Transparency

Maybe I'm turning into the kind of old git I hate but I'm not going to let this go. It's about MPs and their expenses again. They are pretending, eventually, to be transparent but Jim Dowd is only transparent in the sense that he's invisible. Both his and Bridget Prentice's website now have a heading for "MPs' expenses". Inevitable, I suppose, but still rubbish. As before, Bridget is slightly less rubbish than Jim. Click on Jim's page, here's what you get. A link to the index on the Parliament website, not even to Jim's own expenses. Meanwhile Bridget offers this. Again, it's better than Jim, but to describe this as "details" is stretching it, and she also includes a link to the Parliament site.

Neither of them has bothered to offer any kind of comment on the recent controversy. So we can assume that both of them don't care that the reputation of MPs is now so low that estate agents feel like human beings in comparison.

It's a variation of the Mandelson paradox (if he's such a wiz at PR, why does everyone hate him?). If New Labour is really all about presentation over content, why are these two consummately New Labour MPs so bad at presenting themselves?

Jim Dowd and Petty Cash

A pretty good name for a country and western duo, don't you think?

Now that Parliament has "published" "details" of MPs' "expenses", we can have a better look at what Jim Dowd's been up to. Sorry, Jim, but it still is very boring. The main itemised expenditure is on his mobile phone (because clearly he would not have had a mobile phone if he had not been an MP) his ISP (Madasafish, as it happens, because, as we've seen, he's on the cutting edge of tinternet), and a large amount of expenditure on printer toner. (Actually, his mobile phone bills are really low. Does he have no friends?)

But every month without fail he spent £250 on "petty cash". Is it a coincidence that this is exactly the amount an MP can claim without evidence? There's absolutely no clue what this petty cash was spent on. And Jim might argue that he's followed the rules. He may even argue that he probably spent more than £250 a month on petty cashy things, whatever they are. But I don't suppose he knows.

To a cynic - and I wasn't always a cynic, honest - it looks as if he's basically added £3,000 a year (after tax) to his salary. Nice one, Jim.

Do they all do this? Bridget Prentice, my other non-existent MP, hasn't made a regular claim for petty cash. She also (as far as I remember) hasn't claimed for her mobile phone or internet connection.

At the last election, I broke the habit of a lifetime and didn't vote labour, because of Iraq and the assaults on civil liberties, etc, and because Jim had done nothing nothing nothing to object to these things. I'm increasingly glad I did that.

Even when he's (possibly) abusing the system, he does it with a complete lack of flair and style. He'll probably slip under the radar, get elected again next year, and carry on doing the nodding dog act, only this time in opposition.

My new MP does not exist

It was probably a waste of time to have a go at Jim Dowd the way I did. Because of boundary changes he's only my MP until the next general election, when my address becomes part of Lewisham East. I doubt if this will boost the value of my property.

So, what of the sitting MP in Lewisham East, Bridget Prentice? She's got a website but doesn't know how to use it, it seems. The main story on the home page says that "on Friday night I informed a packed meeting of Labour Party members of my decision to stand down at the next election" but there's no hint of when this particular Friday night was.

If you dig around, you find that she has a column called "Letter from Lewisham", which is nice. But the most recent entry is dated 1 December 2008 (and ironically headed "Fresh Hope"). Actually, the story itself is encouraging: she helped get the Forced Marriage Act through parliament, and it's clear it means a lot to her. She's rightly proud of her part in it. But nothing since then.

There's an odd page called "Have your say" where three people have left questions - the most recent in May this year - but no-one has provided an answer.

The biography page's most recent information is that on 9 May - what year? it doesn't say, but it was 2007 - she was "appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the department for Constitutional Affairs (now The Ministry of Justice)".

The latest press release is an interview with the Mercury from 24 October 2007.

A really random photo gallery includes a picture of someone called Josh Beasley in his vest for no apparent reason.

The "Publications and Speeches" page also seems to have run out of steam in 2007, as does the Video page.

So, not quite as bad as Jim, but similarly one is left with the impression that she really doesn't care any more. I suppose, to her credit, she did seem to care once, unlike Jim. And apparently she is still Parliamentary Under-Secretary, so she's got some reward for her Jim-like devotion to the party line.

I'm writing this the day after Labour backbenchers missed the chance to strike at Gordon Brown's leadership. Some have called them cowardly. From my experience, I think they're just not interested any more. Jim might get re-elected next time - he probably will - but it won't really make any difference to him if he doesn't. Bridget's already packed her bags. If the election's a year off, she just picks up another year's salary, and, it seems, doesn't have to do that much to get it.

This has been quite a depressing exercise, but I think it demonstrates that the Blair generation of Labour MPs is completely spent now.