Let me say from the off that I have no desire to pick though the minutiae of Paul’s expense claims. It is quite clear that there is nothing to be gained arguing about whether individual items were fair claims or not (and let’s face it, far worse were claimed by other MPs). But I do disagree with Paul’s claim that the Member for Wycombe needs a second home at all. Far better that Wycombe’s next MP should buy a season ticket and commute into London as most of his or her constituents do. The rail link from High Wycombe to London is excellent – and having your main home in the Constituency well help you to have more in common with those who you seek to represent.

Paul says that the House of Commons is sick, and in some ways I agree with him. It is right that our representatives should be able to draw on real life experiences. These may have been gained in business or in the workplace. But equally valid must surely be the experiences of others in our community. Would he discount, for example, the experience of parenthood, redundancy or those discriminated against because of disability? Paul rails against career politicians – but I don’t want a Parliament stuffed full of businessmen either. I want a Parliament representative of Britain today – and that means a mixed bag of people from all walks of life, with all kinds of life experiences.

That said, I don’t think that you can do justice to the role of MP unless you devote yourself to it full time. This brings us to the inevitable conclusion that you must pay MPs a realistic salary, and yes, we must pay them reasonable expenses. Not for moat cleaning and duck islands, mind you. Reasonable expenses like travel costs and living expenses for those MPs whose constituencies are far away from Westminster.

To find out how we got into this mess, you have to look way back to the days of the Thatcher administration. An independent review of MP’s pay at the time revealed that our representatives were actually underpaid. Afraid to face the public with this, a fudge was settled upon whereby MPs would continue to be underpaid, but instead be able to claim generous expenses. The expense scheme that MPs have been using would never have been tolerated in the private sector. Some MPs have taken advantage of the woolliness of the system and have been caught out.

There is an enigma in what Paul wrote in the Bucks Free Press when announcing his decision to stand down. He says that he admires and respects his leader, David Cameron. Yet he also says he expects Parliament to get worse, not better. Since most commentators expect Labour to lose the next election, does Paul not expect his party to make things better?

Paul alludes to the fact that the likely next MP from Wycombe will be his successor selected by his party. Let’s just think about this for a moment. The next MP for Wycombe will not be chosen by you! I Paul is right, he or she will be chosen by a small number of local Conservatives, since whoever they select is in pole position in what is considered a safe Conservative seat. The majority of Britain’s Parliamentary seats rarely change hands. The first past the post system we cling too, rejected as unfair by most of our neighbours, produces rotten boroughs. It is no coincidence that some of the most profligate MPs hit by the recent scandals also live in some of the safest seats. In many cases, they must have thought they had a job for life. Our present voting system does not make MPs equally accountable to the electorate, rather, those MPs in swing seats are the only ones with anything to fear.

The cure for the sickness is actually remarkably simple:
1. Fair pay for MPs with only genuine expenses claimable (as in the private sector).
2. Complete transparency as to how much each MP claims and for what.
3. Reform of the electoral system to ensure every MP is accountable to his or her constituents. No safe seats will keep them all on their toes!

To be elected to serve in any public role is an enormous privilege. Let’s make our democracy better and more accountable, so that our representatives can get on with sorting out the mess that our great nation has got into!

Oh, and if the next Tory candidate in Wycombe thinks he or she is in or an easy ride – they will be mistaken! The Labour Party may have pressed the self-destruct button, but the Liberal Democrats are fit and ready for the coming campaign.

Cllr Steve Guy is the official Liberal Democrat candidate for Wycombe at the next General Election.

Nick Clegg writing in the Guradian says “Finally the dam has broken, and everyone is talking about changing Britain’s political system. For decades reformers have been thwarted by Westminster inertia. But the MPs’ expenses scandal has overturned old certainties and made change possible.

This moment must be seized by all who want a different kind of politics. Warm words, rhetoric and consideration are not enough; indeed, they are a guarantee that little will happen. So let us bar the gates of Westminster and stop MPs leaving for their summer holidays until this crisis has been sorted out, and every nook and cranny of our political system has been reformed.”

“Today I’m setting out a plan of action to get all the changes we need delivered in just 100 days – making it possible for MPs to be sacked by constituents, abolishing the House of Lords, getting corrupt money out of politics and changing the electoral system to give everyone a voice. People will say it isn’t possible – parliament can’t act that quickly. I say the innate conservatism that marks out our political establishment is part of the problem. Let’s stop all this self-congratulatory hype about the mother of parliaments and get on with improving it.”

Read the full Guardian article at

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/27/nick-clegg-a-new-politics

Read the full proposals at http://www.takebackpower.org/

Join the campaign to save our Democracy.

This is now about salvaging public trust of the political class

It already feels like both a cliché and an understatement to say that this has been a bad week for politics. The barrage of revelations about MPs’ expenses has caused immense damage to the standing of all MPs, and Parliament itself. For many people all of the worst stereotypes of a sleazy, self-interested political class will have been confirmed.

Mistakes have been made on all sides, as have apologies, and money has rightly been paid back. But we absolutely cannot afford to dither and delay on a wholesale overhaul of the rules. If we want to salvage people’s trust we cannot allow these scandals to fester. With people across the country struggling under the weight of this recession we were already facing growing scepticism towards mainstream politicians. Without decisive reform on expenses that will become more profound and widespread. Our politics is on the edge of a cliff.

That’s why I approached Gordon Brown and David Cameron with proposals to clean up expenses last month. Regrettably they wouldn’t sign up to them then, but the media furore has now forced the other parties to open their eyes to this crisis, and a variety of different proposals are on the table.

That said, none of their ideas address the biggest loophole in the system. MPs are making hundreds of thousands of pounds by playing the property market with taxpayers’ money. We need to get MPs out of the property game altogether by adopting the system they use in Scotland, where only rent can be charged to the taxpayer, not mortgage costs. And in the meantime any MP who sells their second home should return any profit to the taxpayer.

It’s one of the major changes I’m asking Sir Christopher Kelly to recommend in his independent review. His inquiry is now more important than ever, and I’ve gone to the other party leaders again to urge them to declare publicly that they’ll accept his recommendations in full. In normal times I would be very reluctant to suggest we adopt proposals we haven’t yet seen. But these are not normal times. Only by binding our hands in this way – removing the ability for Parliament to quibble over the detail of Sir Christopher’s recommendations – will we have a chance of convincing people that we are serious about serving them, rather than our own interests.

That agreement should be cemented by an immediate parliamentary motion voted on without delay. This is no time to hesitate on doing the right thing. People will never forgive us if we do.

In a historic defeat for Gordon Brown, a Lib Dem motion condemning the government’s treatment of Ghurkas was passed by 267 votes to 246.

The vote is the culmination of a long campaign by the Liberal Democrats and Gurkha pressure groups, which has seen the Prime Minister challenged repeatedly on the issue by Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, and thousands of Gurkhas handing their medals to Mr Clegg to pass to Gordon Brown in protest at their treatment.

In a statement, Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat Leader) said:

This is an historic victory for the Gurkhas who have served our country so bravely.

This Government has now lost its moral authority. From the first moment I challenged Gordon Brown on this over a year ago, he didn’t understand that there was a simple moral principle at stake.

People who are willing to die for our country, should be allowed to live in our country.

The Government must listen to Parliament and scrap these shameful rules immediately and grant justice without conditions to all retired Gurkhas.

The result indicates the anger and disappointment with the Conservatives’ decision to cut services in Wycombe. The main issue of the campaign was their decision  to close the open air swimming pool without any consultation.

The full result was

Steve Guy (Liberal Democrat) 733

Tim Hewish (Conservative) 408

Ian Bates (Labour) 214

Spoilt Papers 3

Turnout 31%

In his acceptance speech Steve Guy paid tribute to Glyn Galbraith who’s untimely death had led to the by-election. It was apparent meeting residents of Totteridge that Glyn was held in high regard.

Steve said “I would like to thank all the voters who put their faith in me and I promise to work hard for all the residents of Totteridge.”

