Due to a large number of early retirements the Legislature would welcome applications for a number of vacancies which will arise during the next twelve months.
Successful applicants will present themselves for election in a constituency at a General Election and if successful will be required to exercise there judgement on behalf of their constituents in the formulation and enactment of legislation. You should be aware that the number of seats in the legislative chamber is likely to be reduced during the next Parliament. Although the details of employment are under review applicants should assume that the following job description includes the basic terms and conditions:
You will have a salary of £64,000 per annum (pay rise pending, to include London weighting) and your travel costs to and from your constituency when attending Parliamentary sessions, will be reimbursed. While in London, accommodation will be paid for on your behalf for three nights stay in an approved B&B while the House is sitting or when attending other proceedings of Parliament.
As a backbench member you will be provided with an office and staff including telephone, internet link and stationery. Staff selections will be subject to consultation with the sitting member. Arrangements for the payment of salaries will be dealt with by standard terms and condition for the employment of parliamentary staff. These arrangements replace the previous allowances for administration.
Members will be expected to return to their constituency at weekends and to hold a constituency surgery. Newspapers throughout the week will be delivered as part of your conditions of service.
You should not expect the taxpayer to help you pay to keep your present home on. If you want to keep it, then you should have weekend accommodation in your constituency or move to your job, like everyone else has to.
You should not expect the taxpayer to help you pay to keep your present home on. If you want to keep it, then you should be prepared to have weekend accommodation in your constituency or move to the constituency.
Standard terms and conditions will apply to pensions and retirements and in the event of a member failing to be re-selected or elected. Standard regulations and a Code of Practice for Members will apply to external employment, vacations, and minimum hours of attendance in the House and grievance procedures.
In the event of 51% of the electors in your constituency being dissatisfied with your conduct the Speaker of the House of Commons must order a bye-election. Should you be promoted to a Government post you will be provided with further regulations ensuring that you will not have any conflict on interest between your public duty and your private interests. The number Government posts is due for reduction.
Dacier
Showing posts with label Expenses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expenses. Show all posts
Monday, 1 June 2009
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Oh my God it’s Tuesday
Our Prime Minister could have this as his waking thought today. It means that he must go to Buckingham Palace for an audience with the Queen. She is rumoured to be very cross at the mess the House of Commons has got itself into so what will happen in the private of private conversations. The Queen, as a constitutional monarch may do three things whenever she meets her Prime Minster. She can warn, advise and encourage. She cannot tell the Prime Minister what to do but within the meanings of these three words she has a lot of scope to tell the Prime Minster what she thinks of her elected chamber. She is after all part of the legislature being formally described as the Queen in Parliament. It is hard to think of anyone else who can tell the Prime Minister some home truths. She is, after all, above him in the hierarchy of government.
Those who would like to remove the constitutional monarch should come up with some pretty good ideas as to how their new constitutional model will provide a person who is above the murky waters of politics and can amass experience of watching and reading the inner workings of government. That is nearly 60 years for present Queen who has been on the ball right from the start. Winston Churchill thought that the new young Queen would know little of the affairs of State. History records that he was surprised to find the young monarch was well up on her reading of State papers and had some good questions for him.
Sometime today the Queen and the Prime Minister will have had a ‘frank exchange of views’. It is an interview which he cannot avoid before a person who has dealt with every Prime Minister since 1952. She has seen it all from Suez, through the Profumo affairs and the three day week. If we ever think we need a better arrangement for our head of State we should recognise that in these times of political tawdriness a piece of the constitution which remains dignified, independent and experienced is of great advantage for us and a troubled Prime Ministers. We have had enough half baked constitutional reforms from people who have probably never read a constitution, let alone drafted one. Any more bright ideas for reform should be examined against the lessons of history. Not dreamt up on the hoof by those who live in a continuing present, knowing little of where we have come from and with little idea where their ideas for change will lead us. I am not saying that a constitutional monarchy is the only way to have a figurehead and mediator of last resort, but should we ever need to change to a presidential system we must not do so without understanding what we will be rejecting.
