Expenses and Allowances - the bubble bursts

The major topic of conversation in the UK lately has — very unusually — been politics, or more precisely the behaviour of the people charged with performing the representative democracy at Westminster. The better question, in my opinion, about the alleged abuses by MPs and Peers of the allowances system is what was actually wrong about the system and why it happened. In every job I've had where I was refunded for expenses I incurred whilst doing that job, the essence was that I shouldn't be left out of pocket; I should not be penalised for working outside my usual hours or at other locations to my company office. Where the Inland Revenue was concerned, payments to me had to relate to extra costs incurred "wholly and solely" on behalf and because of the work I did. So where did MPs go wrong, indeed did they? Expenses can be organised as 'expenses' — where the refund is exactly the amount of the extra cost — or 'allowances' — where a set figure is paid from which the individual covers the related cost. Often a job may pay an 'evening meal allowance' or a 'per diem' and if the individual pays more they can't claim the extra but sometimes they may not spend it all and keep the difference. The allowance system is easier for an employer to operate as it is faster and simpler. Members of the House of Commons appear to have had a mixture of these options. The 'Additional Costs Allowance' came in during Thacher's government years, in part because the full salary amount recommended by the independent pay review board was not then authorised. Then, as has happened a number of times since, the PM of the day decided that the population at large would think MPs overpaid, so instead the ACA was introduced as a way to semi-hide the overall increase of payments to MPs. MPs haven't "set" their own salaries, they were only asked to "accept" the recommendation-reduced-by-the-PM figure. Recently one MP commented that MP salaries were said to be comparable to a typical GP, but has now dropped well behind. A few years later and it was supposed to be comparable to that of a Head Teacher at a secondary school, but again that teacher is now paid well above the rate of an MP. "We get the MPs we deserve" is, indeed, a truism. But we should also accept that they have a serious job to do, and that they have that job to do not only in the Chamber of the House, but also in the committee rooms, and Westminster Hall, and Portcullis House, and their constituencies. The MPs — and would-be MPs — I know all work an effective 7-day working week, of far more than the typical 8-hour working day. As such they should receive a sensible rate for the job. To suggest they shouldn't would mean a return to only those with private incomes being able to put themselves forward, and that would be a great loss to us all. The media has now covered this issue for two weeks, and whilst it is clearly important it has detracted from external, and more important, issues. Possibly Labour are even happy about this reduction in questions about their handling of the economy? With the removal of the address and other information from the data that was due to be published it would not have become clear how many people were, clearly, 'on the fiddle' re 'flipping' on homes and taking the proverbial, so The Telegraph is to be thanked for their actions, illegal or not there was clearly a public interest defence. Statements about claims being "by the rules" or "approved by the authorities/fees office" are trying to weasel out of getting found out of, basically, taking the p***. If someone is on benefit they can only get Housing payments based on the average costs in the area, not get whatever they ask for. There is almost an argument for building an 'MPs apartment block' within the sound of the division bell and funding only that. Australia have something similar in Canberra, so it is clearly workable. If someone wants to live elsewhere then the costs are up to them, not the tax-payer. It is difficult to know exactly how widespread the abuse has been as the published data is, not surprisingly, that which makes the best editorial. Clearly though there are some deep questions over the attitudes displayed by what might be a majority of members, across all parties. One could argue that where money is 'repaid' then they've then received tax-free loans at the expense of the taxpayer. The issue is considerably more complex than just the amounts of money involved. For all MPs it is unclear to me that new selection/adoption meetings by the (usually, comparatively) small number of activists involved will make an substantial difference (other than costs). Similar with calls for an immediate General Election; without all the evidence getting published and considered it is too soon.

Fallout

A few days ago I received a request from the Party to respond to an online questionnaire about the whole 'expenses' row, and thoughts on the replacement for Speaker Martin. They will be the subject of a post a little later, however I've just seen an announcement from Cowley Street.

Lord Chris Rennard is resigning as Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats 'at the end of the Summer'.

Whether it was coincidence or not that the questionnaire included one about the tenability of his position I am very sorry to see him leave. I recall attending his anniversary dinner in Brighton some years back during conference and a more knowledgeable bloke you couldn't hope to meet.

Deep Packet Inspection

Just to be clear, I'm writing here about the abomination that is the idea behind Phorm; that getting internet service providers to inspect — illegally and without the informed consent of their customers or the owners of the websites they visit — just about all that they do online not so that they can improve their services but because they want to add advertisements. Indeed they would have the ability to replace the advertisement that a website owner has on their site — something like the Amazon or Google ad bars which are on this page and can help finance its operations — with their own marketing, thus reducing the income of the sites concerned and, possibly, even forcing them to close through reduced income! Then there is the privacy issue. I look at a wide range of websites every day. Some are 'innocent', such as the Guardian's or BBC's news pages, MLB's tv service, Yahoo!'s tech developer pages. But there are also ones not quite so 'innocent' to some eyes. As the musical Avenue Q song has it, "The Internet Is for Porn" and, in that respect, I'm no different to nearly everyone else. But what one person likes to look at or read (food porn! tech catalogues!) should be their own private affair as I see it, unless such activity is criminally illegal anyway. And why should the fact that I visit particular websites mean I'm interested in related products anyway? I am forever viewing websites I have little no no interest in the content of, but I'm their to see how they solved (or failed to solve!) a particular interface issue, or at their design features, etc. Things that related to a professional interest. I'm not going to request an 'opt-out' from Phorm for the many sites I am responsible for personally or professionally as that would (a) condone their activities, and (b) still be traceable on a per-user basis (illogically to opt out requires a user cookie on every machine!) but I will be adding the following text to the Privacy pages on all sites: "PHORM PROHIBITED The contents of this site, and communications between this site and its users, are protected by database right, copyright, confidentiality and the right not to be intercepted as conferred by section 1(3) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The use of those contents and communications by Internet Service Providers or others to profile or classify users of this site for advertising or other purposes is hereby expressly and strictly forbidden. Liability for each separate and individual Interception will be retained by any and all ISPs who implement a deep packet interception system such as Phorm, or any system with similar workings as Phorm."

Yak shaving

"Yak shaving" is a wonderful term — reckoned to have been coined by Carlin Vieri at MIT — that boils down to a "you can't get that done without doing this … and this … and this … " (cf. "when you're up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget that the initial objective was to drain the swamp"). Well, earlier today I was thinking about my on-line diary. I wrote the first version — based on individual files for each month that were manually edited — back in 2002, and the following year converted it to use a MySQL database backend that could be edited and maintained fully online. It is still online and has been doing its job very successfully since then. However … It isn't iCal or CalDAV compatible. It does have a dump-to-Outlook option, but that is it. And this afternoon I started wondering again whether I should get around to making it more, um, "Web 2.0'ish". But back to the yak-shaving. After thinking about it, and reading Wikipedia articles, and searching for and reading the sites for different products (OpenSource only, naturally) I ended up concluding that it might actually be sensible to install a complete 'Collaboration Suite' instead of just a calendar server. So I am. If it works I'll let you know!