Dear Mark Thompson and Will Straw, I read your joint blogpost last week on Mark Reckons and Left Foot Forward about whether the MPs with the safest seats are the worst expenses claimants with some interest.  The original suggestion of a link came several months ago on Mark’s blog and it certainly provoked discussion in various political channels.  However, on looking through your analysis and doing my own version, I find it very hard to agree with your conclusions. I’ll start with a quick recap on your main analysis: “…in order to try and find a better way to see if the safety of an MP’s seat could be correlated with the amount of expenses money claimed we listed the 328 MPs who (after appeals and adjustments) have been asked to pay money back and ordered...

I’m very grateful to a pseudonymous Lib Dem commenter, Goupillon, on PoliticalBetting.com for emailing through to LDV his tables showing how the parties compare when it comes to the expenses repayments demanded of MPs by Sir Thomas Legg. The tables which follow are based on data from the list of expenses miscreants provided by the BBC. Total expenses to be paid back based on party affiliation: Labour: £446,416.28 Conservative: £449,821.83 Lib Dem: £42,945.18 Others: £38,575.96 Total: £977,759.25 MPs per party who have been called on to pay back expenses: (not including those who have successfully appealed against Sir Thomas Legg’s ruling in their individual cases) Labour: 180 Conservative: 108 Lib Dem: 23 Others: 18 Total: 329 Percentage of MPs per party or grouping who...

It sounds rather like a middle-class sex position, doesn’t it? But if you ignore that (and get that image out of your head – that took me a while…) and read this Political Betting post: So here we are – what many MPs are hoping will be the low point for them in the whole expenses saga – the publication today of the Legg Report… The general theory, backed up by election after election, is that incumbent MPs get an electoral bonus. Could this affair see that produce the opposite. Will 2010 be marked by the “reverse incumbency effect”? What this is implying is that the MPs expenses saga could mean that all sitting MPs – regardless of party or the extent to which they are personally caught up in it – will see their electorate turn against...

Three Lib Dems are among the 70 MPs who lodged appeals after being told to pay back some of their taxpayer-funded Commons expenses by Sir Thomas Legg, reports today’s Telegraph: At least 35 Labour MPs and former Labour MPs have appealed against Sir Thomas’s findings, as well as 30 Conservatives, three Liberal Democrats and two independents. Among them are MPs who made some of the highest-profile claims exposed by the Telegraph investigation, including £1,645 for a duck house. Sir Thomas’s 30-page report is thought to identify more than 300 MPs — nearly half of those in Parliament — whom he found to have made “improper” claims. The vast majority chose not to appeal against his decision. The paper names the three Lib Dem MPs as Jeremy Browne – whose successful...

Labour MPs, including Garston's Maria Eagle have voted for a longer break in February. Half-term is usually a week. Most people in employment carry on working as normal through it - they have to. MPs however have just voted to have not just half term as a break from the Commons but an extra two days and part of another day added on. I say MPs but actually it was only Labour MPs who voted in favour. Lib Dems and Conservatives voted against.The record of the vote is on the Hansard website.(Hat tip to Iain...

My response to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority consultation: Question 1: Do you agree that the CSPL’s principles, supplemented as proposed, should form the basis of the new expenses system? Yes Additional comments: The public must have a right to know the specifics of expenses. This implied by “open and transparent” but MPs have for years insisted that the system was both of those things and that was clearly not the case. Therefore the principles need to include a public right to know. Question 2: Do you agree with our proposal to concentrate on expenses rather than allowances wherever possible? Yes Question 3: Do you agree that there should be annual limits to the amount that can be spent from public funds on each of the main elements of our expenses...

MPs to vote on plan to give Commons authorities power to recoup money from any MP who fails to comply with Sir Thomas Legg's requests to pay back unjustified claimsMPs will be asked to vote on a proposal to give the Commons authorities the power to dock the salaries of members who refused to repay unjustified expense claims, it was revealed today.The vote will take place after the Commons publishes the report from Sir Thomas Legg in the new year – later than expected – saying which MPs have refused to cooperate with his demands for money to be repaid.The announcement came from the members estimate committee (MEC), a Commons committee chaired by the Speaker, John Bercow, which also revealed that MPs will be given the right to appeal to a former judge if they do not accept Legg's...

After the expenses scandal of late, respect for and trust in MPs and politicians of all levels has deteriorated even further. Changes need to be made, that fact is incontrovertible. But what changes? The first and most obvious one is in regards to MPs expenses themselves. The Kelly Report is a good start with this, even though I disgaree with one or two bits (primarily the complete ban on MPs employing spouses) and think that there are some that should be added. It will take time, but once it is implemented and so long as expenses reports are published regularly, at least the assumption that MPs are in it for what they can get out of it should slowly be reversed. Whilst normally most people would be very supportive of the idea to give backbench MPs more power, right now it isn’t...

