Morning:
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A democratic thrill: the published MPs' expenses have finally "dropped". From 6am the inner secrets have been available online. Don't all rush at once.
The candour is theoretical. What greeted me when I selected a couple of juicy targets was a sea of blacked-out text. Never mind, I thought, try someone less controversial. Even then, another ocean of black ink swam across the computer screen.
Parliament has perfected the trick of publishing information without actually telling us what it is. George Orwell would be proud.
Westminster can now claim accountability, while bemusing anyone who goes in search of the information.
The new head of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir John Sawers, would have to invent a whole new Bletchley Park to get any sense out of this exercise in obfuscation.
Never have I seen such a sea of tantalizingly concealed information since the Stasi files were first opened and East Germans complained that all the relevant information had been hidden by the state censors.
So, as Kitty Ussher, a NuLab high-flyer, resigned over her one-month "switch" to avoid a capital gains tax bill, nothing of this information on her - or the many other parliamentary "flippers"- is apparent in the official record because all addresses have been blacked out.
The reason is not hard to guess: MPs are hardly the most popular members of society right now and some have genuine fears for their families' safety.
But they are also representatives of their communities in Parliament. There should have been some way to ensure that the basic information about their conduct was available, even if street names and numbers had to be withheld.
The great, if sour, joke is that the real information has been swirling around for weeks, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, causing party leaders to grovel and hold emergency inquiries, and affected MPs to resign.
That renders this the most futile information-control exercise imaginable.
The person on the Clapham omnibus can tell you considerably more about MPs' expenses than the official weblink.
The only challenge is to try to decipher any new factoid which has not been excavated already.
So I am intrigued that David Cameron spent no night at all in a hotel this year: did he always race home from far-flung places in time for dinner? How about his helicopter mileage (I'd like to see that if you're offering, Dave).
The more serious point, though, is that this was conceived as an exercise in Freedom of Information, something promised long ago by the Government. The result is laughable .
Parliament is still more concerned with protecting the shreds of dignity of its members, than informing the public about what has gone so wrong in the expenses system. That's not so funny.
Reader views (3)
So much for freedom of information and standards in pubic life. Let us now ditch the archaic and ironic term "Right Honourable Members".
- Tim Davidson, Caerleon, Wales, 18/06/2009 19:10
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Alan Green, I for one will be voting against my MP.
- Alex., brighton, 18/06/2009 16:48
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NO MATTER IF YOUR LEFT OR RIGHT VOTE AGAINST WHOEVER IS YOUR MP OR LOCAL COUNCILLOR. THROW EVERYONE OUT
- Alan Green, Woodford Green, 18/06/2009 14:31
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