91Èȱ¬

So DC response is to do with one son.

But he needed to speak the Chief Whip first. In other words the decision was not based on the rights and wrongs of the situation but what was least likely to cause damage to him and his party, ie political expediency. To have any respect for David C he should have had the guts to rely on own his instincts.
If you are right about "taking on Mr Conway" (and David Davis?) will this be the start of a campaign to remove David Cameron as leader?

I think that the damage has already been done to Cameron as far as this sorry tale goes. However, I hope Labour don't think that, unlike vast swathes of the media, the electorate do not have the ability to follow more than one news item.
The sty is getting bigger everyday!

Is this the tip of the iceberg? As the funding providers do we not have a right to know how many MPs, of all parties, are "employing" their relatives and thus fuelling the family income?
Where they are doing so are proper records kept of hours put in and outcomes achieved and the work place attendance records kept under H & S rules, as would be normal in a proper job.
Have the proper records been kept for TAX, NI etc.
Or are there other instances of the public being ripped off again.

Snouts and troughs spring to mind.

We need Cameron ( or any other leader) to be withdrawing the whip before the problem becomes public.

The expense allowances are so high now that some fraud will be inevitable, MP's being human.

What Cameron and other leaders need to do is to ensure that their culture will not accept any fiddling of the expenses. An example needs to be made.

The latest fiddles and "administrative errors leading to failures to comply with regulations" need to be made un-thinkable.

Right decision.
Also right to take some time for deliberation. Well done Cameron. Contrasts starkly with the dismal Scot.

Removing the whip in cases like this is all very well, but is it democratic? The good people of Bexley voted for a Tory MP, and now, through no fault of theirs, they don't have one. This is like those outrageous occasions when a member "crosses the floor" to further their own political careers. If a MP ceases to be, for whatever reason, a member of the party they were when elected, then there should be an immediate bye election. If he or she has been a good constituency MP they may well get re-elected, but it cannot be right that the will of the people, democratically expressed at the ballot box, can so easily be rejected. I am starting to wonder just what is the point of parliamentary elections: manifesto promises apparently mean nothing, and nor it seems does party membership. If a party won a landslide, and then a large number of its MPs "crossed the floor", the country would get the exact opposite in terms of government than they voted for. Is my notion of democracy so impossible to achieve? And they wonder why voters are apathetic.

Dave was right to take time to deliberate and right to then withdraw the whip.
Contrasts starkly with the dismal scot.

Well at least David Cameron has acted....

Dave was right to take time to deliberate and right to then withdraw the whip.
Contrasts starkly with the dismal scot.

British politics have reached an all time low. We seem to be led by self seeking people with little sense of honesty or honour.
When will they accept that there are no gradations of corruption? Just a queue of pious spinners on both sides, demonstrating daily their contempt for ordinary men and women who voted for them.
No wonder we have the voting system of a banana republic, dwindling civil liberties and bucket loads of antisocial behaviour orders. Why should we bother to vote, have respect for others or "behave" when national figures set such an appalling example?
The cumulative effect is corrosive.
Leadership is a privilege which should be earned daily in every aspect of public life. Our leaders seem to have lost sight of this simple truth.

Quite a contrast with Brown's dithering over Peter Hain.

quite right..he should take the wrap and go. of course, if this was the Labour party we'd still be dithering by next Tuesday.

Cameron clearly wants to try and project an image of decisiveness in a way that also entrenches the perception of Gordon Brown as a fence-sitting ditherer. The story about Conway broke yesterday and the whip is withdrawn barely 24 hours later. PMQs are another 24 hours away and this decision leaves DC holding all the aces yet again before facing GB over the despatch box.

There is unfortunately a more sinister side to all this, leaving out the names and faces for a moment. The BNP have landed themselves a very big fish here. They thrive on and are doing very well at the moment with the current disaffection with politics both local and national, (particularly in the real world where I live and politicians don’t go) and incidents like this don't help. This and the fact that seemingly it’s taken the BNP to "do the right thing".
So what’s to be done?
Does Derek Conway go and take his buddy Roger Gale with him since his view seems to be we should all stump up and mind our own business, but this then gives the BNP a very high profile scalp and probably much political kudos. I don't know, any ideas Nick?

