MPs' expenses

Many have pointed out that whatever the system you need honest people to work it. Some MPs are not, we find, honest.

Who chose them?

Some will say we, the electors, did. That is only partly true as in our electoral system most MPs are chosen by their party, not the electors. This is true, for most of our constituencies are safe seats.

Only in “marginal seats” do electors have real choice.

The “mother of parliaments”

has been unreformed for too long. Nowhere else in Europe are there still “first past the post”

elections giving rise to safe seats.

In the US, ordinary citizens have a chance of choosing their party’s candidates through primary elections and choice is not left to party members.

Not only does the system of MPs’ expenses give rise to corrupt practice, so does our unreformed Parliament. Of course, no system is proof against rogues, but our unreformed system invites abuse.

Let the shock we have received provide a great opportunity for reform – not only of MPs’ expenses, but also to end an unelected House of Lords and a rotten electoral system for the Commons.

Peter Wilson, Barnard Castle, Co Durham.

I FEEL I must respond to your article about Durham North MP Kevan Jones revealing his expenses (Echo, May 12) which, to me, appears to try to portray him as a knight in shining armour.

Mr Jones, like all the other “New Labour” MPs, has worked this system for years and now when they are found out, they try to come clean. In his years in Parliament he has never tried to change this corrupt system.

Indeed, he has consistently voted to exempt MPs’ expenses from the Freedom of Information Act – not really the actions of someone who now says there is nothing that the public shouldn’t see, as it is their money.

This type of hypocrisy will not fool the voters who feel they have been conned and deceived by Mr Jones, the New Labourites and the parliamentary system.

We should be demanding resignations and by-elections to let ordinary voters give their verdict on this despicable, scandalous affair and all its perpetrators.

Mr Jones says there is no doubt a lot of damage is being done to the reputation of Parliament. He should know, he is one of those responsible for the damage.

Stephen Jones (no relation), Sunderland.

WHAT a remarkable about-turn by North Durham MP Kevan Jones (Echo, May 12). A smiling photograph with his words: “There is nothing that the public shouldn’t see – it’s their money.”

Is this the same Kevan Jones who has persistently voted to stop this information being made public? Surely not.

The whole thing stinks and he and his bunch of “carry on claimers” would have continued in the same old manner if they had succeeded in stifling the Freedom of Information Act by excluding their own expenses.

Does Mr Jones really believe voters are going to fall for this duplicity?

He should have been exposing this stinking corrupt system instead of attacking the Durham Miners’ Association, which has done more for people than he and his like have. I offered to debate these issues with him on any platform. No wonder he did not take up this offer, which still stands.

Oh yes, we will see four years’ claims, but what about all the previous years that these people have been working the system.

Parliamentary democracy?

What a sham. Stunts like this will not fool the voters at the next General Election.

David Hopper, General Secretary, Durham Miners’ Association.

AS each day goes by we have further revelations about expenses that have been claimed by some MPs. Nothing is too small, too expensive or too bizarre for them to feel they deserve reimbursement from the public purse.

No doubt every reader will consider one claim or another to be the most outrageous of those exposed to date. The claim I feel really takes the biscuit is the one for Christmas decorations which was submitted by Redcar MP Vera Baird, but rejected by the Fees Office.

This seems to be to be so personal, so trivial and yet at the same time to be so damned annoying for the British public to be asked to accept.

Amazingly, she herself feels there is no discredit in having a claim rejected.

She is so, so wrong and should issue a full public apology and promise not to repeat such a nonsense. She could call her apology a statement of Atonement, a concept with which the people of Redcar are familiar from recent events.

Martin Birtle, Billingham.

THE issue of MPs’ expenses that has so enraged the nation easily ranks as the biggest political scandal.

Ordinary families on limited incomes are justifiably angry at the audacity of grasping MPs.

As some HAS correspondents have said, constituents are being treated as fools while the MPs themselves seemingly pay for nothing.

In the midst of all this, however, credit must go to the Conservative leader, David Cameron, for clamping down quickly on MPs in his party who transgress. This is commendable leadership.

Without the good offices of the British press, this tawdry tale would not have come to light and the journalism has been very good.

LD Wilson, Guisborough, East Cleveland.

ANOTHER day in the expenses scandal – Tuesday – and two of this region’s MPs, Nick Brown (Newcastle East and Wallsend) and Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland), are featured in The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing campaign.

To put icing on the cake, Middlesbrough MP Sir Stuart Bell appears on national television and defends the embarrassing performance of Commons Speaker Michael Martin by thinking a grovelling apology, calling a meeting with the major party leaders and saying that “we” – yes, “we”

again – are going to work out a new system, will satisfy everyone.

What planet are these people on and just how much lower can politics sink?

Brian Collins, Spennymoor, Co Durham.

RE the saga of parliamentary piggery. A person might think that an MP should be a fine, upstanding figure. My worst fears are realised as I find out the smooth-talking chappie in the smart suit is quietly trousering lots and lots of expenses for second homes, wangling madly.

Whatever the electorate will deduce from all these antics will, perhaps, show in the future.

Fred M Atkinson, Shincliffe, Durham.