Coming soon, to a constituency near you

Just finishing Roy Porter's Flesh in the Age of Reason and found this nugget.

Thomas Love Peacock's novel Melincourt (1817) features a character called Sir Oran Haut-Ton (say it out loud).

This higher primate has been taught to dress in human clothes, and despite - or rather precisely because of - being utterly silent, Sir Oran makes an impeccable backbench Tory MP.

But, seriously, just imagine the quality of some of the Tory MPs who'll make it into parliament next year. All the useless second sons and brothers-in-law, who've been given seats presumed unwinnable to keep them quiet or return a favour, will just have to turn up in a blue rosette to get elected.  They'll make Jim Dowd look like Abraham Lincoln.

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.

Does my MP actually exist?

Because I live in inner London, my MP, Jim Dowd, is untouched by the second homes expenses storm. That's a pity. It might make him slightly interesting. I've just looked at his website to see if he has any comment to make. Nah. On the latest news page there's a generic labour story about what it's doing for the economy. Jim's contribution appears to have been to paste in the words "Bromley and Lewisham". The story isn't really news at all, is it, Jim? Maybe that's why there's no date on it. Let's look at the more general news.

Jim has shown his support for whales. Good for Jim. Again, no clue when this was. Second item: he's visited a day centre in Sydenham. Sometime. Moving down, he's angry with Boris Johnson for scrapping the Tramlink extension to Crystal Palace. He's so angry he says:

[Boris] shows that he has no leadership skills, but then again he is not a Londoner, and the people of South East London can only be truly grateful that he was around when the difficult decisions regarding the extension of the East London Line was made.

Not quite what you meant, Jim, but why bother proof-reading? I can't imagine anyone but me - suffering from early Sunday morning insomnia - ever reads this.

But, as before, not a clue as to when these things happened. Jim could have had a very busy day yesterday, or he could have done nothing for months.

OK, Jim may not have his fingers in the till, but he's still being paid an awful lot to turn up and vote as the party tells him. For all I know he may be a very good constituency member, solving constituents' problems brilliantly. But the evidence - on a site that he has total control over - is that he's doing nothing. Either that or he's the world's worst communicator.

And now I'm nearly crying with bitterness and contempt, as I've found a link to New article / blog entry / news. Imagine my anticipation as I clicked on it. Undated, again, here's the full entry:

I spent the morning with members of Perry Vale Safer Neighbourhood Team on a walk about in the ward.

Jim, no-one can be quite this useless. I think the kindest conclusion is that you don't actually exist. Sometime between 1997 and now, you just dwindled away. First, you stopped casting a shadow. Your voice went next. You became blurry around the edges, slightly transparent, and one day - pop! - you just disappeared.

Freedom of information

With Jack Straw finally ending any thought that I might vote Labour at the next election, maybe it's time to think about some of the inconsistencies of this govt. As Charlie Brooker tweeted it:

So: *we* can scarcely take a shit without 100 CCTV cameras recording our arsehole's every splutter, while *they*...

The Freedom of Information Act is basically a good intention, but how it works is ridiculous. I suspect the majority of enquiries are born of mischief or boredom, rather than any sense of injustice. I suppose the difficulty is that enquirers don't have to demonstrate or even claim any particular reason for wanting to know the information requested. So I could write to Cornwall County Council asking for details of how many councillors claimed lunch allowances in 2008 and how often, just for fun (no, really, it is some people's idea of fun). And the Council would have to do the research and give me an answer. It's a massive waste of everyone's time. But when it really matters, when the govt might be revealed to have been a coalition of the criminal, the cowardly and the careerist, of course it falls apart.

Meanwhile, the govt goes ahead with plans to retain every email sent or received, because anyone might turn out to be a terrorist. It makes taking a photo of a copper a potential criminal offence, totally ignoring any question of mens rea, instead saying that it can be a defence to have a "reasonable excuse" for taking the picture. A total reversal of the presumption of innocence.

And of course id cards, cameras every where, dna database. "Well if you've nothing to hide, why worry?" they say. I think Jack Straw's just invalidated that argument.

I'm actually prouder every day that I didn't vote Labour last time. My MP, Jim Dowd, made my decision very easy by being a total lickspittle, with no apparent capacity for independent thought. Who else to vote for, though? I'm angry that the Labour party has basically disenfranchised me.

And actually, even without the disclosure of the cabinet discussion, we now know, better than ever, that it is indeed a coalition of the criminal, the cowardly and the careerist.