For the second time this week, Gordon Brown and David Cameron are squabbling in the Westminster playground about who should get the credit for a new idea. On Wednesday they locked horns over further stop and search powers for the police. Cameron was first out of the traps but Team Brown did a clever spoiling operation and the PM got most of the credit in the newspapers.
Today it's about forcing MPs to disclose it when they employ relatives at the taxpayers' expense in the wake of the Derek Conway affair. The Tory leader opened the scoring in an early morning attack, forcing Brown to scramble home an equaliser two hours later by matching Cameron's call for openness. This time the game probably ended in a draw. Although Cameron deserved to win, government action usually trumps opposition demands in media terms. As one minister put it: "They can have all the ideas, but we have got the power." Cruel but true. For now, anyway.
This is just another example of the growing consensus that is emerging between the two parties. Similar policies and similar ideologies are now emerging between the two parties in many key areas and it seems before long, if not already, the electorate will find it hard to establish the difference between the two parties. The harsh fact of the reality is that the Labour government is in power and they will be the ones who can take the credit for any successful policies implemented. John Major made the Downing Street Declaration in regards to the first steps towards peace in Nothern Ireland, however it was Blair who got the plaudits in 1998 for the Good Friday Agreement, which would have never of been possible if not for Major.
For sure greater transparency and new regulations are needed to ensure MPs reveal family members they may have employed and in fairness they should be paid the same amount any 'average Joe' would get for carrying out the same job. After the Conway affair I am sure taxpayers don't want their money looted around in back-pockets of corrupted family members of politicians, and indeed the backpockets of the politicions themselves.It is time taxpayers money starts going where it belongs and that is towards the public sector and improving our welfare state
Posted by: Muhammad Ali | Friday, 01 February 2008 at 06:52 PM