Helen Martin: How can we take them seriously?

Published on Monday 1 June 2009 09:57

FOOL me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If there's any truth in the old adage, the entire British population must be a pretty shameful lot, having been so repeatedly and relentlessly fooled by MPs in the expenses debacle.

Just when you think the whole thing's bottomed out and it can't get any worse, it does just that with Tory MP Julie Kirkbride claiming for a 50,000 extension to house her brother so that he could be effectively a live-in nanny for her eight-year-old son.

To me, this is one of worst excesses so far – much worse than moat cleaning or duck house building which are just ridiculous pieces of nonsense.

Since most of us don't have moats we can't relate directly to the need to clean one. But a great many of us have children and struggle with childcare; not just the bills but also the sinking feeling, when they start in a nursery or go to a new childminder, that we are leaving the most precious and vulnerable person in our world with a complete stranger.

Thanks to easily-abused expenses, there were no such worries for Ms Kirkbride who simply designed her own, bespoke, publicly-funded, childcare system.

I was rather warming to Tory leader David Cameron who appeared to be at least trying to get things sorted out and squeeze some vestige of understanding and sorrow from his troops. Then he too dropped a clanger.

In a recent interview he dismissed the idea of MPs staying in hotel-type accommodation instead of second homes because he believed in "family-friendly" working practices and felt MPs should be able to have their spouses and children with them in London.

It reminded me of one of the founding principles of the Scottish Parliament . . . that it too should be run on family-friendly lines with a limit on late debates, votes etc. It's great to hear politicians pushing for family-friendly policies – until you realise they only apply to them and their families.

Everyone else who works in London and lives elsewhere has to put up with separation, but not them. And what good does it do if the Scottish Parliament believes in allowing family time at the end of the day but doesn't do anything to encourage such positive practices among the rest of the population?

Fiddling money from the public purse is one thing. MPs using our money to finance an entirely different and superior family value system for themselves is something else.

The big question for all of us is, where do we go from here? There is understandable reluctance towards the idea of chucking out all MPs and starting again with a bunch of well-meaning but inexperienced amateurs. But it's increasingly looking as if some sort of wholesale colonic irrigation in the bowels of Westminster, a damn good clean out, is the only option.

Who could take seriously Julie Kirkbride or any other MP's pronouncements on childcare in Britain seriously after this? Is there an MP, anywhere, who would be remotely credible when expounding on benefit or tax fraud? on Saturday

Would any of them have a leg to stand on discussing capital gains tax? Why should anyone pay the slightest attention to anything the Chancellor has to say about the housing market or stamp duty?

Let any of them, including the Prime Minister, express an opinion on the minimum wage or the necessity of citizens taking responsibility to work hard and provide for their own families, and they'd be laughed off the podium.

They've stopped telling us to spend what little we have left to bolster the economy, probably because we now know they've spent too much of it on our behalf already.

Pundits keep assuring us there are some hard-working MPs who aren't on the fiddle. But as Edmund Burke said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

At a time when we most need a strong, visionary government, we have a bunch of men and women who have less credibility than an Osama Bin Laden peace march and who inspire less faith than the Tooth Fairy. We may really have to think the unthinkable and build British Parliament and government again . . . from scratch.

Goodbye buyers

FIRST-TIME buyers in Scotland now need an average deposit of 26,000 to get on the housing ladder.

With the average home falling in value by 13,000 in the first three months of this year, the "ladder" is morphing into a snake and you have to wonder, on those terms who would want to buy anyway?

We are still clinging on to the idea that a house is an investment rather than a home. Those of us who already own have no option but to think positive and pray for a recovery.

But if first-timers chose to rent instead and the banks had to seek out customers rather than fight them off with sticks and high interest rates, I'm sure the ingenious mortgage industry would find a way to stimulate the market.