We mustn't forget that the Conway problem is down to one man's failures. The problems with Labour's donations scandals, from cash for peerages through to Harriet Harman and Peter Hain, have been about institutionalised sleaze within the Labour Party. Human nature being what it is there always have been and always will be instances of individuals making mistakes or even acting downright corruptly. What is worrying with Labour is the way this behaviour seems to permeate the entire party apparatus.

What I do not understand is why failing to declare otherwise legitimate donations merits a police investigation, whereas paying public money to a close relative, with no evidence that any work has actually been done to earn that money, does not.

David Cameron has taken firm action and drawn a clear distinction between the Conservatives and Labour. Will Gordon Brown take a similarly tough line against Peter Hain and any other wrong - doers in his party?
I don't think so.

He has left it too late, demonstrating only that he gives in to the pressume of public opinion and is not guided by genuine principles of what is right and wrong.

Cameron is an opportunist and has gone down in my estimation for his dithering here. Its no good criticising Brown for ditherering if you are not prepared to take action yourself.

Cameron is not the principled driven leader that Conservatives need and deserve.

David Cameron has taken firm action and drawn a clear distinction between the Conservatives and Labour. Will Gordon Brown take a similarly tough line against Peter Hain and any other wrong - doers in his party?
I don't think so.

If Mr Conway wished to support his sons during their studies he should have used his own money, not public funds, and not procured research facilities that appear to have been about as productive as the Progressive Policies Forum. But we are used to such things; what can be more absurd than the pompous pretence maintained by such as Roger Gale that MPs are honourable persons whose word may be relied on?

Has mr celeb(d.c) him self declared
family workers details i.e tax,ni,health safty details, incase one has a accident and needs to claim compensation.
mr conway said
"I have let my family down very badly indeed and no judgement from any quarter could be more harsh than that which I apply to myself"

Yes well lets all use that logic
"sorry i made a mistake,let the family down" which he knew all a long, so do i really have to pay the money back,er yes like the Flipping! rest of us you ding bat when caught pulling a fast one, £1-1000 pound still stealing from the tax payer.
Lets see who else has been letting the family down quite a few i would imagine,

What I find wrong here is that Peter Hain,who volunteered that he had failed to declare private donations to his deputy leadership campaign, is facing a police investigation and could end up being fined or sent to prison. No public money was involved and he was not lining his pocket.
Conway has been found guilty by his peers of syphoning off public money for his family's benefit. He gets a rap over the knuckles, is required to repay only part of the money and is likely to lose 10 days pay.
You are quite right about Cameron.He has only acted out of self interest. When Gordon Brown rightly waited for the Electoral Commission's report before Hain had to go Cameron accused him of dithering. He, of course didn't dither, oh no, he "reflected overnight". Who does he think he's kidding? It only serves to highlight his shallowness and superficiality and his unfitness to be Prime Minister.

In many organiztions and companies it is forbidden to employ relatives in any capacity, much less pay them for doing nothing. Derek Conman is being asked to repay a fraction of what he, in fact, stole from the taxpayer. David Cameron, who apparently considers theft by a Conervative M.P. quite acceptable so long as he says he is sorry, acted only after he learned how the long-suffering voters were reacting. Shouldn't M.P.s be required to provide a list of all payments made with a full account of exactly what services are being provided?

Nepotism is no surprise to anybody, I am unable to see the importance of the story here apart from political point scoring, demonising MP's. Or is it something other to report on rather than disclose to the mass's last night's parlimentary vote
(SCANDAL) that witnessed yet another nail in the coffin for the Great British parlimentary democracy and another small (but VERY SIGNIFFICANT seen as parliment are not even now allowed to debate this 'treaty' with true scrutiny (not 45 seconds per line) and fair media coverage) push forward to the European State.

I feel the biggest Nepotism scandal is one that the 91Èȱ¬ etal avoid speaking about i.e. the Royal Family and the ridiculous amount of second cousins removed etc. who recieve vast amounts of cash for doing nothing other than breathing and telling their servants what to do.

