Thought Picnic: Beyond the call of duty

So they were burnt?

Someone came up with a policy that reeks of exploitation much longer before it suggests a leaning toward loyalty. Yet there might be a historical view to the situation, but that does not make it right.

When you toil and sweat at the coal face, knowing duty and responsibility, there is remuneration and recompense for your work. That is a contract of confidence properly rewarded as it should be.

Yet for an organisation whose main stock in trade is wheelbarrows of money, a parsimonious tendency to extract for claims to be made on expense much later cannot be right, even if it is the established standard.

It is unfair

There might be many who have the means and breath to face up to a large extraction from their wallets, however, the truth is in this business moneys in churn, everyone is left at a disadvantage, but the organisation and that is hardly fair, if the call is the organisation requiring you risk much for it.

At a point, where one finds oneself demanding a review, embarrassment and shame might find inroads into the conversation, but that should never be the case. The requirement is well beyond the call of duty, it makes extraneous demands of loyalties and it might bring along its own stress.

Shoulder this responsibility

The incidental and the limited can in terms be expensed, but there is nothing wrong even in the era of cost-cutting drives that cut down to the bone in having the organisation itself organise trips, accommodation and much else that pertains to the comforts and the accoutrements that will allow one carrying a responsibility to do what they are engaged to do without distraction.

Besides, the organisation has the heft to negotiate the best deals in bulk and with a standing relationship, it should not be devolved to individuals to namedrop to be eligible. There are invisible costs to all these devolved arrangements and that all makes for a feeling being put under unnecessary duress.

Beyond the call of duty

Reassurances of reimbursement are not enough, someone eventually has to take the pain as it starts from the employee through the employee’s agency and rarely the organisation, interest lost and the organisation that scrimps on pennies to save pounds to rain upon a few in truckloads of bonuses does not have to laugh all the way to the bank. It is the money store, itself.

Then you think of other places, too long a list of places where no one has to bear the cost, because all is in hand, borne by the organisation and those with the responsibility to approve such.

There is no doubt in one’s mind, what is being required is well beyond the call of duty. It definitely is, and it must change.

The UK: My thoughts are with David Laws

One revelation and a story

I have just read with sadness the resignation of David Laws the coalition Secretary to the Treasury on the matter of claiming expenses for accommodation on the premises of his partner.

The unfortunate consequence is that Mr. Laws has inadvertently been outed as gay in a long-term relationship with the man purported to have been his landlord.

There are many angles of looking at this story but the one that most draws my sympathy is that Mr. Laws who is just a month older than I am had settled into the convenience of being in the closet as a single man in public office without any of his close relations knowing of this secret affair – however, it is all now exposed and ones thoughts are prayers are with all concerned.

An ambiguous rule of life

Obviously the commons rules about claiming accommodation expenses require that claimants do not do so when with partners, relations or business associates.

Technically, if Mr. Laws had not declared his residence in plush Kensington to the West of London people might have said there are a quid pro quo scenario developing leaving a Member of Parliament open to influence, his claiming expenses however has lead to this rather human tragedy of sorts from which I do hope he does recover well.

The nation has lost a smart and possibly very able minister to scandals and the plural is deliberate – the scandal that prevents people from being confident of acceptance as gay if they should so choose to declare that fact, the scandal of claiming expenses whilst living with one’s partner even though there is no legal or common law basic for same-sex relationships in the UK except where a civil partnership has been entered into and the scandal of newspapers that have no compunction in exposing anything that would help sell their copy.

The Daily Telegraph has averred that it had no intention of outing Mr. Laws but there is no way that story would have made any news without that consequence as part of its sensational import and interest.

Politicians are not saints

I do not believe that our politicians should be subject to the kinds of moral standards we should expect of the clergy, they are not saints, they are people like you and I who have offered to serve our country in whatever capacity they have been elected and selected to serve.

This would obviously not encourage capable and competent but seemingly flawed people to enter politics for the fear of being mauled by the rabid dogs of the press pretending to be cuddly kittens.

It reminds me of the resignation of Lord John Browne from the chairmanship of BP when in trying to conceal the matter of his sexuality he perjured himself and was vilified for perjury despite the more personal issue at stake.

Acceptance is not a given, even in the West

There is no doubt that even though the middle-classes in the general sense might have the liberality of accepting and tolerating homosexuality, those with influence and in authority, politics or even international sports are not that at ease with revealing who they truly are – it leaves them prone to blackmail and possibly ignominy – the saddest case of those consequences of declaring ones sexuality can only have one looking at how that revelation lead to Justin Fashanu’s suicide in an abandoned garage in East London.

