As if giving two major speeches today wasn’t enough, Nick also has an op-ed column in The Times, titled How to stop future funding scandals:
The Derek Conway affair is not the first, nor likely to be the last, in a long line of political scandals over money. While such scandals have formed a steady trickle for generations, the floodgates seemed to open 18 months ago with the cash-for-peerages investigation. It may be tempting for politicians to argue that each scandal is separate from the others, but the British people simply don’t see it that way.
It’s time to admit there’s a pattern here. The relationship between money and politics is rotten, and it is hollowing out our whole political system. Public cynicism has never been greater. The details of the latest scandals, while of obsessive interest to the Westminster village, mean little to the public. They don’t distinguish between MPs pay and expenses and dodgy donors to political parties. All they remember is the association between politicians, money and scandal.
You can read the rest of the piece, including Nick’s proposed solutions, on The Times website.
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6 Comments
Given the nature of the Conway scandal, it is a shame he has precisely nothing to say about reforming the allowances system for MPs.
Interesting, but I wonder why hasn’t LDV yet reported Nick Clegg’s views published in the Financial Times?
Well that story says:
“Nick Clegg says his Liberal Democrats could support a minority Conservative government after the next election, if David Cameron proposes genuinely “liberal” reforms in areas such as civil liberties…”
As Cameron’s “reforms” include scrapping the Human Rights Act so that we can ship people off in chains to be tortured it seems unlikely that this test will be met.
3. Hywel – worth pointing out that in practice if there’s a hung Parliament we’ll have to support one or other party on the Queen’s speech.
If we opposed both and defeated both then there would be another general election – and I very much doubt the public would thank us for it.
4. She could always ask Nick! 😉
Good to see that you chaps are finally able to ‘come out of the closet’ about your support for the Tory Party.
I know you’ve been trying to keep the ‘love that dare not speak its name’ under wraps for fear of scaring your socialist rump.
But now you can let your market loving credentials hang out with all the boys..