Tony McNulty and other errant MPs are in for a shock

The former Labour minister Tony McNulty was one of the first MPs to get caught up in the expenses scandal when it emerged that he had been claiming expenses on a "second home" that was actually his parents house and which was only 8 miles away from his primary residence. As I blogged when this was first uncovered last year about his initial response to the revelations:

(McNulty) has already launched a pre-emptive strike on the criticism he obviously knew he was going to get by firstly explaining that he has stopped claiming the allowance (as of January 2009) and secondly that he thinks the rules should be overhauled so that the second home claim can only be made if an MP lives at least 60 miles from Westminster.

Mr McNulty obviously thinks that this is politically very clever attempting to neutralise any attacks on him and trying to show himself on the morally correct side. However in my view this makes it even worse. Either he has just changed his mind in the light of the problems that other senior politicians in similar situations have encountered in which case it calls into question his previous judgement and his statements are just spin or, if he has thought this for a long time then it shows that he knew that what he was doing was morally wrong but he continued to do it for many years anyway.

Now the POWER 2010 campaign has him in their sights as their first "MP Wanted for Crimes Against Democracy". They are planning to plaster his constituency this weekend with posters like this:

They will also be sending campaign literature to thousands of swing voters in his constituency. If I was Mr McNulty this morning, I would be very worried about my already diminishing prospects of retaining my seat in a few weeks.

The campaign will also be targeting other MPs who fiddled their expenses and have been against reform of parliament and they are asking for your nominations.

This is a noteworthy shift of emphasis from POWER 2010. Up until now they have been fairly conventional in their approach, asking the public for their views on how to reform parliament, conducting deliberative sessions to derive a longlist of measures and then getting to people to vote for the top 5 for them to campaign on. This move to start targeting specific MPs however is a real change of gear. It will be interesting to see how this is now received.

I think it is important for the campaign not to leave itself open to criticism of being partisan so they should try and make sure that their next target is not a Labour MP.

Another thing that they should consider about Tony McNulty, is that whilst he is a reasonable target in terms what he has done (and what he has not done), his seat Harrow East is only 56th on the Tory target list. Looking at the recent polls it would be surprising if Mr McNulty did not lose his seat anyway even if he had not been identified and targeted like this.

But if the campaign targeted a few MPs who looking at the polls will likely retain their seats then things could get even more interesting. I am thinking of MPs in pretty safe seats and who have been deeply mired in the expenses scandal. They are the ones who will be expecting to get away with it and be re-elected. If they suddenly find posters like this all around their patch and lots of their constituents receiving literature highlighting their behaviour then suddenly the safety of their seat becomes a lot more shaky.

That would send out a very powerful message to even the most entrenched and intransigent MP that they are not immune from the consequences of their actions.

My idea for POWER2010

Guy Aitchison from OpenDemocracy has tagged me in a meme asking for my big idea for POWER2010 (which I blogged about here previously).

There are obviously lots of things that I would like to see changed about our political system and Westminster. Most importantly for me would be electoral reform of the House of Commons to a roughly proportional system (I favour STV with multi-member constituencies). However I bang on about that all the time on this blog and I am sure there will be plenty of people submitting that idea already so I thought I would try something a bit different. Here goes:

What's the big idea?

I would like to see the chamber of the House of Commons and the way it operates reformed in a number of ways:

1) The chamber is too small to fit all MPs in. On budget day they end up standing at the back and sitting on the stairs. It's ridiculous that a chamber designed for 427 people is still being used for 646. It should be updated to seat all members. If it can be done in situ, fine otherwise it may mean moving the location of the chamber. So be it.

2) MPs should have desks in front of them for papers etc. MSPs have them. Why cannot MPs? It is not very dignified for them to have to stand up holding sheafs of paper.

3) Jeering and heckling should be stopped in the chamber. It belongs in another age. It makes our politicians seem like schoolchildren and is one of the things that turns members of the public off. Any MP heckling or barracking in this way should be suspended from the chamber and persistent offenders should be disbarred. This sort of behaviour would not be tolerated in most other institutions where people make speeches and need to be heard. Why do we tolerate it in our primary legislative chamber?

4) At the very least MPs should be able to vote electronically from their seats in the Commons as MSPs can in the Scottish Parliament. However I also think there is a case for MPs to be able to vote remotely if necessary. I should clarify this though, in that I do not think this should be done as a matter of course. It is better if MPs have been at a debate in order to listen to the arguments but let's not kid ourselves that that is what always happens now anyway. What I want to get away from is the silly situation of forcing members to make long trips back to the chamber in order to vote (sometimes even from abroad). This is unneccessary and again belongs in a different age. I accept this proposal needs to be tightened up a bit but in principle there should be a way to make it happen.

5) MPs should be able to address each other by name.

Why is this change important to you?