This makes Cameron look decisive and Conway has time to 'make it up' to the Conservatives while being a good constituency MP.

Everybody wins.

Good decisive action from Cameron.

If Conway was a New Labour MP, Brown would still be dithering about whether to express his support or to disappear à la McCavity.

It would appear that Mr Cameron has 'taken the sting' out of this sorry state of affairs and at least Conway is accepting that he has done wrong. This is a marked difference to those MPs' who refuse to accept anything until after an 'enquiry' and always receive Mr Browns 'full support'.

Conway is my MP, for old bexley and sidcup, and he seems a genuine person. However, he must realise his place as a public servant, not a person who can spend funds on what he wishes. The fact is this event is a representation of the bigger problem with Westminister, the increaing isolation of MPs, Senior Civil Servants, and the 'political elite' as a self-serving group, who ignore (for the most part) the opinions of the nation. What Conway has done is wrong, and i am in agreement with DC in withdrawing the whip. I think Cameron need not worry too much about damage though, as Labour have already shown their gross inability in power to halt corruption, and the sheer amount of repeated scandals they have been a part of is shocking.

Nick

I don't understand why you say Cameron changed his mind. As you point out later in the piece, his decision was a delayed reaction. A delay overnight does not seem unreasonable and compares with the dithering of Brown.

A bad business all the same; it shows that the Tories take liberties as well as Labour.

Malcolm from 02:27 PM on 29 Jan 2008

you are not voting for a party. you are voting for a candidate.. who just happens to be of that party, whatever reason you voted for him is irrelevant.

if it's PR or some such party list vote.. then yes.. chuck the incumbent out and stick another drone in. (they are all drones anyway)

Spot on No*1
You hit the nail on the head!

at last someone actually acts rather than passes the buck. If only the Tories were in power we could have some action instead of dithering.

My previous comment failed for reasons of "security" and I am not sure why.

I merely commented that it is absolutely disgraceful that an elected member of parliament should even contemplate abusing public funds in this way.

I understand that if a member of the public complains then the MPs will start a fresh enquiry. I demand that they do so.

Please post this.

If anyone but that lot liberated this much money from our employers we would be looking at jail time.

Aitken/Archer's cell is vacant.....

DC had no choice but to remove the whip, after accusing Brown of dithering over Northern Rock etc etc etc and also the Peter Hain affair.

I am sure this type of practise is common place among our MP's, some cover their tracks better than others no doubt.

I can only conclude that you must love Gordon Brown to pieces. Brown has been dithering over Hain et al, for weeks, and not done a thing. Whereas Cameron has chopped off the Conway mess with admirable dexterity.

In less than 30 hours Cameron acted. Get that Nick!

If Parliament pays anyone for work they don't do then constituents and the country are let down. I run the BUSM company pensions Action Group in Leicester and over the last 4 years, I have seen a huge difference in quality. Irrespective of party, the best MPs work all hours but others, very capable but perhaps with their political future behind them, concentrate on extra parliamentary activities.

There needs to be some sort of quality control to ensure MPs do a prescribed minimum amount of constituency and Parliamentary work and that is at least as important as correcting Mr Conway's alleged error.

votingfloater-you may think that the dismal Scot dithers, but the two situations are very different.In Browns case he is dealing with allegations-which in the case of Hain are still not proved. In the case of Conway it is an open and shut case.So it is a 'no brainer' for Mummy's Boy to wield the red card, which has no effect on the workings of the Conservative party, and makes DC look strong,decisive,and positive-just what the lackluster public school boy needs at the moment.
No doubt Conway will now turn up on celebrity reality programs and follow the Hamiltons lead.

I trust HMRC will also take an interest in the appropriate compliance with tax and NI legislation on these payments - and indeed all payments for work done by wives, sons, daughters and friends for MPs.

I would also like to know how Peter Haine can get through £100,000 plus in a leadership campaign.

I am appalled at the actions of Mr Conway,my son is at university and working part time in a supermarket for 12 hours a week to help pay for his housing costs due to the grants being taken by Labour, and he will never be in line for a £10,000 bonus.

