Top moral lessons from the MP expenses crisis
By Mark Vernon on Thursday, May 14 2009, 07:13 - In the news - Permalink
1. Look after the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves. This truism has been proven particularly by the moat-and-swimming-pool Tories. They're worth millions and yet still file expenses forms for peanuts. It must be the habit that made them their piles.
2. Power corrupts. But you need to have the power. So, if you want to put the old adage to the test, there is never going to be a better time to stand as an MP. All you'll have to do to attack the incumbent is republish their receipts.
3. Democracy naturally tends towards mob rule. What Aristotle's thought misses out, though, is that in this case the mob turned out to be the rulers, not the ruled.
4. One bad apple does spoil a barrel. You've gotta feel for the MPs who haven't had their noses in it.
Any others?
Comments
The thing that makes me uncomfortable about this latest bout of public outrage is that a good expenses system enables people to afford to do the job they're doing without subsidising the organisation they work for. So, as you say, what about all those MPs who are claiming expenses but not abusing the system?
The big fault with the MPs' expenses system is that most (not all) of them voted for it themselves and there's a lack of accountability that goes with that sort of self-regulation. A lesson and a warning for all of us who claim expenses.
But I'm prepared to believe that there are many hard-working MPs who simply use the system to recover what they've spent to help them get the job done.
I seem to recall an ex newsreader, dresed in white suit, who successfully stood as an anti-sleaze candiidate. Never a better time to don a white suit!
One other lesson...
In the absence of very strong professional ethics, self-regulation is a joke and cultures of entitlement and imitative self-enrichment develop. This is the common factor connecting the banking scandals to the parliamentary mess. And ironically there is very little spotlight at the moment on the UK press, barely regulated and a culture of greed and arrogance if ever there was one. There is a need for some systematic thinking and action about the erosion of older cultures of professional ethics and personal decency ('honour') in the City, Parliament and mass media.