Parliament's Climate of Fraud

Years ago I worked for several well known businesses. Before that I worked for a large Government Department on contract. I submitted expense claims that probably amounted to well over a hundred contracts. Not once did I cheat. Read that again. Not once did I cheat. The majority of the claims were for black cabs, for which, in those days, we did not have to produce receipts. You simply sent in your bill and your cab fare. As far as I know, nobody else cheated either. I guess you might say I was old-fashioned, but the idea of cheating the tax-payer was well off the agenda. I could have doubled my income had I done so, and believe me, I had plenty of reason to do it.

What did not exist, in that department, in those days, was an ethos of fraud.

A couple of decades later I was unfortunate enough to work for a railway company. The situation was quite the reverse. Almost everybody stole from the company, including my boss, who departed, with a clean sheet, when he was eventually found out. Almost on day one I was advised on how to steal from the system.

So, there does not have to be a climate of fraud in any corporation. The extent to which it occurs is premised on whether those in charge will do anything about it, and of course, if everybody is at it, those who choose to be honest can get a rough ride. I reported a colleague who tried to get me to steal, during my first week there. He was "questioned" by my corrupt boss and eventually moved with a promotion. I would probably have kept quiet, but I was pressured to defraud and that was a bridge too far.

Well, if I can do it, how come our MPs cannot? It is clear there was a climate of laxity at best, and at worst, an encouragement to steal. Theft is for people who are weak, for people who are essentially sociopathic. So it is all the more worrying that our Parliament was complicit in mass fraud, and it took a newspaper to reveal it and get something done.

Today we see the jailing of a former Labour Minister. The judge's summing up is damning:

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Saunders said Morley was guilty of "blatant dishonesty" and had "thrown away his good name and character."

He said: "I am satisfied from the nature of the mortgage transactions and the correspondence that the excessive claims were made deliberately and are not explicable even in part by oversight."(Telegraph)

Elliot Morley simply failed to apply normal standards of morality to his job. What is much worse is that there are still many who, for reasons that are inexplicable, have not been arrested and charged, most of them are Labour. It is clear that the Labour goverment had 13 years to address this issue and ignored it right up until election time, making sure that any prosecutions would arise after the vote.

I am aware of some Labour politicians who were never involved. Sadly, they have chosen to stay very quiet over the issue, probably because of party loyalty. It makes you wonder if there was ever one man or woman among them who had the guts to speak out. Apparently not.

Elliot Morley

Today there are one or two more cases pending, though not necessarily over expenses. The ground swell of public opinion is anger, not disbelief. But the public wants blood. A jail sentence, in these cases seems to me mis-placed. Those found guilty have terminated their political aspirations with extreme prejudice. They should of course be made to pay back every penny, and they should be made to do community work, out of doors, in a high vis jacket, with the words "thief" on them. These people need to be taught a lesson, not accommodated in a cushy open nick for a few months.

Will anything like this ever happen again in our Government? Evil shape-shifts. Wickedness is a rat run. The authorities have plugged one hole, but there will be many others. I behoves the Government to be vigilant, swift and moral.