The ongoing saga of the British parliamentary expenses crisis crossed a major watershed with the charging of three Labour MPs, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, and one Tory peer, Lord Hanningfield, and the possibility of more to come.
There are so many layers to this. For a start the ‘gang of four’ are attempting to hide behind parliamentary immunity to prevent themselves being found guilty, literally explicitly making the case of ‘one rule for them, one rule for us’. Then there is the unprecedented nature of what is taking place, MPs being charged and held to account, which does in some sense remove another layer of the pretence of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’.
The last two MPs to be charged were Mohammed Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan and Fiona Jones, Labour MP for Newark, both first elected in 1997. Sarwar was found innocent, whereas Jones was convicted of election expense fraud which was overturned on appeal only for her to lose her seat in the 2001 election.
None of the Tory MPs in ‘cash for honours’, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, were ever charged, although their political careers were ruined. Neither Jonathan Aitken or Jeffrey Archer were MPs when they were charged, found guilty and served time in prison, although Archer was the Tory Mayoral candidate for London.
I don’t for one minute want to rush to the defence of the charged foursome, but isn’t there a sense that they are being hung out to dry to preserve others and deflect from the endemic corruption of the Westminster system? A mere three MPs are facing charges, while more than 350 faced having to repay expenses, over half the House of Commons.
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