"Pay It Back" campaign - great results

What we have been arguing for with the "Pay It Back" campaign is now happening all across the political spectrum. As Constantly Furious points out today, Government Minister Phil Hope has now pledged to pay back £41,709 for claims he made that went beyond the spirit of the rules and Margaret Moran and Hazel Blears have also pledged to pay back aubstantial amounts. On top of this David Cameron has insisted that Tory MPs also do so under threat of expulsion from the party.

Make no mistake, if it was not for the general public outcry and demands from the blogosphere like ours for these actions to be taken, they would not be happening. Our campaigning makes a difference.

There are still lots of MPs however who have not paid back anything and who should be looking hard at their claims and doing so. Even the ones that have not been made public yet as they surely will. They should pre-empt this and offer to pay back money now.

So please sign our petition and keep the pressure on them. Job half-done I would say so far!

"Pay It Back" campaign - Cameron is on board!

So the day after I launched the "Pay It Back" campaign, David Cameron has done pretty much exactly what I suggested for his own MPs (upon pain of being banished from the party). Fair play to him.

It will be interesting to see how the other parties respond to this and I fear there are still dubious claims to come out but if the other parties do follow suit then this could be one of the shortest campaigns ever!

However, we are not there yet. Please help us keep up the pressure by signing the petition and tweeting about it (#payitback). The more the public make their feelings clear like this, the quicker the other parties will do something about it.

"Pay It Back" campaign - petition is growing

The "Pay it back" campaign petition has gathered a few signatures since yesterday.

There is no sign that these expenses stories are drying up yet. the Telegraph has more revelations today about Tory grandees.

A grand gesture is needed by MPs and paying back what goes against the spirit of the rules is the way to do this. Please sign the petition if you agree with me.

Also, follow the campaign on Twitter (#Payitback). (I am here: @MarkJThompson). There have been a number of tweets from various people already.

"Pay It Back" petition launched

To go with the "Pay It Back" campaign I launched earlier today, I have now started a petition here.

Please go and sign it if you agree that MPs should pay back any expenses that go beyond the spirit of the rules.

"Pay it back" campaign

The MPs expenses stories keep coming and coming. It has reached the point now where politicians such as David Cameron and Gordon Brown see that they have to apologise for what has happened, although in both cases their statements seem to me to be a little bit hedged and equivocal.

The political classes are in an absolute mess of their own making now. They can argue until they are blue in the face that it was "within the rules" but the rules clearly stink and are obviously going to be radically changed anyway.

It is very dangerous for our political system to be in this sort of state and for the public to hold them all in such low esteem/contempt. There needs to be a strong gesture from MPs to show that they properly understand the depth of public feeling and that they are willing to make amends.

I think the only way for them to do this now is to pay back any money that breaches the spirit of the claim rules. I am not saying they have to pay everything back. Administatively this would be very difficult to adjudge. However each MP will have a good knowledge of what they have claimed for and in the light of the public reaction, they should be able to make a good fist of deciding what should be repaid. A good yardstick would be, if they had known at the time that it would have been made public, would they have claimed it. If not, they should repay it.

I think this should also extend to paying the captial gains tax on any second homes that have been "flipped" in order to avoid this. I know that within the inland revenue rules this is allowed but it looks absolutely dreadful. Law makers and legislators should be setting an example to the rest of us and should pay their fair share of taxes. Especially in the current economic climate.

So, I call upon all MPs of all parties to do the right thing. If MPs start doing this, they would get some credit from the electorate that they were doing the right thing and at least trying to make amends. It may start to drain the poison from the issue. I dread to think what will happen if there is not some strong gesture like this. I also call upon fellow bloggers to start pushing this and hopefully it will gain some traction with the MSM.

When John Prescott launched his "Give up the bonus" campaign against the bankers recently he was widely lauded for it. the message was simple, and so it is with this campaign.

"Pay it back".

UPDATE1: Have also launched it on Twitter (#Payitback). Follow me here: @MarkJThompson

UPDATE2: Constantly Furious has already promoted this campaign on his blog. Thanks to him for creating the image used at the top.

UPDATE3: I can see that more bloggers are also picking up on this theme.

UPDATE4: I have now launched a petition here. New blog post about it here.