Wycombe Tories fail to see the huge benefits of encouraging swimming. At a time when we learn that one in four of our young people are overweight, local Conservatives have closed our beloved open air pool and refused to take part in this laudable scheme to encourage more people to swim.

The Fuel Poverty Bill, introduced by Liberal Democrat MP David Heath, proposed steps to make homes more energy-efficient. The Bill would have forced energy companies to offer their lowest tariffs to the most vulnerable households, but was rejected in its second reading in the House of Commons this afternoon. It received 89 votes for and two votes against – but needed 100 votes to proceed. The MP for Wycombe failed to turn up alongside nine out of ten of his Conservative colleagues – in spite of his party ‘officially’ backing the Bill. The Labour Government officially opposed the Bill.

Steve Guy said:

The inaction of Paul Goodman and his Tory colleagues has cost vulnerable constituents the chance of cheaper energy bills.

People in Wycombe should not have to face a choice between heating and eating. The Labour Government has done far too little in twelve years to tackle this.

Wycombe needs a Member of Parliament who will fight for local people – and turn up and vote on the issues that matter.  I am disappointed that Paul Goodman and his colleagues failed to turn up when it mattered to his most vulnerable constituents.

45 Liberal Democrat MPs turned up to back the bill. Only 20 Conservative MPs – one in ten of their number in Parliament – voted for the Bill on Friday, in spite of so-called ‘official’ Conservative support.

The Bill is backed by groups including:

Age Concern
* Help the Aged
* Child Poverty Action Group
* Disability Alliance
* Friends of the Earth
* Centre for Sustainable Energy
* Sustainable Energy Partnership
* UNISON

A full breakdown of fuel poverty figures by constituency can be found at: http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/en/Default.aspx?n1=30&n2=406. According to their figures some 5,834 households in Wycombe are in fuel poverty.

Wycombe Liberal Democrats have selected Steve Guy as their candidate. Steve is an active campaigner who has struck a chord with residents in High Wycombe. He has worked in a number of campaigns (some of them still ongoing) including:

• Local Post Office closures
• The Campaign to save Holywell Mead pool
• The Campaign to achieve Fairtrade Town status for High Wycombe

Steve Guy

Steve says:

‘The ruling Conservative group on Wycombe District Council has really lost its way. When they were elected, their literature pledged lower Council Tax whilst protecting local services. They have failed on both counts.

Well over 2,000 people responded to our campaign to save the beloved open air pool on The Rye – but we were accused of “pandering to public opinion”. The Conservatives would do well to remember that they were put in place to serve the people of Wycombe District, and the opinion of the people of Wycombe District matters.

This is an opportunity for the people to be heard. I hope the people of Totteridge will use their votes to send a message to the Council that they do not wish to be ignored any more. If elected, I pledge to be a councillor who listens to people and represents them vigorously.

Steve is also a keen environmentalist and a school governor. If you would like to help with the campaign, please contact campaign manager Ian Morton using the ‘Contact Us’ page.

• a budget for serving the people of Wycombe.
• a budget recognising the value of Wycombe District staff.
• a budget that supports the voluntary sector.
• a budget that funds Holywell Mead Swimming Pool for 1 year.
• a budget that reduces the Council Tax increase from the Conservatives proposed 3.2% to 3%.

The Liberal Democrat alternative budget would reduce the council Tax increase from 3.2% to 3% AND provide funding for both the Holywell Mead Open Air Pool and the Environment Centre. Under the Lib Dem plan some of the funds that have been provided to the Council in the form of grants and sat in the councils bank account would have been used. This plan was checked with the Councils finance team and would have been permitted and would not risk the financial standing of the Council. So it was a surprise that Conservative members who stated in their last manifesto that they wanted to hold Council Tax increases down whilst protecting services would find any reason to oppose it. Conservative members squirmed and wriggled in their seats as it became clear that their leadership would not allow them to vote for a lower Council Tax and save community services.

Thank you to everyone who backed our alternative budget including Labour and Independent Councillors.

Over 2100 residents backed the petition to save the pool. Ian Morton & Wendy Guy deliver the Petition.