Dacier
Those who would like to remove the constitutional monarch should come up with some pretty good ideas as to how their new constitutional model will provide a person who is above the murky waters of politics and can amass experience of watching and reading the inner workings of government. That is nearly 60 years for present Queen who has been on the ball right from the start. Winston Churchill thought that the new young Queen would know little of the affairs of State. History records that he was surprised to find the young monarch was well up on her reading of State papers and had some good questions for him.
Sometime today the Queen and the Prime Minister will have had a ‘frank exchange of views’. It is an interview which he cannot avoid before a person who has dealt with every Prime Minister since 1952. She has seen it all from Suez, through the Profumo affairs and the three day week. If we ever think we need a better arrangement for our head of State we should recognise that in these times of political tawdriness a piece of the constitution which remains dignified, independent and experienced is of great advantage for us and a troubled Prime Ministers. We have had enough half baked constitutional reforms from people who have probably never read a constitution, let alone drafted one. Any more bright ideas for reform should be examined against the lessons of history. Not dreamt up on the hoof by those who live in a continuing present, knowing little of where we have come from and with little idea where their ideas for change will lead us. I am not saying that a constitutional monarchy is the only way to have a figurehead and mediator of last resort, but should we ever need to change to a presidential system we must not do so without understanding what we will be rejecting.
Dacier
Monday, 18 May 2009
At Last, a Reason for Everybody to Vote!
Suddenly we are living in interesting times. We are now living through a Rump Parliament, but this time it will not be a Cromwell that storms in and shouts, ’for Gods sake go!’ It will be the electorate.
Some might be thinking of abstaining. This is the option for the sulking fence sitter. My attitude to abstainers is that they haven’t thought it through. Granted, some just can’t be bothered. Some might be intellectual or moral cowards. Some might be anarchists and don’t like the fence. This is nothing new. Fence sitters are well known in political history. Indeed Benjamin Franklin had a name for them, ‘Mugwumps’ these are people with their mug on one side of the fence and their wump on the other. It was such people he probably had in mind when he said, ( I am quoting from memory here), ‘Gentlemen, we must all hang together because, if we do not, we almost certainly will hang separately’. This seems apposite in the present constitutional crisis.
When the going is getting tough we do not want apathy. We need more people involved, not less. We don’t want the tough guys to get going because they will exploit our divisions for their own, sometimes extreme, political agendas. So come the General Election, all political parties must get their acts together. May I suggest they address the main problems confronting us and spare us their favourite lunacies.
Environmentalists should stick to issue which would achieve their environmental aims. Promoting legal brothels and funny fags will not concentrate minds. George Orwell showed in his book, ‘1984’ how a population can be kept down by means of alcohol, pornography, and gambling. We need clear thinking, energy and a strong grip on reality if we are to stop this crisis becoming a disaster. Both main parties should give us a break from trying to deregulate, regulate and privatise in varying degrees and serving us a dog’s dinner which no one wants. Might I suggest that they do a few important things well? Achieve something approaching social justice and avoid exploitation and scapegoating of the weak, inadequate and vulnerable. Make serious headway in environmental renovation. Dealing with freeloaders would give encouragement and hope to ordinary hardworking people who feel they get little reward for their decency. I’ll vote for any honest competent candidate who holds such values Any policy outside those values should be dumped and even those within them should be prioritised and only then put in a manifesto.
