Lawmakers from Britain’s ruling Labour Party attacked Prime Minister Gordon Brown for letting the Conservative opposition seize the initiative over the parliamentary expenses scandal.
“I am surprised that stronger action has not been taken,” Lynn Jones , a Labour member of Parliament, said last night. Her remarks echoed those of fellow lawmaker John Mann , who called on Brown to “lead from the front.”
Brown, his popularity trailing the Conservatives for more than a year, has followed Conservative leader David Cameron this week in announcing measures to discipline lawmakers and tighten rules on expenses as the Daily Telegraph newspaper printed details of claims that members of all parties said were unacceptable.
Cameron was the first to apologize for the behavior of Conservative lawmakers and the first to demand money be paid back. While Cameron accepted the resignation of his aide, Andrew Mackay , as soon as implications of wrongdoing surfaced yesterday, Brown held back before suspending Elliot Morley , who took taxpayer funds for a non-existent mortgage.
“This is a once in a decade moment in politics,” said Andrew Hawkins , a pollster with ComRes Ltd. “Things have really shifted. The Conservatives have so far responded more quickly.”
With the economy mired in its worst recession since World War II and unemployment at its highest level in more than a decade, British voters are deserting Labour a little more than a year from the deadline for the next election.
A YouGov Plc poll for The Sun newspaper today put Labour at its lowest ever level. Support for the Conservatives also fell. The survey put the Conservatives at 41 percent, down 2 percentage points, Labour at 22 percent, down 5 percentage points, and the U.K.’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, at 19 percent, up 1 percentage point.
When it comes to next month’s European Parliament elections, both the largest parties may lose ground as voters said they would back smaller parties that aren’t currently in the U.K. Parliament. The Conservatives were at 28 percent, Labour at 20 percent, and the U.K. Independence Party, which wants to pull out of the European Union, was at 15 percent.
Voters see Cameron as the political leader most likely to tackle the issue of lawmakers’ expenses, the YouGov poll showed, with almost 6 out of 10 saying they are “confident” the Conservative leader will mend the problem, compared with 1 in 3 who think the same of Brown. YouGov surveyed 1,814 adults. No other details were given.
Today’s Telegraph reported that justice minister Shahid Malik claimed the maximum amount available in expenses for a second home while his main home was secured at a discounted rate from a landlord who was fined for renting an “uninhabitable” house.
Malik denied wrongdoing to reporters, and said he would donate to charity just over 1,000 pounds ($1,517) that he was repaid to cover the cost of a television. Former International Development Secretary Clare Short was overpaid 8,000 pounds in mortgage claims, the newspaper said.
In recent weeks, Brown has lost a vote in Parliament and endured criticism from current and former Cabinet ministers over the way he communicates with the public. The expenses scandal, which has tarred members of all parties, hits Labour hardest because it has the most lawmakers.
While Brown had planned to spend Thursday rallying party activists to fight local and European elections on June 4, he had to adapt his speech to announce that Morley would be suspended from Labour’s organization in Parliament.
“It is important there is reform in the political system,” Brown said in Derbyshire, England. “The expenses system in the House of Commons is antiquated. Where there is irregularity now it has got to be dealt with. Where disciplinary action is necessary it will be taken.”
Morley spent more than 1 1/2 years claiming 800 pounds ($1,200) a month to cover interest on a mortgage he had paid off. He then “flipped” his main home designation to allow himself to get expenses for interest on a loan for a house in London that he had rented out to another Labour lawmaker, who was claiming back the rent from the taxpayer. In an e-mailed statement, he said it was the result of “sloppy accounting.”
Labour Chief Whip Nick Brown , who is responsible for maintaining discipline among the party’s lawmakers, said he had known there was a problem with Morley’s claims for some days.
“He told me maybe a week ago, a fortnight ago that he thought there was something,” Nick Brown told the BBC. “But it’s very difficult to respond to allegations before you know what they actually are.”
In a further blow to Brown, a separate probe recommended the suspension of two Labour members of the House of Lords, Parliament’s upper chamber, over lobbying, the first such action since the 17th century.
The Lords Committee for Privileges said Peter Truscott and Thomas Taylor had both failed to act on their “personal honor” and that they should be suspended. It found Lewis Moonie and Peter Snape had demonstrated an “inappropriate attitude to the rules” and invited them to apologize.
Labour’s Mann had earlier called on Brown to act faster. “There needs to be some leadership,” he told BBC Radio 4. “The public out there probably want to get rid of all of us.”
Last month, the prime minister was forced to sack aide Damien McBride after e-mails were published showing the media adviser plotting a campaign to smear Cameron and other Conservatives.
Brown’s efforts to put the expenses scandal behind Labour haven’t yet worked. On April 30, he backed away from an attempt to reform the way expenses are calculated when opposition parties rejected his proposal for a daily attendance allowance, a plan Labour lawmaker Austin Mitchell described today as “half-baked” in an article in the Independent . “David Cameron has undoubtedly won the competition between the party leaders to see which can look toughest,” Mitchell wrote.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears last week appeared to mock Brown’s effort to use the Internet to reach out to voters. “YouTube if you want to,” she wrote in the Observer newspaper May 3. “But it’s no substitute for knocking on doors.”
The expenses reports have hurt all parties. A tracking poll by PoliticsHome.com found Parliament’s approval rating had sunk below that of tabloid newspapers.
“In the morning, one of us will have to go down to the House of Commons terrace and commit hari kari,” Labour lawmaker Stephen Pound said in an interview. “If we all stripped to the waist and flagellated ourselves all the way to the cathedral, then the voters would accuse us of claiming for the ointment to make it better.”
