded until after the 2015 general election – in order, we can infer, to ensure that pensioners will vote Conservative.

At least this admission makes Cameron’s reasoning clear!

Some have chosen to lay the blame on Education. That’s right – with a capital ‘E’. Apparently, although Tony Blair was right to put the emphasis on education back in 1997, people just haven’t been interested in taking it up, along with the massive opportunities it offers to attain a comfortable life.

That just doesn’t ring true. Look at Yr Obdt Srvt. I left school with nine GCE ‘O’ Levels and three ‘A’ levels, went on to get a degree and then went beyond that to get a post-graduate qualification in Journalism (making me one of the few news reporters, these days, to have one).

I have never received more than poverty wages – even when I was editing a newspaper. But the effect I have on my surroundings is completely disproportionate to the money I have received – I recently wrote that when I left my last full-time newspaper job, that paper lost £300,000 per year as a result (according to my sources). This very site is currently rated 16th most influential political blog in the UK.

Yet I am as poor as a church mouse!

So Education is not the culprit – and putting teachers on performance-related pay is to chase Education up a blind alley. How would Special Needs teachers benefit from such a system? All pupils have a range of abilities and no two are the same, so how can performance-related pay ever be judged fairly? Suppose a teacher correctly realises that some pupils will never achieve academic excellence but that their talents lie in practical pursuits – should that teacher lose pay for trying to get the best result possible for those pupils? Of course not.

Once again we see government policy following the ‘divide and conquer’ pattern. ‘Take from the needy and give to the greedy’, as the slogan states.

And the flag of the conquering elite is the ‘Old School Tie’.

You’re on very shaky ground in Cameron’s Britain – if you weren’t at Eton.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Vox Political

Vox Political

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Vox Political

  • RSS - Posts

Blogroll

  • Another Angry Voice
  • Ayes to the Left
  • Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
  • The Green Benches
  • The Void

Recent Posts

  • The Coming of the Sub-Mariner – and the birth of the Marvel Universe (Mike Reads the Marvels: Fantastic Four #4)
  • ‘The Greatest Comic Magazine in the World!’ (Mike reads the Marvels: Fantastic Four #3)
  • Here come the Skrulls! (Mike Reads The Marvels: Fantastic Four #2)
  • Mike Reads The Marvels: Fantastic Four #1
  • Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 u-turns (Pandemic Journal: June 17)

Archives

  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011

Topics

  • Austerity
  • Banks
  • Bedroom Tax
  • Benefits
  • Business
  • Children
  • Comedy
  • Conservative Party
  • Corruption
  • Cost of living
  • council tax
  • Crime
  • Defence
  • Democracy
  • Disability
  • Discrimination
  • Doctor Who
  • Drugs
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Employment
  • Employment and Support Allowance
  • Environment
  • European Union
  • Flood Defence
  • Food Banks
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Fracking
  • Health
  • Housing
  • Human rights
  • Humour
  • Immigration
  • International Aid
  • Justice
  • Labour Party
  • Law
  • Liberal Democrats
  • Llandrindod Wells
  • Maternity
  • Media
  • Movies
  • Neoliberalism
  • pensions
  • People
  • Police
  • Politics
  • Poverty
  • Powys
  • Privatisation
  • Public services
  • Race
  • Railways
  • Religion
  • Roads
  • Satire
  • Scotland referendum
  • Sport
  • Tax
  • tax credits
  • Television
  • Terrorism
  • Trade Unions
  • Transport
  • UK
  • UKIP
  • Uncategorized
  • unemployment
  • Universal Credit
  • USA
  • Utility firms
  • War
  • Water
  • Workfare
  • Zero hours contracts

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Mike Sivier's blog
    • Join 168 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Mike Sivier's blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: