Tuesday, August 10, 2010

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes essentially means "who will guard the guards themselves" and is mostly used in debates about law enforcement. However in this case I'm pointing it right back at our troughing MP's and the attitude they are taking towards the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Now IPSA is supposed to be monitored by a committee and that committee is supposed to have 3 lay members of the public on it. However the committee which is supposed to be run by speaker Bercow (trougher par excellence) hasn't even advertised for any members of the public to sit on it, merely stuffed it with MP's instead.

Telegraph.

MPs have broken a promise to allow members of the public on to the body which has ultimate authority over their expenses. 
The committee overseeing the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which took over responsibility for expenses from the discredited Commons’ fees office, is supposed to contain three “lay members” as well as serving MPs.
But three months after the supposedly tough new system became operational following the general election, there are eight MPs on the Speaker’s Committee for IPSA, and no lay members. 
And even though its own website says that three lay members should be appointed, the Committee, chaired by John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, appears to have taken no steps to advertise for or recruit for public appointees.
Despite not containing lay members, the Committee has already begun sitting, and last month threatened to refuse to sign off IPSA’s budget – leading to warnings that it was seeking to undermine the new system.
The threat came as relations between IPSA and MPs reached a low point, with many Members in open revolt about the tough new rules they are being forced to abide by.
A number of MPs who were not members of the Committee packed into the public hearing to approve the budget, where they heckled and swore at IPSA staff.
 Right bunch of charmers our elected thieves are turning out to be, don't like the rules, swear at the staff and try to stuff a committee with their own kind ignoring a promise to have members of the public on it, not like they haven't had the time to do so either.
They really do think the public will stand for the fact that they want things back to the old ways where they were ripping us off with duck houses and flipping mortgages. These people might be elected, but they are not to be trusted especially trusted to monitor themselves. The performance by some MP's at the open meeting last month should have lead them to be censured by the speaker and the committee, however as Bercow was/is one of the biggest thieves at Westminster it seems he is deliberately trying to bring the new system down by neglect and breach of promise if nothing else.
It really is time to tear down the system, get rid of the current crop of professional politicians, ban the existing political parties in Westminster and start from scratch. Then and only then might I start to trust a politician anywhere near money.

3 annotations:

Barking Spider said...

The current shower are just as bad as the last shower, QM, and Cameron has shown his true colours in a remarkably short time - and his incompetence - and his power-hungry underhandedness, (as demonstrated with the 1922 Commitee fiasco), and his authoritarian snooping credentials.

Anonymous said...

Parliament is a glove puppet of the Eu anyway. Nothing for these wasters to do but feather their nests hoping we don't notice their greed & treason.

hedgehog said...

They really do think the public will stand for the fact that they want things back to the old ways where they were ripping us off with duck houses and flipping mortgages.

Indeed they do - and they will continue to get away with it, too. The real tragedy is that we all know it and are powerless to do anything about it.