There are far worse things than MPs fiddling their expenses

What the media are not saying
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BASEL
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There are far worse things than MPs fiddling their expenses

Post by BASEL » Mon May 18, 2009 1:59 pm

Given the current constitutional crisis that we seem to be suffering in the UK it would be easy to forget that there is real parliamentary business taking place at the moment.

But in the week before MPs take their spring break it is worth pointing out that on their return to parliament the House of Lords will examine the controversial coroners and justice bill for the second time as it makes is progress through both houses.

There are many contentious parts of this bill. Yet for me one of the most worrying aspects of the proposals the Lords will have to consider is one in which potential offenders may not even attend court for the initial hearing and decision on whether there is a case to answer against them.

Instead the proposals are that defendants appear via video link in front of a magistrate who will decide their fate. It is argued that this will be more efficient. It will mean a defendant can go from being initially arrested and charged with an offence to being either remanded in custody or bailed within three-and-a-half hours compared to the several weeks it currently takes.

While there are safeguards apparently in place these are based entirely on both the police and magistrates having the upmost integrity and honour.

Given that the past two months have shown both police officers and MPs behaving with anything but integrity and honour I'm somewhat in disbelief that such additional powers over the lives of ordinary citizens could be granted to police officers and the judiciary.

While the proposals are generally intended for lesser offences this in no way negates the danger they present. It is suggested that where the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser offence - such as shoplifting for example - they will simply appear via video link in front of a magistrate for sentencing and punishment. The argument is that taking such action will spare the taxpayer £10 million a year in unnecessary court appearances or wasted court time where the defendant fails to appear.

To be honest I'm desperately concerned that our civil liberties seem to be so cheaply bought. I'm sure the police would decry any suggestion that they would put defendants under duress to plead guilty to lesser offences without giving them the benefit of legal advice. But then again the Metropolitan police defended the actions of its officers during the G20 protests in much the same way until concrete evidence was put before it that some of its officers may have not conducted themselves in an appropriate manner. So you can begin to see where my concerns come from.

While MPs' expenses have rightly got the public very hot under the collar shouldn't we be getting equally angry that our MPs haven't shot down these proposals a long time ago? After all, the common thinking from the average person's point of view tends to be: "Well I don't commit crimes so I've got nothing to worry about." But with ever-increasing powers being handed to the police over offences which may not be clear-cut matters anyone could be considered guilty of a crime. How long will it be before the police become judge and jury as well and the comic book creation Judge Dredd becomes a reality?

In some respects that's already happening. Look at the number of on-the-spot fines the police can now hand out. The latest proposal is that the police will be able to stop drivers and hand out on the spot fines and penalty points for the offence of careless driving, a truly subjective offence if ever there was one. Such infringements of our rights as citizens have been taking place for the last 12 years. Labour has restricted our rights and freedoms more than any other government since the time of Cromwell. Think that's an exaggeration? Really?

We've lost double jeopardy, Habeas Corpus, the right to silence - or rather the right to exercise our right to silence, but the automatic conclusion that having exercised that right we are guilty of the offence of which we are accused. We are still restricted from exercising our automatic right to protest outside the Houses of Parliament despite assurances from Gordon Brown almost two years ago that he would reinstate this. The police can now accuse us of terrorism and hold us on remand for up to 28 days without charge. On-the-spot fines in themselves are often unjustly handed down and stop-and-search tactics, long thought to have been confined to history as being as inherently racist as those generally conducting the searches, have made a comeback - and guess what the skin colour of those being stopped and searched most often is. Go on, take a wild stab in the dark! And all the while there is no scrutiny of the police in all of this.

What has been encouraging about the scandal over MPs' expenses is that people do actually care what MPs get up to and that we all do sit up and take notice when we see things get out of hand.

One friend of mine remarked to me last year that between now and the next election was going to be the best time for British politics in a long while. That might seem like a bit of a joke right now but his point was that ordinary voters were likely to re-engage with the political system in a way that they hadn't done for a long time under Tony Blair. That was because Tony Blair generally benefitted from hegemony - most people backed what he was doing, at least until the Iraq war.

My friend continued that because Gordon Brown was a weaker leader, who didn't have a mandate or necessarily the full support of his own party, the electorate would wake up from its decade long slumber. It would be like the mid-1990s under John Major again. People would care and get engaged in politics again. They would feel like they could exercise some sort of sway over politicians and that they might be able to change things, however minor those things might be.

For the longest time I've been very sceptical that this would happen. But the issue of MPs' expenses has shown the beginnings of the electorate waking up again and taking notice. The question now is how this will manifest itself. If it leads to fringe or extremist parties winning more votes then we will have an even bigger constitutional crisis than the one we're already mired in. And believe me there are far greater things, such as the coroners' bill, that you ought to be worried about.

If you hadn't been taking too much notice of parliament of late and you are one of those that have been awoken by the issue of MPs' expenses then it's now time to turn your focus elsewhere. A couple of hundred thousand in expenses in governmental terms is a drop in the ocean. Don't get me wrong I know it's the principle that's at stake here. But really there are bigger things to be worrying and getting worked up about. Take a look, before you lose the right to that as well
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