Donal MacIntyre and Hannah Barnes have reported on MPs’ interns for BBC Radio 5 live: MPs could be breaking the law by not paying their parliamentary interns. Hundreds of young graduates are putting in thousands of hours of unpaid work at Westminster. This practice is excluding many young people without independent financial support from a route that many see as the first step on the ladder to a political career. But, this is not just a question of pushing the bounds of fairness. Minimum wage regulations require that some of these interns should be paid.” You can listen to the podcast of last Sunday’s show “Parliament’s unpaid workers” here. Among Liberal Democrat MPs, practices vary: Phil Willis and Alistair Carmichael pay their interns the national...

The headline recommendations from Sir Christopher Kelley’s review of MPs’ expenses have been widely covered. Despite this coverage, there is a series of detailed proposals which have been largely overlooked – including one which may yet put the leaders of political parties on the spot over cases involving their own MPs which they thought they had dealt with. You can read the full report here, but these are the details I have in mind: Travel: “MPs should expect to be treated in the same way as their constituents in this regard, unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary. That implies, for example, that MPs should not be reimbursed for the costs of ordinary commuting journeys – that is, journeys directly comparable with those made by other people between...

The MPs expenses scandal is all about economic inequality. It would never have happened if MPs hadn't been trying to 'earn' as much as others such as headmasters, managers, etc. For narrowly political reasons, MPs were reluctant to award themselves salary increases. So for years they covertly took 'pay increases' via the route of massive expenses packages. MPs should not earn way more than the average salaried person that they represent. This is totally inappropriate, because it leads to MPs getting out of touch with their constituents. But equally, it is dangerous for MPs to earn far less than similar or lower status professionals and private sector workers. If they do, it risks us losing some talented would-be-MPs to these other professions, and it increases the risk of MPs becoming...

I was always very uncomfortable with Nick Clegg (and other politicians) saying that whatever Sir Christopher Kelly proposed on MPs expenses should be adopted without question.  I accept it makes good politics, but if parliament signed up to anything else without reading it first they would be considered irresponsible and would rightly be trashed by the media.  However, on MPs expenses, even if Kelly could have come up with some completely unreasonable proposals, the public would never have had any sympathy for MPs anyway.  In fact, the key bit of these proposals he has missed as far as the public is concerned is the idea that MPs should wear sackcloth and ashes, turn the cafe at Portcullis House in to one that only serves gruel, and birch MPs daily in Parliament Square.  But...

In the 19th century MPs were not paid at all, but Parliament was at the centre of national life.Over time as the Parliament of landowners and lawyers also began to include simple employees, a small stipend was granted- and it remained small. Even now, back bench MPs only earn £64,766 a year. Meanwhile, even with allowances, they usually have to fund two places to live and two offices- in London and in their constituencies. They have to employ staff in both places too. By contrast all of the senior civil service grades earn a lot more than this, and of course do not have to fund their own office costs.As the journalists of the Daily Telegraph relish the power that their scoop on MPs expenses has brought them they should reflect that most of them too are better paid than MPs are. Now the...

Senior MPs tonight threatened to defy Gordon Brown's plan to impose wholesale reforms to their expenses unless they are given five years to adjust to the radical new regime.No 10 insisted tonight that MPs will have no right to vote on the new expenses system, due to be unveiled next Wednesday by Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The prime minister's office said Kelly's proposals will be handed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) for implementation. MPs will only be consulted on the detail of the reform there will be no Commons vote.But senior MPs warned that there will be a major revolt if Kelly provides no leeway for existing MPs to adjust to the reforms. In particular, they highlighted the need to retain the...

Sir Christopher Kelly accused of not living in real world after briefing leaders on proposals to clean up parliamentThe parliamentary watchdog faced an angry backlash from MPs today over plans to ban them from employing family members and claiming mortgage interest on their second homes on their expenses.Sir Christopher Kelly, the man brought in by Gordon Brown to clean up parliament after the expenses scandal, was accused by one Tory MP today of not living "in the real world". Roger Gale, the Conservative MP for North Thanet, said that the chairman of the committee on standards in public life did not know the hours MPs worked or what kind of job they did.Gale spoke out after Kelly briefed opposition party leaders yesterday about the details of his report, which will say that in future...