I thought that parliament was created to stop the excesses of the monarchy, yet all I see from all parties is a readiness to dip into the public purse without any thought for the people who earnt it. No wonder there is never any surplus in the kitty to relieve the tax burden when times get hard. who will rid us of this troublesome system?

I work hourly-paid as a teacher for a County Council. I have no perks, no pension, no holiday pay. Every claim I make for work done, car parking in the course of my job, etc. has to be backed up by receipts sent in with my salary claim. This is quite proper, as the County Council quite rightly wants to ensure that no fraudulent claims are made.
It is sad to see that people in high public office seem to think that the public purse is there for them to exploit as they wish. Why should such a blatant attempt by an MP to benefit his family at the expense of taxpayers not be considered dishonourable and dishonest? Why should the electors in his constituency wish to be represented by such a man?

It should be in the public domain what every MP spends his/her allowances on. These people are supposed to be public servants- how do they expect to have the respect of the public when they are so often found to be feathering their own nests? And as for being able to spend up to around 40,000 pounds in allowances without producing receipts, this is scandalous as they so often prove they do not have the integrity to be trusted to such an extent.

Pandora's Box.

Under new management.

Now fully open!

Mrs T always said she slept on things. My guess is the one night Dave took.....not months long mental vacation that Gordon seems to take.
Any news on Northern Rock....????

In my job, if I paid my wife £40,000 in expenses, I would be fired and probably charged with fraud. Why hasn't Mr Conway resigned or been kicked out of the house.

Malcolm is quite wrong about the democratic process. "The good people of Bexley" voted for Derek Conway, not for a party, which is after all just a gang of MPs. The merits or otherwise of the man to represent his constituents is quite unaltered by the fact the the leader of the gang has thrown him out.

If only people really did vote for candidates on their personal merits, party power would reduce and there would be much less sleaze in Westminster.

police need to investigate and if criminal wrong doing proved, he should be sent down...if convoy was a benefit cheat, he would have been shot at dawn...but i am sure he isnt the only MP at it!!

typical tory sleeze.

A leopard never changes its spots

Changing ones mind requires adecsion to be made in the first place. Two decisions are better than none.

Maggie used to sleep on things.
Gordon puts his head under his pillow and hopes it will all go away.

The Committee was supposed to do an investigation into ALL MPs expenses last year but it was blocked by Jack Straw who feared it would embarrass Labour backbenchers!

The number of MPs' wives do are allegedly their secretaries yet stay at home often hundreds of miles from Westminster. What about the 'researchers' for hetro and homosexual MPs who turn out to be boy/girlfriends?

The whole thing stinks. There should be a central admin service and ONE admin bod per MP who does the secret party political stuff. NO wives no kids no friends employed. Expenses should have receipts for everything - after all the MPs are fond of saying how they should be held to a higher standard; how about one that the rest of us are held to?

This is a disgrace this man should be prosectuted if I or any other average joe was to con this much cash out of the tax payers money we would without a doubt spend sometime in jail.

Cash for honours, dodgy party and campaign donations, fidling expenses... it's been going on for decades and perhaps it's a good thing that it is finally being brought out into the open.

What is really depressing is the relatively trivial sums of money involved - selling their souls for just a few quid tells us the kind of people we have in parliament.

Malcolm - we elect people not parties, so there is no need for bye elections when someone changes party. And if we remember that we are electing an individual when we cast our votes perhpas that will help raise the standard of our MPs.

David Camaron has done the right thing. He acted decisively and only when the whip had spoken to Mr Conway. Ne kneejerk reactions here. Contrast this with Mrown dithering over just about everything from Northern Rock to the bald faced lie about the election that never was. The reality is that MPs are not perfect. Who of us are. Mr Camaron has shown that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated in the modern conservative party unlike the Labour party where just about anything goes, then is covered up or spun.

Well, Mr. Robinson, you may well be correct that David Cameron changed his mind.

The other equally plausible explanation is that your analysis in this morning's article was - how can I put this - wrong.

While we are at it, Nick:- can we get an apology for disparaging John Mann MP as a "professional complainer" - when these events have completely vindicated him?

Dave slept on it. Maggie used to do the same.
Gordon hides his head under his pillow.