In seventeen days time we can vote in the European Elections, so vote. Encourage others to vote. Don’t take the Tebbit route and vote for small parties out of spite. Vote for the party who you see as having the right policies. A big thoughtful turnout would be a better shock than the Tebbit treatment for our political classes and more effective than abstaining. None of us want extremists to dominate any more than we want a Cromwellian outcome. A Peasants Revolt at the ballot box is what we need. The message to the politicians at the EU elections should be a fulfilment of Mr Shirky's prediction, ‘Here comes Everybody!’, so look out, we cant wait for the General Election.(See Book Review below)
Dacier
Some might be thinking of abstaining. This is the option for the sulking fence sitter. My attitude to abstainers is that they haven’t thought it through. Granted, some just can’t be bothered. Some might be intellectual or moral cowards. Some might be anarchists and don’t like the fence. This is nothing new. Fence sitters are well known in political history. Indeed Benjamin Franklin had a name for them, ‘Mugwumps’ these are people with their mug on one side of the fence and their wump on the other. It was such people he probably had in mind when he said, ( I am quoting from memory here), ‘Gentlemen, we must all hang together because, if we do not, we almost certainly will hang separately’. This seems apposite in the present constitutional crisis.
When the going is getting tough we do not want apathy. We need more people involved, not less. We don’t want the tough guys to get going because they will exploit our divisions for their own, sometimes extreme, political agendas. So come the General Election, all political parties must get their acts together. May I suggest they address the main problems confronting us and spare us their favourite lunacies.
Environmentalists should stick to issue which would achieve their environmental aims. Promoting legal brothels and funny fags will not concentrate minds. George Orwell showed in his book, ‘1984’ how a population can be kept down by means of alcohol, pornography, and gambling. We need clear thinking, energy and a strong grip on reality if we are to stop this crisis becoming a disaster. Both main parties should give us a break from trying to deregulate, regulate and privatise in varying degrees and serving us a dog’s dinner which no one wants. Might I suggest that they do a few important things well? Achieve something approaching social justice and avoid exploitation and scapegoating of the weak, inadequate and vulnerable. Make serious headway in environmental renovation. Dealing with freeloaders would give encouragement and hope to ordinary hardworking people who feel they get little reward for their decency. I’ll vote for any honest competent candidate who holds such values Any policy outside those values should be dumped and even those within them should be prioritised and only then put in a manifesto.
In seventeen days time we can vote in the European Elections, so vote. Encourage others to vote. Don’t take the Tebbit route and vote for small parties out of spite. Vote for the party who you see as having the right policies. A big thoughtful turnout would be a better shock than the Tebbit treatment for our political classes and more effective than abstaining. None of us want extremists to dominate any more than we want a Cromwellian outcome. A Peasants Revolt at the ballot box is what we need. The message to the politicians at the EU elections should be a fulfilment of Mr Shirky's prediction, ‘Here comes Everybody!’, so look out, we cant wait for the General Election.(See Book Review below)
Dacier
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Parliamentary Expenses and Allowances: Contempt or What?
Not so long ago Parliament, or more correctly, the House of Commons, used to take its own reputation and conduct very seriously. So much so that every so often it would call a cheeky journalist, political activist or, even one of its own clan, before its august assemblage to stand at the Bar of the House and be admonished. The journalist who made up stories about MPs taking bribes or MPs taking bribes, all could be summonsed. Punishments were vague but could include imprisonment in the Clock Tower. In effect the House of Commons did not like behaviour which brought Parliament’s reputation down in the eyes of the people at large. It was very similar to defamation, the traditional definition being that of exposing a person to hatred, ridicule and contempt. A more modern version would be something like lowering a reputation in the eyes of right thinking people. Both these devices pre-suppose that there is a reputation to protect. If a person is declared to be a thief by his local paper and he is a thief, then no defamation occurs. He has the reputation he deserves i.e., a thief. It is hard to see how Parliament will be able to invoke its ancient privileges to punish or admonish since it no longer has a reputation which can be harmed further. Of course it could summon all of these who have taken advantage of the rules, all those who disapproved but did nothing, and all those officials who drew up the scheme and/or later applied it, or indeed encouraged MPs to avail themselves of the taxpayer’s unwitting generosity. The House of Commons is now getting a reputation which its own processes and personnel have created. There certainly wouldn’t be room in the Clock Tower or at the Bar of the House for so many miscreants.
