The growing disconnect between the voters & the politicians they elect is one of the seemingly intractable problems facing political parties today, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard some hand-wringing politician crying crocodile tears about the “you’re all in it for yourselves mentality” which prevails amongst the general public.
Of course this is unfair, but public perception is unfair, and MPs are nowadays all seen as sleazy & out for themselves.
This is why we as Lib Dems have to mark out a distinctive difference here between our approach & that of the NuLabCon parties.
It seems entirely logical to me that the rules governing the financial interests of councillors should be applied to MPs as well.
Why should an MP, who has any personal or familial financial interests be allowed to speak vote, and lobby other members on matters that affect those interests beneficially, and often directly act to the detriment of their constituents & the public generally?
The behaviour of a group of MPs in the 1990s acting on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry in an attempt to restrict patient information about adverse drug reactions & side-effects on the patient safety data sheets now included with medicines is a clear, and particularly disgraceful example.
If any councillor behaved like that they’d soon find themselves, rightly, on corruption charges. So, the question is, why isn’t this ALREADY LibDem policy?
It should be. It must be. It will mark us out as radically different on sleaze from the other two parties, & put NuLabCon in a very bad place indeed.
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2 Comments
“It seems entirely logical to me that the rules governing the financial interests of councillors should be applied to MPs as well.”
Please No! I understand where your coming from but the Code of Conduct for Councillors is a pretty dire piece of legislation.
The first principle we should start from is that politics in Britain is actually pretty honest. We don’t for example have a Berlusconi who I believe introduced legislation to make his holiday villa developments a state secret.
What “corruption” there is (Hamilton, Donnygate, Aitken) is actually of a pretty low level.
The latest “planning corruption scandal” in Calderdale concerns a builder giving money to the Conservatives. It’s potential to be another Poulson is slightly ruined however as the Tories voted against the development scheme he was supporting!
We should acknowledge that political representatives in the UK and almost exclusively honest people who are in politics to improve their local areas. The disagreements may be over what constitutes improving the local area though!
That state of affairs should be reflected in the codes of conducts we have for councillors and MPs.
In my view people should be allowed to vote freely on virtually all matters. I’d probably have exceptions for manifest direct financial interests such as decisions on your own property or your own/a close family members employment.
What there should be is a very transparent and thorough declaration of interests which allows people to compare how someone has voted with their interests
Yes clean up politics, pay back the proceeds of crime…