Even if he [DC] did change his mind, surely two decisions are better than none.

" * At 02:32 PM on 29 Jan 2008,
* votingfloater wrote:

Dave was right to take time to deliberate and right to then withdraw the whip.
Contrasts starkly with the dismal scot."

So it's okay for Cameron to 'dither' - to take time and think but when Brown does it it is due to indecisiveness.

Well, well indeed. I wonder if all those ripping into the Tories on Nick's earlier blog posting on this subject will now be changing their minds or not.

It is about time that all parties and MP's should have to have fully audited accounts by independent accountants and the accounts be published for public view so the public can see who is getting what and from who

A MP should not use the same accountant as his Local party or National party or accountant that as a intrest in the Party or MP the same go's for the Party as well This should also show all functions attend private or other wise

Malcolm, 7 above, I take your point but where do you get the idea we have a representative democracy? The UK has the most unrepresentative democracy in the western world! Barely 45 % of the people in this country get the MP they voted for. Just check it seat by seat, how often does the returned MP get a real majority in their constituency?

Currently we have a government with 36% electoral support which effectively can ignore the will of the 64% who voted against them and who never wanted their policies. Can you identify one single country where a government is composed entirely from a party with such minority support and it is still called democratic? Thought not.

Democracy in the UK is institutionally rigged in a more insidious way to allow minority rule than most "Banana Republics" would dare to resort to. The situation for Bexley may be regrettable but in reality its not significantly worse than most of us have to put up with all of the time.
The UK is represented by a government that virtually 2 out of three of us never wanted. At least Bexley still has an MP who received 49.8% of the votes cast in 2005 and he may still vote in the "appropriate" lobby, whip or no whip.

I hope The Labour Party faithful don't see this as an excuse for hiding their own failings. They after all are the ones in power. Cameron acted swiftly, unlike his two faced, dithering opponent!

To John Galpin. Let me think. Canada, India, the USA, Mexico, Malayasia. It’s quite a long list. The disenfranchisement of up to 49% of the electorate and the possibility of a government coming to power with less than a majority of national votes cast is an inherent weakness of ALL single-person constituency systems - even if MPs had to get a majority of constituency votes cast.

Not that I disagree with you, but there is no such thing as a perfect electoral system and there never will be. If you have issues with the current system, join the Electoral Reform Society.

If Conway has claimed expenses that were not actually incurred then that is theft ie theft of taxpayers money. The sum of £40,000 has been mooted - not an inconsiderable amount. Anyone falsely claiming benefits will be taken to court. Has Conway's alledged mis-deeds been referred to the police?

Are these payments recorded so that the recipient pays income tax?
Bob

So Conway just walks away after the next election with two years more salary and a big fat pension. Where in Industry could you get away with this and stay out of prison,let alone still get your pension. It show the public what respect we get from people such as Conway. The old saying works well here
THE LAW LOOKS AFTER THOSE WHO LOOK AFTER THE LAW.

I have opened a petition on the Downing Street website to abolish MPs' right to employ family members.

Those who feel as I do please sign up!
It's held under 'Government ...' and then 'MPs privileges'.

This case is about fraudulent use of my taxes and yours and should go to Court. Along with the lack of a proper system of accountability for MPs expense claims, this is wide open to abuse and should be stamped out.

Simple question, which anyone can answer:

Is Mr Conway still a MEMBER of the Conservative Party?

Withdrawing the whip is meaningless if he is still welcome in the fold.

This man Conway is, I suspect, only the tip of a rather large iceberg. Parliament needs to busy itself urgently with a proper and transparent reform package. M.P.s' staffing (vetting and interviewing procedures), expenses and allowances,as well as their exclusive right to set their own wages are some of the areas that need investigation.
Our Parliament is in great danger of becoming a huge white elephant - God knows, we have had enough evidence of late of the inability of our "leaders" to sift fact from fiction. Those of us who really care about the maintenance of our proper democratic institutions and procedures need to lobby broadcasters and journalists, M.P.s (some) and, hopefully, get some plan of action going. Much of what goes on in the house in terms of rules has not basically changed since the 18th Century. Please, please, let us bring our Parliament up to date!!