Mr Speaker; Mr Spender

John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has dismissed the complaint about taxi journeys claimed on expenses by Commons Speaker Michael Martin. Apparently the £4,139.17 claimed was "reasonable" and within the rules. The cost was not "excessive" and the trips were taken to aid her husband.

"It's shocking that they are able to use taxpayers' money for taxis to do their domestic grocery shopping"

Mark Wallace
TaxPayers Alliance

These taxi journeys included trips to the supermarket where the taxi was kept on a wait and return basis as "they were not easy to hail". There were more trips to smaller stores to purchase further provisions and perishables.

There are several things that rile me about this...
a) No "average" person would ever spend over £1000 per year on taxi fares
b) It was the Speaker's wife using the taxi, and not the speaker himself
c) The taxpayer is paying for these domestic trips
and finally, and perhaps the most bizarrely
d) This is apparently acceptable, and not breaking the rules

There needs to be a serious overhaul of the parliamentary expense system. In my opinion the expense system should be scrapped completely. In its place MPs salaries should be increased. However, from their increased salary they should pay all their expenses, including any staff members they may wish to employ. Be in in their home constituency, or in London. Be it a family member, or total stranger. If they want to spend it on taxi journeys then they can, or they can spend it on renovating their second home.

All these things can be offset against income tax as a business expense in the same way that every other businessman, or self-employed person would do. This way we can be sure that there will be no miss-use of expenses.

I appreciate this wouldn't be easy to implement. There are lots of things that would need to be fine tuned. Such as the amount paid. Cabinet members (and Shadow Cabinet members) would need to be paid more. It would also be most likely that the distance each MPs constituency is from London should have a factor on how much they should receive. The total balance given would need to be thought through very carefully too, as obviously some MPs claim large expenses, and others not much, so a balance would need to be achieved. Some MPs would lose out from this, whilst others would gain.

My point though is this. The taxpayers would gain and transparency would be achieved.

Gordon Brown; Asset or Not?

It is fairly obvious from the video below that Labour in Crewe and Nantwich are desperately seeking to distance themselves from Gordon Brown - despite the temporary fix for the 10p debacle.

As for the compensation-con as George Osborne put it, it is only for this year. That means come April 1st 2009 we will be back in exactly the same position as we have been this year. How is putting it off for one year and one year only helping the poor. It is once again a case of Labour putting forward a short-term fix for a long-term problem. I just hope the electorate see past this conniving government and show their disdain in the bye-election next week..

PMQs; Is Brown Losing it?

I don't know whether I look forward to Prime Minister's Questions on a Wednesday afternoon or not. I can't help but cringe at the dreadful performances that Gordon Brown consistently puts in. He fails to answer questions, he dithers, and he generally seems to have no idea about what is going on.

I have a clip of PMQs from May 7th below. Whilst not the full 'show' it has many moments of Brown fighting not to be ground to a bloody pulp.

"The Prime Minister talks about salesmanship, we all know his brilliant salesmanship, this is the man that sold gold at the bottom of the market. That's the problem with the Prime Minister. He has nothing to sell and he's useless at selling it"

David Cameron, PMQs 7th May 2008

Boris; The new Mayor of London

Congratulations to Boris Johnson for successfully overcoming the incumbent Ken Livingstone by 139,772 votes. Boris polled 53% (1,168,738 votes) to Ken’s 47% (1,028,966) of 1^st and 2^nd preference votes.

Boris has been likened to Marmite. You either love him, or hate him. You either see him as a highly intelligent, capable man; or you see him as a bumbling buffoon who makes more gaffes than Gordon Brown. I personally believe him to be the former, and as such admire him greatly. People have always made grand comments such as “Boris for PM”, and “I would vote for the Conservatives if Boris was leading them”. This is now so much closer to being a reality than ever before.

How has this come about then? Boris has been known for years mainly because of appearance on Have I Got News For You (HIGNFY), as well as for the repercussions of many statements made in his articles. Liverpool and piccaninnies ring a bell? But I believe it is his ambition that has driven him on. He gave up his position as editor of The Spectator to take his place on the Shadow Cabinet. This shows the direction he wanted to take his career.

He set about the task of running for Mayor with a seriousness that took a lot of people by surprise; implementing policy idea after policy idea. Now that he is in office he needs to establish himself and consolidate himself in the minds of Londoners as a serious heavyweight in both Local, National and International politics. I have no doubt that he will do this with the animated enthusiasm that he always shows.

Global Warming; What should we believe?

So..... One of the big questions of the moment is all about global warming. What can we do to stop it?

But then there are those that say it isn't caused by man. And others who say it doesn't exist at all!

What is the truth in all this? Will we ever know?

I don't intend to be a fountain of knowledge, and I certainly don't want to dismiss any side's point of view. What I want to do is put across what I believe, and the opinion that I have formulated from my own reading and interpretation of scientific evidence.

Global warming almost certainly does exist. The sheer quantity of scientific evidence to support it is overwhelming. Whilst there is debate about the scale of it compared to solar activity and other factors that can contribute to warming it is happening.

But are we causing it? Is it all because of us, humans?

This is where I divert from the popular and socially acceptable point of view. I don't feel that global warming is influenced by human activity.

Yes, whilst we do create CO2, and yes, this is a cause of global warming, the quantity we produce on a global scale isn't that much when compared to other sources of CO2 emissions. Humans contribute 26.4 Giga-tonnes (Gt) out of the total 440Gt emitted by respiration of vegetation and consumption of such vegetation by animals and microbes. This is not even 6%. By reducing our emissions therefore, will have a very small effect on the total CO2 emissions.

This is not to say however, than we shouldn't try - I am simply saying we can't expect it to solve the "crisis" as the media and current governments worldwide have blown it up to be.

As I see it, the major problem towards global warming is in a lack of balance between CO2 production and absorption. I believe we should therefore concentrate our efforts on ways of absorbing CO2 levels, rather than the mere political spin and costly - yet nonetheless wasteless - fad of the moment in reducing our levels of CO2 emission.