Brian Monteith: Cameron shows a leader's touch

Published on Friday 22 May 2009 09:57

CONTRAST and compare Brown with Cameron and consider who looks more like the prime minister? Chances are more and more people are, like me, beginning to think it is Cameron who looks more fit for purpose.

Both men knew about the looming scandal months ago and both have had an age to plan how to deal with it.

As far back as October I met Heather Brooke, the young lady who won a famous High Court victory, forcing parliament to relinquish the details of MPs' expenses. The Speaker had been instrumental in resisting the release of the information, and it was this – together with his own embarrassing expense claims – that ultimately left him with no credibility. It was a sorry sight, the emperor suddenly realising that in his chamber he had no clothes.

In January I was already reading about how the full expenses would be available in July. Subsequently many of Brown's supporters were urging him to show leadership and take control by bringing their publication forward and acting tough with miscreant MPs. Yet again he dithered and dallied and did nothing.

By contrast we can now see that Cameron had put a plan of action in place and when the expenses were inevitably leaked to the national media he quickly made key announcements that showed not just contrition from his party but a command of the situation. Any members of the shadow Cabinet that had made legal but entirely unacceptable expense claims were forced to pay them back in a very public and humiliating announcement. Then he made it clear that various MPs in his party were now persona non grata and would be forced to retire – or be deselected –and he started to publish the shadow cabinet's expenses on the internet. Heads rolled.

The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was reeling from the stench of announcements about his colleagues' snouts being in the trough. Worst was former Labour minister Elliot Morley being reimbursed for mortgage interest for a loan that had already been paid off, while Communities Secretary Hazel Blears had benefited by avoiding paying 13,000 capital gains tax on the sale of her second home.

Morley was eventually suspended but Blears remains in the Cabinet and it is only now that Gordon Brown is saying that some Labour MPs will not be permitted to seek re-election. Some? Senior Labour sources say it could be as high as 50!

Brown has ultimately taken very similar action to that of David Cameron, but that's not the point. The time he took to deal with it, announcing after Cameron had set the tone, makes him look weak and tired.

Still, more could be done. Cameron should tell his former aide Andrew MacKay MP that he and his wife, Julie Kirkbride MP, should both go after Kirkbride claimed for their London flat while MacKay claimed for their Bromsgrove home – although they live together in both. Then he needs to offer genuine reform of Westminster, such as a constituent's right to impeach an MP for gross misconduct such as fraudulent expense claims.

I still have many reservations about David Cameron. He needs to shed his Blairesque tendencies, such as a desire to be popular rather than respected (although these achievements are not mutually exclusive), and he needs to be more definitive about his policies, revealing more of what he believes in – rather than saying what he thinks we want to hear. But thankfully he's getting less like Ted Heath every day.

This whole sorry episode has been highly damaging for British politics, but in dealing with it promptly and firmly Cameron may have shown us he has the makings of a leader.

Buried treasures

THE revelation that amongst other unusual discoveries a 300-year-old coffin has been stumbled upon in Leith and an air raid shelter found in Haymarket – all thanks to the tramworks excavations – is little compensation for the fact that the city's flagship project is now beginning to resemble the fiasco that was the Scottish Parliament building.

Maybe a display of all the unusual artifacts could be put on at the City Chambers for hard-pressed council taxpayers to view.

If they are lucky they might find other rarities in long-lost time capsules or hidden dungeons such as a Hibs Scottish Cup winner's commemorative mug or an Edinburgh Corporation guidebook to prudent decision-making.

BBC misses history

SO, at last the Speaker has resigned – the first to do so in 300 years (maybe that's the bloke in that coffin?)

I had hoped to watch this momentous historical climbdown live on television and was limited to a choice of news channels – Bloomberg, CNN and BBC World (no Sky, I'm afraid).

Bloomberg and CNN were both showing the markets in New York, fair enough, so I thought BBC World must have an exclusive.

Wrong. It was, perversely, showing a news item about the exhausted US car industry. It only turned to the Commons' moment of history as the Speaker sat down.

What a shambles the BBC is – but no doubt it will trumpet Esther Rantzen's press conference if she decides to stand for parliament. Blood's thicker than water.