The rules on expenses and allowances didn’t come from some outside body, they came from within. Only now do they tell us that their rules were wrong even though they seem to have been going along with them perfectly happily and profitably for some years. When high commercial salaries are reported in the press, the resulting public indignation is met with the answer that such levels are needed to get the best people. It certainly didn’t work with many of the bankers and financial wizards who have led us into near depression. Government on the other hand couldn’t face such indignation when MPs salary rises were recommended. Instead, to give appropriate rewards the allowances and expenses system was dreamt up, no doubt to make sure we got the right people for the job. Once again it doesn’t seem to have worked.
With regard to the present fiasco running its course the view from the hill is rather like watching some ludicrous satire which in the end sees the destruction of many of the characters and the world they inhabit. Unfortunately a blink of the eyes does not bring the senses back to reality but merely makes it worse because in the meantime even more revelations have found their way into the cleansing power of daylight. Worse still, the view beyond the current matinee performance of this Westminster farce is still visible and is as grim and stark as ever. Lost savings, lost homes lost jobs and a dole queue that leads nowhere. The problem is too large and self inflicted for summoning anyone to the Bar of the House or throwing them in the Clock Tower. As Andrew Neil pointed out on last Thursday’s, This Week, the House of Commons has become an ‘object of ridicule’. We can now add ‘contempt’. Mr Speaker has made things worse. No dignity, no gravitas. The House is seen as disreputable. No one wants to contemplate the third result of a lost reputation, that of hatred. Now that really is a dangerous thing to see an electorate opting for. Take no comfort from the hope that it will only be at the ballot box that it is expressed. That, is danger enough.
Dacier
The rules on expenses and allowances didn’t come from some outside body, they came from within. Only now do they tell us that their rules were wrong even though they seem to have been going along with them perfectly happily and profitably for some years. When high commercial salaries are reported in the press, the resulting public indignation is met with the answer that such levels are needed to get the best people. It certainly didn’t work with many of the bankers and financial wizards who have led us into near depression. Government on the other hand couldn’t face such indignation when MPs salary rises were recommended. Instead, to give appropriate rewards the allowances and expenses system was dreamt up, no doubt to make sure we got the right people for the job. Once again it doesn’t seem to have worked.
With regard to the present fiasco running its course the view from the hill is rather like watching some ludicrous satire which in the end sees the destruction of many of the characters and the world they inhabit. Unfortunately a blink of the eyes does not bring the senses back to reality but merely makes it worse because in the meantime even more revelations have found their way into the cleansing power of daylight. Worse still, the view beyond the current matinee performance of this Westminster farce is still visible and is as grim and stark as ever. Lost savings, lost homes lost jobs and a dole queue that leads nowhere. The problem is too large and self inflicted for summoning anyone to the Bar of the House or throwing them in the Clock Tower. As Andrew Neil pointed out on last Thursday’s, This Week, the House of Commons has become an ‘object of ridicule’. We can now add ‘contempt’. Mr Speaker has made things worse. No dignity, no gravitas. The House is seen as disreputable. No one wants to contemplate the third result of a lost reputation, that of hatred. Now that really is a dangerous thing to see an electorate opting for. Take no comfort from the hope that it will only be at the ballot box that it is expressed. That, is danger enough.
Dacier
Expenses and Allowances: A tale of two Gnomes
I was very lonely as a single Gnome so the second Gnome Agency helped out. Down here beneath the hill it is very quiet, relieved only by the tramp of ramblers’ feet on the path high up on the ridge. The agency soon sent my second Gnome, arriving on the weekly market bus. The only fly in the waffle is that that second Gnome has a job under the Children Hundreds doing important counselling work. I have said that he might get a Children Hundred’s allowance which could split between our two grottoes. Second Gnome has a better idea however. He is going to explain the situation to his employers and say that because of our new lifestyle it would be unfortunate to say the least if our new life together has to be lived out at such a distance or in close proximity to the Children Hundreds because it would avoid being surrounded by his work mates and clients. He thinks they might have a special lifestyle grant so he can avoid them all. This would allow us to have a further grotto somewhere under Salisbury Plain so we can enjoy a proper Gnome residence. Surely they can’t be employers that would expect us to commute backwards and forwards. I thought this would be better than having a swimming pool under the hill. In any case the apartment by the Children Hundreds needs decorating and landscaping, and the toilets seats are so unfashionable.
