OVER the past few months we have seen Parliament operating at its worst. When it first came to light that all might not be as it should with MPs’ expenses our elected representatives refused to allow details of their expenses to be made public.

It was left to the Press to investigate what was going on. Their efforts produced a trickle of questionable expense claims.

Subsequently the full details of MPs’ expenses were leaked to one of the broadsheets and that trickle became a veritable torrent.

What was the reaction of our MPs to this? It was to vilify the mole who had blown the whistle on them and then to use every effort to delay the publication of the details of their expenses until the summer recess. As public anger at their actions increased and one MP after another apologised for their creative accounting, they then sought a scapegoat in the form of the Speaker, Michael Martin.

The Press and the House together have hounded him from office. I would suggest that MPs took this action as much to deflect attention away from them as individuals as to try to put the blame for their problems on just one person.

In his defence, the hapless Speaker told us that Parliament had let us down. Parliament is an inanimate object and incapable of letting anybody down. We were let down by a large number of MPs who have augmented their salaries and non-Parliamentary incomes by helping themselves to additional income from the public purse.

It is apparent from the revelations to date that MPs are apparently befuddled by the “complex rules” and not necessarily good with figures. Those are excuses which would not hold water in any other situation. It clearly is not enough for our MPs that their expenses are paid to them as a tax free allowance, unlike almost all other individuals in this country.

Not only are their extremely generous expenses paid to them on a tax free basis but a number of them have claimed additional expenses to which they were clearly not entitled.

The excuses which have been rolled out are incredible. One Minister of State suggested on television that our MPs are not as corrupt as they are elsewhere in the world! Her comments demonstrated a distinct lack of judgement and sense. Another suggestion is that the pay of MPs has not been increased as it should have been in recent years and that claiming additional expenses is a way of making up for what they have lost!

Those who run our country and represent us in Parliament seem to think that they are above the law. At present they make the rules, and then abuse the rules and when things go wrong they investigate themselves. Is this all not a bit too cosy?

It is little wonder that the turnout at both local and national elections is falling as more and more potential voters become increasingly disillusioned and apathetic.

When as a student I read George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984” I thought that they were entertaining works of fiction.

I now realise that these books were every bit as prophetic as Nostradamus and that in those books, the many are now being exploited by the few.

There was a time as when behaviour such as this would probably have resulted in public demonstrations of discontent. Those days are over as instead we settle down to our TV Soaps or another session so called Reality TV.

It is time for a proper system of checks and balances to be applied to MPs’ expenses. According to the rules, MPs may claim expenses incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily for the performance of their parliamentary duties.

In future any MP found to have made an incorrect claim should be liable to dismissal. That is how it is for the majority of the working population. Why should MPs be treated differently?

For far too long politicians have said one thing and done another and there is no better example of this than the present debacle over expenses. How many of them have said “I have done nothing wrong” or “I acted within the rules”.

I doubt that the present Government is materially worse than its predecessors. However let us not forget that they were the party who were going to do away with the sleaze and misdemeanours of their predecessors.

In reality their record is much worse than their predecessors with one scandal after another.

Those who represent us in Parliament must not only lead by example but must be seen to lead by example. If they cannot do so they should do the honourable thing and step down.

Noel Kelleway

Theobalds Road

Leigh