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Originally Posted by TheNorm
Yes, and the House voted to uphold the suggestion. That's the way it works, apparently.
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So it does.
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As I've been saying all along, if the S&P Committee spent more time on tightening the rules (and making them more explicit), there would be no need for this "after the fact" punishment.
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And if MPs behaved like the honourable people they are meant to be (after all we must trust them to govern us) there would be no need to tighten the rules. If they are not to be trusted with getting their expenses right, why should the electorate trust them with anything else?
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Well, it all depends on your employer's written rules, doesn't it!
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I can't imagine many employers who would put up this kind of stuff. What do you think would have happened to a council employee who acted in this way? Conway's sons received £82,000 of public money for doing nothing. That's more than some people earn in a decade.
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He still has a job to do, and he does it well, from what I've heard.
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Meaning he's a Tory and therefore must be doing a good job? Or if it's not that, in what way does he do his job well?
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I don't mean to play it down, but I do think this the checks and balances have been applied. Why should this man be punished further because the media chose to make a story about it?
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I still think this is a more serious issue than you suggest. Most MPs are not thieves, but the media
should make a story every time an MP is caught with his hands in the till (and it should
not detract from other issues they need to cover). In any other walk of life it's called theft and might well gain someone a criminal record, barring them from many positions of trust. But MPs are special, they don't commit theft, they make 'mistakes'!