Ashcroft - "Someone on your side did it too" is no defence

Following the admission this morning from the Tory Lord Ashcroft that he is non-domiciled for UK tax purposes I have just spotted the following from Eric Pickles on Twitter:

ericpickles

19 minutes ago from UberTwitter

@johnprescott have you told Lord Paul to pay back 10 years of tax or shall I tell him?

ericpickles

8 minutes ago from UberTwitter

@johnprescott have you told Lakshmi Mittal to pay back 10 years of tax or shall I tell him?

ericpickles

4 minutes ago from UberTwitter

@johnprescott have you told Sir Ronald Cohen to pay back 10 years of tax or shall I tell him?

The other day when Labour were using the fact that Andy Coulson has been implicated in bullying allegations in response to the accusations against Brown, I pointed out that this attempted defence or deflection was very weak.

I am afraid the same applies here. Pickles should reflect on why it has taken years for Ashcroft to admit this, the damage it has caused to them and repairing this rather than trying to fling mud at the other side as a reflex response. It does not look good. Any party, including the Lib Dems that have non-doms will need to sort this out.

The Tories should concentrate on getting their own house in order.

MPs should be subject to the same rules as the rest of us

There is an excellent comment in the thread attached to this Telegraph Matthew D'Ancona comment piece online today from "Mark" at 6:59am (no, it's not me!):

MP's are now in the process of arguing ad infinitum about how to reform their expenses. And has been said numerous times, they are missing the point. 

There is a very simple way to reform MP's expenses and allowances. It is to put them on the same footing as everyone else in the country. HMRC have reams of guidelines as to what is allowable regarding allowances and rates such as pence per mile. Indeed, such things as travelling to ones habitual place of work are not claimable as they are assumed to be part of the compensation one receives in salary. Any expense claim that I submit will be rejected by my company unless it falls within the HMRC rules. Why should these people be any different ? 

If MP's are subjected to the same rules as the rest of us and scrutinised by HMRC inspectors, then they would pay a lot more attention to the legislation that they pass.

He is spot on here. If MPs were subject to their own rules and pettifogging laws, then those laws would be more likely to be reasonable. I run my own business and I know ho much bureaucracy there is associated with taxes and also for personal tax returns. For MPs to be excluded (and as Tim Worstall points out here they are specifically excluded from some of the HMRC requirements on expenses through legislation) is completely unjustifiable.

They clearly see themselves as an elite above everybody else and who need to be treated as a special case. This was typified a few weeks back by Eric Pickles car crash moment on BBC's Question Time.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

Iain Dale et al on Eric Pickles

Stephen Tall has posted on LDV about the eerie silence from the right wing blogosphere regarding Eric Pickles' performance on Question Time that I blogged about earlier.

In the comments someone pointed out that Con Home have now commented on it, albeit in a fairly muted way whilst claiming still to be a big fan of Pickles.

Iain Dale however posted in the thread that he "did not want to intrude on private grief". I am not quite sure what he means by this seeing as it was broadcast on the most popular channel in the UK on one of the most popular political programmes, but you can bet your bottom dollar if this had been a senior Labour or LibDem making such a cock-up there would be a very long thread dedicated to it on his blog.

Stephen makes the more serious point however that this is worrying for the likelihood in the future of the right-wing blogosphere holding any future Tory government to account. One of the reasons I think that the right-wing blogs have been so successful in the last few years is that they are not in government and so have much freedom to attack the government and the status quo. The real test will be once their friends are in power, will they still stand up for what they really think or will they pull their punches?

Dismissive comments like Iain's on this subject do not bode well.

Eric Pickles made a fool of himself on Question Time

I watched Question Time last night and whilst Eric Pickles seemed to do OK in the first half, when it came to a question about MPs expenses he made an utter fool of himself.

You can watch it for yourself here. The question is from 38:30 and Pickles contribution starts at about 44:00.

I have transcribed the first part of his answer here:


Dimbleby: Eric Pickles do you have a two house system with an allowance?
Pickles: I do indeed have a two house system and an allowance, but if I could just make a brief contribution...
Dimbleby: How far are you away from Westminster?
Pickles: 37 miles.
Dimbleby: And you need two houses?
(BOOS FROM THE AUDIENCE)
Pickles: And let me, if I could just make this brief contribution to "Hang an MP week"! If I could just...
(SOME LAUGHTER FROM THE AUDIENCE)
Dimbleby: Take your time, take your time.
Pickles: OK, then let me explain why. And I have actually had experience of commuting that distance when my wife was ill, she's fully recovered now. But, for a month I did it and it was an extremely difficult experience, I'll explain why. Because the House of Commons works on clockwork. You have to be there, if you're on a committee, you have to be there precisely. Particularly for someone like me, I was a number two...
(BOOS FROM THE AUDIENCE)
Pickles: Let me explain, let me explain, please just let me explain for a moment. I had to be there, I was number two....
Dimbleby: Like a job in other words?
(BURST OF LAUGHTER FROM AUDIENCE THEN APPLAUSE AND CHEERS)
Pickles: Yes exactly like a job. If you're number two in the opposition, essentially running the committee. So I was, I had to be there at 9:30 to move those amendments. (Points at Ed Davey) - It doesn't matter if a Liberal Democrat isn't there, but it matters if I'm there...
Davey: That's just cheap.
Pickles: But it matters if I'm there, I have to be there so when I was doing it properly, when I was doing this I was leaving home at 5:30 in the morning to guarantee that I was going to be there and I wasn't getting back until about 12 and 1 in the morning. Now you can do that once or twice, you can do that for a while but you've got to understand that the House of Commons runs like clockwork.
(DAVEY AND LUCAS ATTEMPT TO INTERJECT)
Pickles: I have never, ever claimed my full allowance. I have always claimed the amount...
(JEERS FROM THE AUDIENCE)
Pickles: Well you can, I mean I publish them, I've always published them on my website. They've always been there for people to see. I have always been accountable and I can tell you I think things are going to come out in a week's time. You'll find I think I have only cleared about 60% of the allowance, it might even be 55% of the allowance. But I am a serious guy who will put in the hours and I will work for those hours, but I can tell you this, it is no fun doing 5:30 in the morning, right the way through sometimes, now some...
(FURTHER JEERS FROM THE AUDIENCE)
Pickles: You can't be sat on train saying to yourself am I going to make it, am I not going to make it and that's why I do it.


I found his contribution deeply unimpressive. He seemed to be genuinely unable to understand that many people other than MPs have jobs that involve long hours and require them to be there at specific times. None of them get extra houses or thousands of pounds a year to pay for their upkeep. You could tell from the audience's responses that he is totally out of touch.

Eric Pickles is often put forward by Tories as an example of a bluff speaking northerner in their ranks and this performance tonight does not bode well for them. It seems their "Man of the People" is actually a creature of the Westminster Village and hopelessly out of touch, on this issue at least.

UPDATE: Stephen Tall of LDV put up a detailed post about this at the same time as I was posting this. Great minds, etc.

Also further blog reaction here, here and in the comments here.