Morning:
14°c
The smear campaign by MPs facing large repayments of expenses against the independent auditor, Sir Thomas Legg, can only add to the impression that standards in public life have reached new lows.
Both Labour and Conservative backbenchers have their fingerprints on plans to use parliamentary questions to reveal expenses and payments for media advice by Sir Thomas and his team.
This unedifying spectacle creates further challenges for the party leaders as they seek to reconcile their MPs' sense of injustice over the Legg rulings with the overwhelming necessity to show the public that the parties are cleaning up their act. The rebellion now being plotted by some Labour MPs against the Legg letters is a reminder of how much trouble backbenchers can cause between now and the election. The mood among some Conservative MPs is equally bad. David Cameron built on his early lead in the expenses row by saying last week he would prevent from standing as a Conservative any MP who refused to pay up or disclose details demanded by Sir Thomas. Gordon Brown then followed suit, promptly sending in his cheque for more than £12,000 of overpayments.
But it is vital that Mr Cameron strikes the right note in his proposals, expected soon, to make MPs more democratically accountable. The lack of trust and confidence in our elected representatives, expressed in the low turnout at elections, is a matter of momentous significance. Mr Cameron has spoken often of our "broken politics" and promised, for example, to reduce the cost of the system by cutting the number of MPs. However, Labour's recent hints at electoral reform suggest that it is prepared to think more widely than before about what has gone wrong. The stakes are high for the Conservative leader as he seeks to show he has the answers.
Language barrier
MINISTERS are insisting that parents whose child takes part in a school exchange trip with a family from abroad should undergo a Criminal Records Bureau check and must register with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority. This is a completely unnecessary measure. No evidence has been produced of any child protection failures during exchange visits, which have been a valued part of school life for decades. And now is the very last time that barriers should be put in the way of learning languages and experiencing life in other countries.
The numbers of children taking French and German fell sharply when foreign languages ceased to be compulsory in state secondary schools in 2002. The languages return to the compulsory curriculum next year so exchange programmes should be encouraged, not made less attractive. Certainly child protection is important but the work of the Independent Safeguarding Authority should be focused upon settings where the risks are real. The measure in any case extends no protection to British children when abroad, since there is no reciprocal obligation on the overseas families to be checked. Following the promise by Children's Secretary Ed Balls to review other new child protection requirements likely to discourage informal help with junior football teams and the like, this piece of regulation must also be reconsidered.
Staycationing
VISITS to the National Portrait Gallery are up by nearly a quarter on last year and trips to Royal Horticultural Society gardens by nearly a sixth. Far from taking for granted the good things in London that are free, we seem to value them more than ever.
