£120m INSULT TO VOTERS

10 years after the expenses scandal, that’s what MPs (who won’t deliver Brexit) still claim every year — a shameless 20 pc increase. LEO McKINSTRY asks: will they EVER get it?

DURING its long, sometimes troubled recent history, Westminster has been tainted by many scandals. But, in sheer scale and impact, nothing matches the furore that exploded ten years ago this week over MPs’ expenses.

It is disturbing, therefore, to discover that today’s coterie of shameless MPs continues to line its pockets with swollen expenses claims.

A decade after a spotlight was shone on the culture of greed and entitlement rampant in our political elite, one might expect our MPs to display a modicum of contrition.

Yet the amount claimed by MPs has astonishingly increased by 20 per cent — to £120 million. And according to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the latest figures show a large year-on-year rise.

While there is no suggestion that expense fiddling is as rife today, the gargantuan sum recalls the arrogance and avarice of 2009 epitomised in the words of Sir Anthony Steen, Tory MP for Totnes.

He had claimed £88,000 from taxpayers over the previous four years for the maintenance of his estate in Devon, including the upkeep of 500 trees.

Meltdown

With a breathtakingly misplaced sense of privilege, when challenged, he said he had ‘behaved impeccably’. He added that he believed the public’s justified hostile reaction was down to ‘jealousy’.

With such a perverse and out-of-touch attitude — and he wasn’t alone — it is no wonder voters were furious.

The Commons expenses row — with MPs charging taxpayers for moat-clearing, a duck house, a plasma screen TV and abusing second-home allowances — was all the more incendiary occurring months after 2008’s financial crash.

While the rest of us suffered, too many of our politicians had their noses in the trough of unjustified subsidies.

Compounded by economic meltdown, the disclosure of the expenses racket fed the belief that our country was ruled by a bunch of serial incompetents and deceivers, in office only for themselves.

Politics seemed truly broken — for many, it had become a vehicle for self- enrichment, not effective governance. But a decade later, for all the talk of reform, the sad fact is the reputation of Parliament has not properly recovered.

The scandal permanently shattered trust in the political process. It explains the current powerful mood of rebellion against the traditional party elites — as reflected in the vote Leave in the 2016 EU referendum, and again in last week’s local elections.

Yet the public’s disillusion and clarion call for change seem not to have reduced MPs’ conceit.

They think they have the right to subvert democracy by blocking the path to Brexit.

If they had learnt some humility from the expenses scandal, they would have done all they could to implement the referendum mandate.

Instead, they have indulged in shameless prevarication and procrastination.

Can’t they see the howl of anger in last week’s local elections and the fury they encounter on doorsteps about failing to honour the referendum and the wishes of 17.4 million who voted Leave are stark reactions to their failure to deliver Brexit?

Local councillors may have just been the fall-guys, but it was a message to ultra-Brexit Tories and the Labour Party that voters are fed up with being treated like fools. The message is simple: why hasn’t Westminster enacted the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. MPs have hijacked the process and sabotaged it by obsessing with their own narcissistic agenda. A similar disdain of the public, democracy and of common values of proper behaviour led to the expenses scandal.

In 1843, philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote that ‘Parliament is a sort of gaming house’, full of ‘ insincerity, disingenuousness, lying, hypocrisy and fallacy’, designed by ‘players on both sides for obtaining advantages in the game.’

At least in the 19th century, MPs were figures of independent means, not party hacks who expected their lifestyles to be paid for by taxpayers.

The scandal plumbed absurd depths. MPs submitted claims for reimbursement of ginger biscuits, jellied eels, dog food, toilet seats, tea lights and a single paper clip.

Revelations

Some demands from Tory MPs in the shires became symbols of unethical extravagance, such as the £ 1,645 sought by Sir Peter Viggers for his duck island and the £2,115 wanted by Douglas Hogg for moat cleaning.

Many claims involved far greater sums of public money.

Typical was re- designating second homes to maximise allowances and cut tax bills, or employing relatives to boost household income.

David Chaytor, the Labour MP for Bury North, was jailed for 18 months after claiming £18,000 rent on a flat he owned, while former Environment Minister Elliot Morley was also jailed after he demanded £32,000 in second home allowances for a mortgage he had already paid off.

As the torrent of revelations continued, a climate of victimhood developed at Westminster, with MPs whining about persecution by the Press.

Such moans won little sympathy with the public, whose taxes had underwritten the ridiculous circus for too long.

Since the scandal, rules have been tightened and are now overseen by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. But some MPs haven’t learnt their lesson.

This week, it was revealed some use the expenses system for what are, in effect, interestfree loans from the taxpayer by overspending their allowed budget on accommodation then stretching out the repayment process.

Largesse

And in March, Christopher Davies, the Tory MP for Brecon, was convicted of submitting false invoices on a claim for office expenses.

What makes such abuses so pathetic is MPs are wellrewarded. A pay rise of 2.7 per cent, well above inflation, sees them on £79,468-a-year.

They receive travel expenses, office costs of up to £24,000, an accommodation allowance of £ 23,000, a pension and £154,600-a-year for staff. And they can take second jobs.

Yet all this taxpayer-funded largesse has done nothing to improve the calibre of MPs.

Our politicians are even more mediocre than the bunch responsible for the scandal. We’re still ruled by a breed of second-rate professional apparatchiks, with little experience of the real world.

Few have run a business or had a normal career.

And their limited vision is shown, not just by the shameful paralysis over Brexit, but their ineptitude in handling the great challenges that face our nation: soaring crime, a creaking transport infrastructure, the permanent crisis in the NHS, or the lack of proper immigration controls.

The expenses scandal should have sparked a revolution, opening Westminster to a wide range of newcomers. Sadly, it’s achieved the opposite.

Britain’s political class is more insular than ever, and public hostility continues to grow. Ultimately, that hostility could become so fierce the system of democracy that has served us well for years could become endangered.

And we all know who would be to blame — our arrogant, hopeless politicians.