CAMBRIA POLITICO – The Political Blog

Time to call time on Wales’s Westminster freeloaders

If ever there was a need to get rid of an ‘extra, expensive and useless tier of government’ (the old chestnut once much loved by critics of the National Assembly) it is now. And the tier that should be in our sights is that which consists of Wales’s 40 Members of Parliament and some 48 Members of the House of Lords.

In the light of the unfolding constitutional cataclysm which has broken over a benighted Westminster, and which has revealed a veritable rats’ nest of, in varying degrees and combinations, incompetence, profligacy and downright criminality, why not let’s get rid of the lot of them – and run our own affairs.

Quite apart from Liebour’s costly – in terms of wasted resources and young lives – and winless wars, quite apart from the idiocy of maintaining Trident as a ‘unilateral deterrent’ (which isn’t unilateral at all) and the construction of vast new aircraft carriers (to defend what against whom exactly?), when Britain has a national debt now hitting almost incomprehensible trillions of pounds, Welsh taxpayers have to shoulder the phenomenal cost of subsidising a largely useless gang of gravy-trainers zipping up and down from London to Wales in Great Western’s First Class coaches enjoying a more than a few doubles-and-mixers on the way. Time to call time.

Here are the facts. An MP’s basic salary is £64,000, – ‘Spudface’, Wayne ‘Smacked Backside’ David, Chris ‘Y-front’ Bryant and others serving either as members of the Cabinet or holding junior ministerial posts rack up a whole lot more, including ministerial residences, chauffeur-driven limousines, personal staffs, expenses etc. In addition MP’s get a second home allowance of £20,000, and an expenses allowance to cover the cost of offices, staff, researchers etc – which is, in reality often abused with MPs employing family members and hangers-on. If we take a broad average these come to somewhere in the region of £150,000 per MP, which amounts to an average of £250,000 per MP per annum and, with 40 Welsh MPs, that’s a staggering £10,000,000 shouldered by you and I. And for what?

If you reckon that £10,000,000 good value for money, study the records of the vast majority of these politico’s, especially in the light of The Daily Telegraph’s revelations, and think again. Add to this figure the Welsh taxpayer’s share of the maintenance of the Palace of Westminster with its antediluvian rituals and rigmarole, the subsidised food and wine in Westminster’s many bars and restaurants. Add the attendance allowance*, expenses, perks and backhanders (that’s lobbying fees to you and me)** of Welsh members of the House of Lords and the figure rapidly doubles, if not trebles. All this before we ask ourselves what these people actually do for us. Oh and ponder awhile on Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty in starched linen bib-and-tucker dining on the finest foie gras and agreeable claret – all of which you are paying for – and remind yourself what you and your family are having for supper. Ponder also if you will, on the Orange Lounge-lizard’s chameleon-like makeover – which you and I have generously granted him: new home, new wife…and new shed roof! We’d all like at least two of those, wouldn’t we, but they’re probably a little beyond our reach in these difficult times.

Wales now has a democratically elected representative body in our capital city. It is called The National Assembly. It’s been there for ten years. It works – but it could work better with full law-making powers, and, better still, sovereignty. Why on earth do we need another body anywhere else? Why pay twice for democracy?

A vast majority of the issues raised by individual constituents can be handled in Cardiff, and a great number of these are actually duplicated by MPs and AMs at even greater cost – and waste. We are in a deepening recession. Britain isn’t working.

The drive for independence – the drive for sanity – must start now. Time to say ‘Enough is enough, you are no longer fit for purpose.’

* Their noble lord and ladyships can claim a £150 per day attendance allowance, £75 per day subsistence allowance (that’s the foie gras and claret), and £65 per day office costs. In addition there are generous UK – and European – travelling expenses, an annual secretarial allowance of around £5,000 per year, and free postage.

** Earlier this month two Liebour peers, Lords Truscott and Taylor, were dismissed from the House of Lords for taking bribes disguised as ‘lobbying fees’.