Skip to main content

Who are the puppet masters?

Members of Parliament are supposed to represent our interests. We elect them, and we hold them to account at general elections. Many MPs have outside 'interests', and some get paid handsomely for them. This inevitably creates a conflict of interest.  It begs the question: whose interests do they serve?

The former cabinet minister Owen Paterson has declared that he receives a total of £112,000 a year from two firms, on top of his parliamentary salary of £79,000.

Owen Paterson charges them £500 an hour.

Let's put that into perspective. The national 'living' wage is just over £8 an hour.  The 'living' wage is what Mr Paterson receives for each minute he is advising these companies!  I wonder to whom he gives priority time: to a constituent on a living wage or the company that pays him so handsomely for that time.

Whether or not Mr Paterson has ever misbehaved regarding these interests is not a question we can answer.  But what we do know is that a conflict exists. 

Boris Johnson is paid well for the column he writes for The Daily Telegraph.  Not only does he get paid well for it, but it serves as a political platform.  

Now, it is good that MPs do have lives outside parliament.  We need to encourage more representatives with experience outside politics.   But where is the balance between personal pecuniary interest and public interest?  

Simply declaring such interests does not solve the problem.  On the contrary, it seems that declaring them sometimes gives questionable relationships and conflicts of interest a cloak of respectability as if the very act of declaring their interest absolves any problem.  But it doesn't.  The conflict of interests remains: who does the MP serve? 

There are rules, of course, governing the conduct of MPs and their interests.  One such rule is that House of Commons headed notepaper must not be used in representing any case to government for a firm for which the MP acts as an adviser.   Headed notepaper? As if nobody knows that the Member of Parliament is a Member of Parliament? 

It seems it is acceptable if an MP writes on behalf of a company he or she represents as long as he doesn't do so in their role as MP.   This is nonsense, of course.  Does he really put aside his interest depending on which headed notepaper he uses?  

This is not a trivial problem.   It is a significant problem in political representation. 

Who are the puppet masters of our MPs?  








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ian Duncan-Smith says he wants to make those on benefits 'better people'!

By any account, the government's austerity strategy is utilitarian. It justifies its approach by the presumed potential ends. It's objective is to cut the deficit, but it has also adopted another objective which is specifically targeted. It seeks to drive people off benefits and 'back to work'.  The two together are toxic to the poorest in society. Those least able to cope are the most affected by the cuts in benefits and the loss of services. It is the coupling of these two strategic aims that make their policies ethically questionable. For, by combining the two, slashing the value of benefits to make budget savings while also changing the benefits system, the highest burden falls on a specific group, those dependent on benefits. For the greater good of the majority, a minority group, those on benefits, are being sacrificed; sacrificed on the altar of austerity. And they are being sacrificed in part so that others may be spared. Utilitarian ethics considers the ba...
7 comments
Read more

Ethical considerations of a National DNA database.

Plans for a national DNA database   will be revealed by the Prime Minister this week. This is the same proposal the Tories and Liberal Democrats opposed when presented by the Blair government because they argued it posed  a threat to civil liberties. This time it is expected to offer an 'opt-out' clause for those who do not wish their data to be stored; exactly how this would operate isn't yet clear. But does it matter and does it really pose a threat to civil liberties? When it comes to biology and ethics we tend to have a distorted view of DNA and genetics. This is for two reasons. The first is that it is thought that our genome somehow represents the individual as a code that then gets translated. This is biologically speaking wrong. DNA is a template and part of the machinery for making proteins. It isn't a code in anything like the sense of being a 'blueprint' or 'book of life'.  Although these metaphors are used often they are just that, metapho...
2 comments
Read more

In praise of social housing and the welfare state

I will declare an interest. I grew up in a one-parent family on a council estate. I occasionally attended my local comprehensive school. I say occasionally because for the most part I played truant. I spent much of my time skipping school but walking and reading on the local common. It had a windmill which I loved. It later had Wombles but that is another story. I contemplated life under the sun. Like many others, I left school at 15 with no qualifications. My penultimate school report said they  'could see no reason why public money should be wasted on the attempted education of this boy'. So I declare this interest of a privileged upbringing. Social housing kept a roof over our heads at a rent mum could (barely) afford; and oh how I recall the days  when she couldn't. She worked all hours to keep that roof over our heads. In those early days of Rock-and-Roll, Bill Haley and the Comets, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard (yes I was/am a fan), the estate had three c...
2 comments
Read more