Politics Watch

The reshuffle task – Gordon Brown faces Lord Sir Alan Sugar in the boardroom – If only!

Sorry, I couldn’t resist making the title a play on the popular Clash song. Whose head is on the chopping block today though? Not Gordon Brown for once, unless you are Polly Toynbee. No, it’s “Gorbals Mick”, otherwise known as Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons.

In amongst the MPs expenses scandal the Speaker has had something of a torrid week. As the chair of the House of Commons and the House of Commons Commission, he has received criticism for the initial decision not to publish full details of expenses, and then the growing public discontent as the Telegraph dripped out embarrassing stories about MPs of all parties.

Personally, I think it’s time for the current Speaker to go. I say this not because of the expenses scandal, destructive though that is to the faith people have in our political system, but because he just doesn’t seem to control the Commons. Every time his authority has been challenged he has either dressed down MPs in an uncustomary and authoritarian manner, or he has given a bumbling response. He certainly doesn’t inspire me with any confidence as a firm but flexible chair who can carefully oversee the myriad of debating topics in the Commons.

After commenting in This week in politics on Sunday about the focus on the expenses of Labour MPs—and particularly government ministers—to the exclusion of the other parties, it seems that all that was required was a short wait. Today the papers, lead by the Telegraph, have turned their attention to the expenses of Tory and Lib Dem MPs. It would seem that Cameron & Co., and indeed Clegg & Associates, are not as squeaky clean as they would like us to believe.

Let’s have a quick look at some of the expenses stories hitting the front page today. First in the firing line is Menzies Campbell, who appears to have spent ten thousand pounds overhauling his flat, though he claims this is justified due to how long he has lived there and the low cost of his rent. I’m amazed that the Daily Mail hasn’t demanded that he be stripped of his knighthood for such an extravagance, but perhaps they’re too occupied with boring cards depicting Her Majesty the Queen.

Next in the firing line is a whole swathe of Tory MPs, though strangely they have been scattered throughout articles detailing the response to the claims rather than the individual article treatment which most Labour MPs received. Media bias or just a preference amongst the reading public to see the government lampooned more than the opposition? Probably a bit of both in my opinion.

David Cameron’s response to embarrassing Tory expense claims has been particularly interesting. Unlike Gordon Brown, who seems to have taken no action, Cameron has practically ordered senior party members to pay back some of the more extravagant claims. The Lib Dem response has been a bit wetter, as one might expect, asking their MPs to make a commitment to pass any profits from the future sales of second homes to the taxpayer. Let’s hope that commitment is slightly stronger than the ones made in a manifesto.

Now that all of the main parties have been implicated in embarrassing expenses claims to some extent, one wonders how this will affect the public perception of them. Doubtless confidence in politicians across the spectrum will be damaged by the revelations, and no party will emerge unscathed, but the repercussions are unlikely to be evenly spread. The Lib Dems will probably get away with less flak than the other parties, apart from anything else not that many people care about what they do and with a much smaller number of MPs there is a corresponding smaller number of scandals—if one assumes that a certain percentage of MPs have been making unjustified claims. For Labour, this has been another body blow to Gordon Brown, and another (the final?) nail in the coffin of victory at the next general election.

However, out of the three main parties, I suspect the Tories will come out of this on top relative to the other parties, for two reasons. First of all, the sheer scale of the expenses filed by Labour MPs, and the coverage they have had in the media, have overshadowed any embarrassing claims by Tory MPs. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Cameron has actually stood up and taken quick and decisive action, whereas Brown and Clegg have dithered somewhat. Although the public will no doubt see this as yet another political sleeze scandal, there is the possibility for Cameron to turn this to his advantage if he can demonstrate a real commitment to sorting out the problem, and it also gives him another stick to hit Brown with.

Of course, as with most political stories, the MP expenses scandal will probably run out of steam by the end of the week, unless the Telegraph has any more tricks up its sleeve. It will be interesting to see if the story has any effect on the European elections though, which are just around the corner…

What a hair-raising week it has been. Starting on Friday, we had the front page revelations by the Telegraph of Cabinet Ministers’ expenses—a story which completely dominates their UK politics section. Over the course of the weekend, the story has been picked up by all the other big UK news outlets, although only the Guardian has given it the same level of coverage as the Telegraph.

What has surprised me about the whole expenses row is that all the papers appear to have focused on senior figures within the Labour Party. I know that government sleeze stories always make a good headline, but I was expecting some dirt to be thrown in the direction of the Conservatives and possibly even the Lib Dems. Admittedly the story was broken by the Telegraph, which was probably looking to smear Labour more than politicians in general, but even the Guardian only managed a blog post about the uneven level of sleeze allegations. Greg Barker got a ticking off for his flat purchase, but as shadow minister for climate change he’s hardly a bit hitter. Does this mean that Cameron & Co. are a bunch of saints, or that there are more damaging revelations to come—possibly when expenses are published in full later this year?