But I have just had some bad news from the Children Hundreds. They say that if you are a couple of Gnomes then where we live is up to us. I could move in with second Gnome and our living expenses could be paid out of second Gnome’s Children Hundreds allowance. Some of his salary could then be used to keep our grotto back under the hill. They are also saying that if we want, we could sell my dear old grotto and buy somewhere ourselves under Salisbury Plain. They have apparently told second Gnome that there is no such thing as a subsidy for a lifestyle and if he doesn’t like the implications of his job he should seek employment back here. They also said that they would normally have expected a lot of extra work in the old days in view of all the trouble the political ramblers are having, but as it is, redundancy is even on the cards for second Gnome as no one ever seems to apply to them for help anymore. They also had the cheek to say, and I quote,’ ...and you think you should have a third home, think again, where do you think you are, Fairyland!?’ Dacier
Authors Note: I should make it clear that nothing in this tale should be divined as referring to any particular MP. Being an allegory it is an ‘aptly suggestive resemblance’. (O.E.D) Gnomes do not exist exist. It is only fare to point this out as there may be MPs who own between 2 and 7 homes who might think that such a fairy story could harm their reputation. I recognise their sensitivities. Far be it for me to intervene. MPs are clearly quite capable of doing that on their own. In any case, the standard mantra of the past week has been that everything is within the rules, and of course, the Gnomes are only working within the fictional rules of their fictional world. The rules which apply to MPs are perfectly clear and are not a fairytale. By their own admission MPs have complied with the following:-i) You can claim reimbursement for the expenses provided they are wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the course of your Parliamentary duties, ii) You should avoid purchases which could be seen as luxurious, iii) You must ensure that arrangements for your claims are above reproach and that there can be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money. Members should bear in mind the need to obtain value for money. (Parliamentary Green Book 2006). So, that’s all right then. So what’s all the fuss about?
But I have just had some bad news from the Children Hundreds. They say that if you are a couple of Gnomes then where we live is up to us. I could move in with second Gnome and our living expenses could be paid out of second Gnome’s Children Hundreds allowance. Some of his salary could then be used to keep our grotto back under the hill. They are also saying that if we want, we could sell my dear old grotto and buy somewhere ourselves under Salisbury Plain. They have apparently told second Gnome that there is no such thing as a subsidy for a lifestyle and if he doesn’t like the implications of his job he should seek employment back here. They also said that they would normally have expected a lot of extra work in the old days in view of all the trouble the political ramblers are having, but as it is, redundancy is even on the cards for second Gnome as no one ever seems to apply to them for help anymore. They also had the cheek to say, and I quote,’ ...and you think you should have a third home, think again, where do you think you are, Fairyland!?’ Dacier
Authors Note: I should make it clear that nothing in this tale should be divined as referring to any particular MP. Being an allegory it is an ‘aptly suggestive resemblance’. (O.E.D) Gnomes do not exist exist. It is only fare to point this out as there may be MPs who own between 2 and 7 homes who might think that such a fairy story could harm their reputation. I recognise their sensitivities. Far be it for me to intervene. MPs are clearly quite capable of doing that on their own. In any case, the standard mantra of the past week has been that everything is within the rules, and of course, the Gnomes are only working within the fictional rules of their fictional world. The rules which apply to MPs are perfectly clear and are not a fairytale. By their own admission MPs have complied with the following:-i) You can claim reimbursement for the expenses provided they are wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the course of your Parliamentary duties, ii) You should avoid purchases which could be seen as luxurious, iii) You must ensure that arrangements for your claims are above reproach and that there can be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money. Members should bear in mind the need to obtain value for money. (Parliamentary Green Book 2006). So, that’s all right then. So what’s all the fuss about?
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