General Chat

Agree Brinsley whatever we do we must never waste our vote or spoil the ballot paper just to make a point - by doing that you will get a range of extreme parties picking up votes from their supporters and theres a real danger they will be in office

There are Three categories here, when it comes to expenses:-

1. Those who have committed Outright Fraud, that is by claiming expenses that didn't exist, . Anyone who is found guilty, should be arrested and brought to justice.

2. Those who have milked the system, i.e taken the P*s* As have many working in industry have already said, you only get one chance and are told not to take the P*s* again. Sacking is what is needed here.

The other sad thing is that sacked members still get a huge payout, to help them to "re-adjust" to life. So, no payout iof you are sacked.....!

3. Let's not forget that more than half MP's, mnostly unknown backbenchers, do a really good job, claim modest expenses, and more importantly, don't take the P*s*.

Next election, these are the people we should be voting in... so don't as others have suggested on other threads, throw your vote away,....!

Glenys has been spending too much time in Canada on vacation. ;)

We almost had a coalition government last fall. The Conservative government has a minority, and the three opposition parties entered into a formal agreement for one of them to govern, i.e. for the PM to be that party's leader, with a second party to be represented in Cabinet, and the third party to support the government in the House. A non-confidence motion was scheduled for the next week.

Conservative PM Harper then went to the Governor General (our equivalent of the Queen) and asked her to prorogue Parliament -- to suspend Parliament -- basically until he could get his act together and come up with something that the opposition parties could not vote against and still have public support.

There was very strong and very respectable opinion that the Governor General should not have done that; she should have let events in the House take their course, and allowed the non-confidence motion to proceed. But she did what he asked.

We are now still stuck with a horrible right-wing government that has the support of less than 38% of the voters in the last election, governing as if it were a majority because the opposition parties don't dare bring it down over any particular issue.

Ask the Queen?

Be careful what you wish for. ;)

If a person is barred from standing for election, what is really happening is that the people who **want to vote for** that person are being barred from voting for him/her.

I know that in Canada, that only thing that bars a person from standing for election is a conviction for actual electoral fraud -- trying to undermine the democratic process itself.

The democratic process is about the people electing the representatives they want.

Thats why we need an election - I do think that any MP of whatever party who has broken the rules in any way or shape should be barred from public office again

Quite agree we can no longer have any confidence in the integrity of the Government - its time for a General Election and let the nation decide. whilst we critisise the present PM we should not forget Mr Blair who was PM during the period that the current expense revalations refer to

I agree with David Cameron's idea - call a general election. It's been too long coming already!!
In the meantime put Joanna Lumley in No 10...let her sort out a few things.

And to think that each year I sit down with my tax return form and work out the figures to the last blasted penny, just in case i get anything wrong and the b****rs come down on me like a ton of bricks.

K

Coalition Government.
x

Was just thinking - not that it'd ever happen - that given what's been going on, wouldn't it be great if we could put all MPs "on report", effectively?

When I was at school - 10 years ago - pupils with bad attendance or who behaved badly could be put "on report". This meant that in every class they attended, they had to give a card to the teacher in charge who would confirm that they had attended, make comments about their behaviour and attitude, whether they'd done their homework and so on.

It's a shame we couldn't call a similar state with Parliament whereby we say, "You can't behave, we don't trust you, every time you decide something, we have to give it the OK or it doesn't happen" and we only stop this state when they can prove to us that they can "behave".

Here's me worrying about how to fill my tax return in properly and the MPs are claiming 10 or 20 times what I earn in "expenses".

No matter how bad he's been, I hope they don't use him as a diversion/scapegoat, because lets face it a lot of them were guilty and that shouldn't be forgotten no matter what happens to him. I think a lot more should be sacked or prosecuted.

Ive always wondered why they dont do that chris.

jean

Can't come quick enough! but who are we going to replace them with? I'm all for Esther Ransten, can we have a few more like her.

where's the petition.

jean

david cameron has just said parliament should be disolved and a general election called immediately.

jean