All this week, LDV has been compiling a full list of the findings of Sir Thomas Legg’s inquiries into MPs’ expenses as they related to the Lib Dems’ 63 MPs. We are adding to this list as information is received by us or published elsewhere. We now have information on around two-thirds of the Parliamentary party, 39 MPs – but this still leaves 24 Lib Dem MPs whose Legg letters we don’t know about. The party’s whips office has recommended all the party’s MPs publish a statement on their websites in order to ensure the party’s representatives are as open and accountable as possible. However, after spot-checking half a dozen of the 24 ‘missing’ MPs I can see no references on any of their sites: this is a pretty unimpressive record....

It seems only fair to ask. I’ve been struck today by the cross-party consensus – noted here on Left Foot Forward – that the Blogosphere is united in disgust at MPs: Bloggers of left, right and centre were united today in disgust over reports in today’s papers that some MPs will refuse to pay back expenses that they claimed erroneously. The argument put forward is logical enough, and best summed up by Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson’s exasperated question, “Do they honestly think that the public are going to stand for them rejecting the report, whatever the grounds?” True enough. And yet. I’m rather wedded to the principles of equality before the law and due process – a bit old-fashioned, I know, but still. And two things trouble me about...

Today we’ve found out that Edwina Hart’s campaign has been boosted with the support of Paul Murphy MP and Don Touhig MP – as one tweet put it, two for the price of one.Now have I missed something somewhere? I’m sure that all the talk to this point has been that whilst Edwina Hart is popular with the trade unionists and some AMs, her campaign would likely splutter due to a lack of support from MPs. Today’s news surely means that this analysis is flawed?Paul Murphy and Don Touhig are some of the most senior Labour MPs and the most anti-devolution. If they support Edwina Hart’s campaign then surely many more MPs will follow? Edwina Hart is seen as a radical and the most pro-devolution of the three candidates – so if Don and Paul have ignored their natural opposition to these...

PM appears to criticise Sir Thomas Legg, but also urges MPs to comply with the former civil servant's recommendationsGordon Brown today accused Sir Thomas Legg, the auditor who has been reviewing parliamentary expenses, of creating "new rules" retrospectively – while at the same time urging MPs to accept comply with them.The prime minister said that Legg, who will be sending letters to MPs this morning identifying expenses that should be paid back, seemed to be creating new regulations, instead of just checking the rules that were in force at the time had been complied with.But Brown also said that it was important to consign the old MPs' expenses system "to the dustbin of history" and he said that, if Legg insists on MPs repaying money, they should comply.Legg, a former civil servant,...

Concern raised over expense inquiry's remitMPs yesterday began to challenge openly the authority of the independent auditor charged with investigating expenses abuses at Westminster amid claims that the civil servant's inquiry had strayed beyond its remit.One of the MPs who sits on parliament's ruling members' estimates committee (MEC) – which will have a key role in evaluating whether to take action once Sir Thomas Legg has reported – was yesterday clear in his sympathies, suggesting the public would understand if MPs, found guilty retrospectively of wrongdoing, were treated more lightly than recommended.Sir Stuart Bell's concern about Sir Thomas's report were echoed by John Mann, the MP who has led calls for...

• Concern raised over expense inquiry's remit• Up to 200 MPs 'may refuse to pay'MPs today began to challenge openly the authority of the independent auditor charged with investigating expenses abuses at Westminster amid claims that the civil servant's inquiry had strayed beyond its remit.John Mann, the MP who has led calls for a thorough overhaul of the allowances system, raised concern that Sir Thomas Legg's audit of expenses had become too broad, and warned that this might trigger lawsuits that could drag on through the "entirety of the next parliament".The MP for Bassetlaw, who has been publishing his own expenses in full since 2004, warned that many MPs – faced with paying back sums of up to £200,000 – may "go to ground" rather than pay immediately, and then challenge the...

House of Commons authorities are chasing cash from more than half of MPs for wining, dining and entertaining in parliament's restaurants.MPs owe the House of Commons almost £140,000 in unpaid food and drink bills, it has been revealed.The house authorities are chasing cash from more than half of all MPs for wining, dining and entertaining in parliament's restaurants.They include 77 MPs who have failed to settle their tabs – averaging more than £500 each – for more than six months.The TaxPayers' Alliance said it was unacceptable that MPs left their debts to the public purse unpaid for so long.Food and drink in the Commons is already subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of £6.1m a year.The details of MPs' debts were obtained from the Commons by the Press Association under the...

Cameron has proposed that he will slash the cost of politics but I am unhappy with his ideas, Cameron wants to slash the number of MPs in Parliament and I disagree with that proposal by the Tory party leader. The Commons is stretched as it is, MPs have about 60,000 people to serve which isn't a small amount yet Cameron wants to increase the number of constituents per MP.I don't agree with Cameron and think he needs to consider cutting the number of MPs, or face the general public who will be misrepresented by MPs of a Parliament that he might...

Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire: A new studyof MPs on Facebook shows widespread use of the social network by Parliamentarians, but also a range of curious choices about how to use the medium which may in part reflect a failure to change default settings. The study, carried out by Woodnewton Associates and based on evidence gathered in May this year, found that: 26% of MPs have a Facebook presence (a page or profile). Liberal Democrat MPs lead the way in Facebook usage, with 65% being on Facebook. 25% of Labour MPs and 21% of Conservative MPs are on Facebook. Whilst a static presence in other places may make sense, to really get benefit out of Facebook you have to update your presence at least semi-regularly. How do MPs fare? It is a mixed picture: 30% of MP presences are updated at...

Tom Harris has asked the question over at his blog, this comes after the letter from John Redwood to the Prime Minister asking him to recall Parliament. I personally think MPs should have been given as long as they have been given for recess.Tom thinks that MPs can work without being in Parliament but I disagree, the main role of an MP is to represent their constituents in Parliament, and with Parliament closed MPs can not do that. I think Parliament should have had 3-4 weeks of recess and then MPs should have been made to come back to Parliament, which job except for maybe a teacher gets as many holidays as MPs?Clearly its time holidays from Parliament and the expenses MPs claim were reformed, and MPs started getting less expenses and shorter...

Following the suggestion by a Conservative MP that MPs salaries should be increased and all expenses taken away, I have to say I agree with him. The problem is, that many people including me don't trust MPs since Expense gate and for that reason an end to expenses is exactly what is needed.Back in March, when the expenses was an issue of interest to everyone and anyone I suggested that expenses are put to an end and MPs are given a salary to cover all the costs of coming to Parliament.If say an MP form the northern part of Scotland was to be given a salary, they should get more than MPs who live closer to Parliament. It could be a system based on how far you live from Parliament and then a salary is allocated to you based on that.Personally I think that expenses should be put to an end,...

Whilst reading a blog post about how Luton voters want Margaret Moran to resign and call a by election so they can vote a new MP, it brought back the thought of the campaign launched by the Burnley Liberal Democrats to sack Kitty Ussher.I am a supporter of the right for constituents to sack MPs because at the end of the day the MP is elected to represent us and if they don't do it properly they should be sacked. The Lib Dems in Burnley tried to sack Ussher but haven't succeeded yet but will do at the next general election something which Luton voters can do at the time as well.The problem is MPs aren't stupid, unless every single voter in their constituency turns against them they aren't going to resign, due to the job paying a nice wage and them being able to get a resettlement allowance...

Dear John Bercow, It’s not proving to be an easy ride, is it?  First you get caught refurbishing your grace-and-favour Westminster apartment at a cost of £20,000, including more than £7,000 on a “sofa suite”, and now plans have emerged to use taxpayers’ money to subsidise emergency childcare for MPs.  You certainly aren’t going about your business quietly…. According to the Telegraph this morning, you are backing plans for the Commons to offer a “short-term, short-notice” child-minding service for MPs.  The “core funding” of the new childcare service is to come from public money and members will also pay a fee for using the service.  The House of Commons Commission, the panel of senior MPs that runs the Commons estate,...

More than 120 Labour MPs – a third of the parliamentary party – are preparing to quit Westminster at the next general election in the biggest clear-out of the parliamentary "old guard" for generations, according to senior party figures.Last night, the party released figures showing 63 Labour MPs have already informed Gordon Brown they are going.Information passed on to party whips suggests this total will rise to some 93 by mid-October, and could then climb by at least another 20-30 in the run-up to a general election, which is expected next spring.Party insiders say MPs' experiences when confronting voters incensed by the expenses' scandal has added to a sense of disillusion about the job as Labour heads for what many now believe is inevitable, thumping defeat at the next general...

Wait for recess, slip out the updated “Green Book” of rules for MPs. This is the post Expensegate rule book for expense claiming written essentially by MPs, for the benefit of MPs. Surprise, surprise they have upped the amount they can pocket in cash, tax free, without the need for receipts from £400 a month to £500 a month for “subsistence”. A benefit worth over £9,000-a-year if they paid tax on it. They of course don’t. Troughers like Tom Watson and Alan Duncan all took the full amount available in the past for “subsistence”“. Will they dare do it again? Guido will be watching… Why are MPs paid subsistence for just doing their jobs, they would presumably still have to eat if they were not MPs? Families of four survive on...