The House of Commons is our primary legislature and the way it is currently constituted and run belongs to a different age. My proposals might seem marginal and perhaps even petty to some but the current operation reflects very badly on MPs and our whole political system. Things like those listed above are part of the reason why people feel disconnected from politics and why it seems so alien. I have many friends and family members who are not that interested in politics and they are baffled by these things.

Of course there are lots of other, more important reforms that should be implemented (many of which I have blogged about before) and hopefully they will be submitted in large number to the POWER2010 commission. However I do feel that the measures above will go a long way to bringing the chamber and operation of House of Commons into the 21st century and helping the process of re-engaging the electorate with those who are supposed to represent them.

I now tag the following 5 bloggers to put forward their ideas:

Will Straw, editor of Left Foot Forward

Sara Bedford from Always Win When You're Singing

Dazmando from Bracknell Blog

Letters From A Tory

and The Fluffy one, Millennium Dome Elephant

Interview with Helena Kennedy QC about the new campaign launch - POWER2010

A new campaign has been launched today called POWER2010. Its aim to allow ordinary members of the general public to ensure that the next Parliament makes a commitment to fix Britain’s broken political system.

It is formed from the 2006 Power Inquiry and will use mass campaign tactics and a unique people’s ‘vote’ to identify the five changes to the UK political system the public most want to see. The priorities are created, prioritised and decided by the general public rather than interest groups. Parliamentary candidates of all parties will then be invited to support the reform proposals to be implemented after the general election.

Right, that's enough already with the spiel. On the surface, it sounds like a good campaign to me but here at Mark Reckons as regular visitors will know, we like to delve a little deeper. I asked Helena Kennedy QC, one of the founders of the campaign a few questions in advance of today's launch.

My questions are in bold and her repsonses are in italics:


POWER2010 sounds like an interesting campaign for political obsessives like me but why do you think this will succeed in a way that previous ones perhaps haven't? For example as far as I can tell, despite all the hard work of you and your colleagues, almost none of the original Power Inquiry key recommendations have been implemented three and a half years on.

There have been, as you say, many campaigns over the past few decades which have tried – in various ways - to get democratic and constitutional reform realised. I have been involved with many of them. You are right – despite the welcome the Power Inquiry report received – little has changed. I think you have identified the problem very accurately. In the end we have been reliant on politicians – those with power to implement reforms – reforms which in most cases will see them losing Power. And – they just can’t take that!

So despite fine words, things don’t change. But I do believe that change can happen. Look at how the Scottish Parliament came about – we needed an Act of Parliament and for MPs to vote for change. But they were persuaded in favour of the Parliament in the end because of the campaign in Scotland which involved civil society and real people and over years persisted and changed the culture in which that conversation was taking place. We need to do the same now.

The MPs expenses row gave people a real shock - a shock that has led many to begin to believe that it’s the system that needs reforming – that replacing one set of MPs with another isn’t going deliver meaningful change. It’s a question of how we do politics not just who is in charge.

How will you decide which citizens will form the group to decide the shortlist of reforms?

We will ask an independent body to run the process of honing down all the ideas we receive into a range of suggested reforms which we can put to the popular vote. The citizens will be randomly chosen from across the country and be representative.


If one of the five reforms that the public want is electoral reform to a proportional system for the House of Commons, how can we persuade potential turkeys to sign up to a certain Christmas?

I think it isn’t just electoral reform which poses this problem . So many democratic and constitutional reforms will temper or confine the power of those in power – by sharing power with other bodies – by giving people more of a say or by creating more effective checks. The way we get over this is to have a moral hold over those in power. We want them to know that back in their constituencies there are thousands and thousands of local people who will continue to call for and press their local representative for these changes. Democratic reform is no longer the play thing of a small groups of people; it’s something we all want and need.


Given that even governments don't always stick to their manifesto promises once elected (e.g. 1997 electoral system referendum from Labour) how can POWER2010 ensure that candidates who sign up possibly in a fairly lukewarm way will follow through on their pledge in the subsequent parliament?

Once we have the pledge established - and remember the reforms contained in the pledge will have been created by us all – we will be reliant on local people spreading the word. Local people asking their candidates to take the pledge seriously and commit themselves to it . It is that relationship – between a local voter and a potential MP - that we need to work hard on establishing. It will be easy for MPs or want to be MPs to dismiss an ask that comes from an office far from their constituency. It is harder to ignore one that is being driven by local people – local voters – their potential supporters.


What political backing does the campaign have?

This is a strictly non-party political campaign. Those who will be involved are from all parties and no party at all. Our success will depend on engaging the concerned ordinary member of the public who wants to change how this country is run.


There seem to be a lot of campaigns launching off the back of the MPs expenses scandal. Is there not a danger that the public just gets overwhelmed by them all and they just switch off? What are you doing to try and avoid this?

The MPs expenses scandal isn’t really what we are responding to, however that series of events bought into the public’s mind issues of accountability and transparency – how we run the UK – who has Power and where Power lies. The issue of MPs expenses was a symptom of something much deeper and it highlighted that.