The fear of rejection looms large, more so the threat of homophobia which has not been eradicated even from Western societies and the misfortune that might accompany being disowned by loved and trusted ones – it is not an easy life and our humanity is the poorer for how difference stops people from being the best they could ever be by first being truly themselves.

Sources

BBC News - Treasury Minister David Laws resigns over expenses

Other references

Lies - Between human frailty and the law [akin.blog-city.com]

Obituary: Justin Fashanu - Obituaries, News - The Independent

Thought Picnic: Justifying MPs Expenses

A broadsheet village rag

It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that The Daily Telegraph looks anything like the quality paper I am familiar with.

Over the last week we have been regaled with a catalogue of the expenses of the UK Members of Parliament (MP) which were apparently purchased under from underhand scheme and have been revealed under the atrocious auspices of public interest.

I have found more editorial finesse in the Court Circular pages, the Obituaries and Sport pages, elsewhere, besides the business pages and a few reviews; I might well be viewing the titillating smut of Page 3 girls and gossip columns.

There might indeed be some public interest in what for 6 days is beginning to look like village gossip and tittle-tattle on expensed claims which tap on the sensational rather than core objectives.

Home away from home

When on holiday or when I stay at a hotel, I expect it to be of a particular standard which for me is a minimum comfort of my home or better – I am not one to stay in a 1-star cockroach infested dump, with no recourse for any redress.

Also, I have never really liked expense claims, I probably have thousands of pounds and Euros of receipts that I have never put through just because I thought they were an encumbrance and hard work.

If I did have a personal assistant, I probably would have given that task away and let things take their course.

The alternative to these revealed claims for homes, furnishing and upkeep would be a more expensive burden on the taxpayer and it is hypocritical for the papers not to view that perspective.

The alternative costs

The MPs are probably the equivalent of middle management, I would think that means a 4-star type hotel would be typical which in London could be upwards of GBP 250 per night – spending 100 days in London for parliamentary business would easily add up to the payments they get for a second home.

This does not include meals which would be fully expensed if they were in hotels rather than in their homes at about GBP 50 per head, if these MPs have families they cannot be completely excluded from the wellbeing factor of the MP.

Porn-ed expense

I was amused rather than annoyed when the husband of the Home Secretary put in claims for premium television viewing of pornography. Here we have a man whose wife is out serving the country in London and he at the constituency home tending the roost. In the need for some conjugal fellowship he makes for the less controversial between calling and escort or watching pornography.

How much sacrifice should a consort have to make in service of fatherland before their needs can be justified? I was amused, definitely not annoyed.

More than just a person

If the standard for expense claims is what an MP needs to do his job, I would add comfortably, because a person serving their constituency in privation and in a less than comfortable environment is not going to an effective MP.

The hotel solution would not have worked because about 500 hotel room rooms would have to be block booked in London for about a hundred days with changing seasons and rate with the possible unprofitability to hoteliers.

Having a second home in London is necessary and when you spend a considerable time away from your home constituency you want your London home to have a modicum of comfort, an MP is not a student living in digs.

By the time the home is furnished to a particular standard based on the John Lewis list, the costs add up, we should not forget, it is a home, not a hotel. If the MP has family, you have to consider the possibility of family visiting and suddenly an MP having a second home in London is not just some island of a person but a subject of humanity with needs as an MP that cannot be narrowly focused on the individual.

Time for things or deeds

Constituency work can be time-consuming and quite involved and there is the garden to tend, the swimming pool to clean and all sorts of household chores that suddenly require help because the MP cannot attend to them – they all then become expense claims.

To look at the claims in isolation of just the claim itself is unfair, there is a whole set of circumstances that result in what has been revealed in the receipts and this is leading to policy on the hoof to allay public anger, there might be anger, I view it more as jealousy because very few of the so-called indignant public would have acted differently if they were MPs.

No laws broken

But that is still beside the point, the real issue is no laws were broken, there was a reviewing board to challenge the expenses if they were irregular, if the board had no teeth, then that is not the fault of the MPs but the regulatory framework necessary to monitor expenses.

That needs to be changed, a retrospective analysis of expenses going back 4 years is as arbitrary as it seems, why not 2 years or why not since parliament was started – it is absurd and I think MPs should stand and defend the claims that have so far been passed, it is what is done from hence that should matter but with a bit more thinking rather than being driven by drivel to create rules that would not stand the test of time.

There is the nuanced view of the spirit of the law as opposed to the letter but that is more from the perspective of those who sit in judgement and envy rather than the participants.

Finally, the bigger question is? Do we pay our MPs enough? We probably don’t, this then raises the question of choices made by the person to be an MP, the availability of talent that would not take such a career path because of poor remuneration and what really helps an MP do their job whether that involves the complete welfare or the singular needs of the person alone.

Meanwhile, can I claim my holiday on expenses?