Furthermore, it is hard to decide who is at fault and who is not.

Let’s see…

Should anyone who ‘flipped’ their second homes to enrich themselves be punished?

Yes.

Anyone who claimed for a bath plug or other items which they should jolly well have paid for themselves?

Yes.

Anyone who claimed anything except the real essentials?

Yes.

There aren’t any hard and fast rules here.

There is: if you steal, you must be punished.

It is good that you’re trying to move the debate along, because there is only so much outrage people can express. But in addition to making them pay by deselecting them (and it would be helpful to provide some links as to how local groups of each of the three main parties select their candidates) I think a first step in restoring public faith in politicians is to punish those who’ve overstepped the line. Otherwise it will be hard to get people on board in going to the effort of deselecting their MPs if they think those MPs essentially got away with it.

I’d also suggest revising that deadline to the end of summer, perhaps the beginning of September. Whilst the MPs are off on their hols, their constituents can organise and shock them when they get back from recess.

Seeing as most seats are safe, and never change party allegiance , the process of electing the Candidate of the party in possession is probably more important than the General election itself. A hand full of people choose the candidate, and then most voters just vote the party line come election day.

The next election, like the last one, and the 10 before that will be won or lost in about 150 seats.

You think people are going to join the Labour Party, in it’s worst state for 30 years and a shadow of it’s former self, to make sure that it’s MP is deselected?

Unless you’re thinking of an entryist plot by Respect?

I don’t think that the politisians is goin too loose there jobs after the next elecsion. Voters tend too forget very soon and when the next elecsion is redy they wil vote for the saime politisians too.

Most europien jornalists tought that George Bush woldn’t get elected agan after his first term but he got elected even tough the jornalists did not think so.

You know, I always thought a process like this would have been very useful sometime around February 2003 with respect to ensuring Labour MPs voted against the invasion of Iraq. Labour party members had a great opportunity there to prevent their party making a colossal and damaging mistake, and perhaps to save a lot of lives. If they can finally realise the power they have, good luck to them.

Great article! The main advantage of this approach is that it proposes a political solution to a clearly political problem – that of contempt for the people they represent. The main flaw with the Italian “Clean Hands” operation was that they attempted a “technical” and “legalistic” solution without addressing the political problem. This created a political vacuum which was filled by Lega Nord and then Berlusconi.
The actions proposed in this article would ansure that the problem was addressed politically (the “technical/legalisitic” side wouldn’t necessarily be excluded) by political parties, hopefully bringing about not only engagement with the political process but also much needed reform of those same parties – and the space for populist exploitation would be very much diminished.
Given the obvious seriousness of this issue it may also set a precedent which could make Iain Coleman’s suggestion a normal and necessary part of politics in the future – but tragically too late for Iraq.

To take this to its logical conclusion: hold open primary elections to select Parliamentary candidates. Which would be an excellent idea.

I don’t see how that’s the logical conclusion of this article.

I do very much like the idea of shoehorning campaign criteria into this process, (although if it were me I’d say everyone voting should have to prove their campaign credential too ;p)

So a possible process would be to announce that before the end of October, every current MP who is planning to stand at the next election has to be reselected by getting the vote of a majority of local party members.

Nice idea, but unlikely to happen. The whole thrust of Labour party organisation over the last few decades (intensified by New Labour, but pre-dating Blair) has been to minimise the opportunity for local party members to select a candidate who doesn’t have the leader’s seal of approval (or to have any say in manifesto commitments or anything else of importance). I’d like to see the party going back to genuine local democracy – it might even persuade me to rejoin – but I can’t see any of the current MPs, with one or two honourable exceptions, agreeing to return to a system where the grubby plebs get to tell them what to do.

Good article. If this could be turned into a workable rule change to Labour’s selection procedures it would be good to take it further. Maybe Compass and the Fabians could push it.

Mandatory reselction was one of the issues that ripped Labour apart after 1979 and there is a potential problem about local constituency Labour parties getting hijacked by extremist groups. But I think that Dan is right about the eventual logic of moving more towards something more like an open primary system of registered voters.

When I was a member of the Labour party I did not want to got to three meetings a week to discuss every last detail of how my MP voted or my council was run. But I did expect some basic accountability on the big issues (a chance to vote on who should be leader, a chance to decide whether or not my MP had done a good enough job once every five years and a chance to debate some of the really big political issues of the day once a year or so). We have lost pretty much all of that in the last few years and that is basically why I could not see it worth my while renewing my membership subscription.

While we are at it I suggest we look at local councils, senior council staff, quangos ( especially RDAs),Euro MPs and the EU budget. The EU accounts has not been signed off for years.
It is time politicians and civil servants became accountable to use, the voter.

Yes, we have to move towards open primaries (and these should be publicly funded eventually).

In the interim, if Brown were to announce that Labour would only contest those seats where it had 1000 members* and that there would be open selections in those seats, whether or not there was a sitting MP, it would do much to draw a line under the expenses scandals.

*This figure would have to be independently audited – no doubt we could offer our services at a most competitive rate!

Mike, I’m not sure there are many seats where any political party has 1000 members any more. But regardless of that, I’m not sure why a party should only contest seats where it has a certain number of members – can you explain?

I’m yet to be convinced of why open primaries are a good idea. They would certainly hollow out political parties – one of the main reasons why many people join a party is to have democratic input into who their local candidates are. Over time they would also make it more difficult to have party unity behind a manifesto and lead to people casting votes at general elections for individuals rather than parties.

I still can’t see anything in the original article (which I broadly agree with) that remotely hints at open primaries.

A few years too late for the Lib Dems, who have always, as far as I know, required sitting MPs to go through re-selection and get majority support from all local party members.

However, the Lib Dems don’t allow people to join today and vote tomorrow, for the very good reason that it’s far too open to abuse, where a candidate signs up all his or her friends and family as party members simply to vote in the selection meeting.

As I argue on my blog (http://bit.ly/HYSeP), whilst some sort of open primary is an option, the real answer is to reduce the number of safe seats, by having an electoral system like the Single Transferable Vote (STV) that allows voters to say “I’m voting for Labour, but not for THAT Labour candidate”.

Single Transferable Vote (STV) that allows voters to say “I’m voting for Labour, but not for THAT Labour candidate”.

It does, but only in a seat where Labour (or whoever) is sufficiently strong that they expect to get more than one candidate elected.

Tim f: ‘They (open primaries) would certainly hollow out political parties – one of the main reasons why many people join a party is to have democratic input into who their local candidates are.’

Oh, spare me. The constituency of Thamesmead and Erith has a Labour majority of 11,500.

Who will decide the selection of the constituency’s next candidate? The members of the local party, who number…..two hundred and seventy-nine. That’s a pretty hollowed-out party.

At this rate we should run our own candidates.

For all those who are interested, a national campaign has been stated to deselect MP’s who have abused their expenses. It’s at http://www.aloudvoice.com

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