The tide of public anger over this issue now seems unstoppable, with even former Archbishops, who usually stay out of politics, getting involved. Interestingly, both the police and HMRC are now taking an interest, which could make life even more difficult for politicians in two ways. Firstly, the fact than an investigation is ongoing could mean that they are unable to comment on the matter, which might be interpreted by many people as simply dodging the issue. Secondly, the simple fact that HMRC are involved, even if they find no wrongdoing, leads people to believe that there is something fishy going on.

The mounting embarrassments, not to mention the Commons defeats suffered recently, have led to suggestions that Labour could be wiped out at the local elections this year. I’m not sure if this only applies to Labour though, as the damaging revelations will probably turn people off politicians in general, particularly if expenses claims from Tory MPs are released before the elections. I suspect two possibilities are more likely: either turnout will crumble even further or people will conclude that they are sick and tired of the existing political elite and decide to vote for minority parties instead. The latter possibility could play into the hands of UKIP and the BNP in the European and local elections respectively.

All in all, a rather turbulent week in politics, and the worse week for Gordon Brown and Labour since… last week.

Further reading

• MPs’ expenses: your questions answered
• Q&A: The MP expenses row

How different would the Cabinet look if it was staffed by cartoon characters? Not very, says The Times.

I particularly like Peter Mandelson as Dick Dastardly.

There is an amusing petition currently doing the rounds which is calling on the Prime Minister to resign. Ironically, the petition is hosted on the Number 10 Petitions site—built by the smart chaps at mySociety—and is currently the petition with the highest number of signatures.

I don’t think it will get as many votes as the road tax petition, which garnered 1.8 million signatures, and it’s unlikely to lead to a leadership challenge in itself, but it is yet another embarrassing episode for Brown to deal with.

I noticed recently that the site has been quiet for most of the year, primarily due to me having to spend most evenings and weekends writing my thesis and concentrate on my full time job during the day. However, I’ve just given the blog a new theme and will be integrating it back into the main Politics Watch site at some point in the coming weeks. I’ll also be aiming to post one thoughtful article a week, and a round-up of the week’s political news every Friday from now on.

Labour have produced a rather amusing shadow cabinet reshuffle send up, based on an imaginary (one assumes!) instant messaging conversation between David Cameron, William Hague, George Osborne and Ken Clarke. As Labour comedy goes, it’s actually quite funny.

For those of you who are interested in a wrap-up of this year’s political events, the BBC has a 20 minute review of the political year available for streaming via their website. I’m not sure if this is available to people outside the UK, but it’s worth a watch if you want a gentle overview of how things have gone for our politicians in 2009. I’ll be posting my own review of the political year in the next few days, though alas it won’t be televised.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past couple of days, or try to avoid the political section of the media, you will probably have heard about Labour’s disaster in Glasgow East, where they lost the seat in a by-election to the Scottish National Party. Whilst the SNP only won by a small margin (365 votes), they still managed to overturn a huge Labour majority, in scenes reminiscent of the last general election, where Manchester Withington (my constituency) fell to the Liberal Democrats. Interestingly, a similar percentage swing in Brown’s own constituency would lead to him losing his own seat.

After three by-election defeats (Henley, Crewe and Glasgow East) and the London Mayoral elections disaster, the key question on the lips of most people is: “Does this spell the end of Gordon Brown as leader?” At the time of writing, no leadership challenge has been issued, so presumably the result wasn’t quite bad enough to warrant an immediate backstabbing, but it does leave Brown in a precarious position. If one believes the papers, senior ministers are being urged to get rid of Brown, giving him two months to “shape up or go“.

However, fortunately for Brown, he has the rest of the summer in which to boost his support within the Party, as many MPs will be returning to their constituencies or going on holiday during the recess, so the focus on his leadership skills will be diminished for a month or so. He also has the advantage of there being no obvious successors in the way he was clearly meant to follow Blair—though various names have been touted in the press. Furthermore, replacing the leader so soon before a general election is a risky strategy, and Labour may well prefer to keep their existing man—“better the devil you know” and all that. On the other hand, they could simply accept that their time is up—most parties do not win more than three consecutive general elections—and that people are willing to give the Conservatives another chance to run the country.

My personal verdict is that Brown will survive until Labour Party Conference, which will be the tipping point. If a leadership challenge is going to be issued, that is where it will happen, with all the press and public attention focused on the conference. If nothing solid happens at conference (grumblings and mutterings aside), then Brown is safe until the next election—at which point the public will decide whether his party deserves to hold office. A defeat there will definitely spell the end of his term as Labour Leader.

Further reading

• Times Online
• BBC News (with video of results being announced)
• Guardian Unlimited