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Tom Richmond: Winners, losers and the MPs who profited at our expense
IN 50 years' time, people will still look back on 2009 – the year of the expenses scandal – and ask themselves: Just how it could it happen? It's a measure of this scandal's magnitude that it eclipsed the recession's reverberations, even though Britain has never been mired in so much debt.
Both the slump, and the arrogant misuse of public money by MPs, impacted upon every region of the country – including Yorkshire.
But, after a politically bruising year, and on the eve of an election when Labour rule is predicted by many to end after three terms in office, who were this area's political winners and losers?
LABOUR
Good year: It's ironic that Caroline Flint should be singled out when she was one of the Cabinet Ministers who resigned in June – and plunged the Government into crisis following the stiletto heel resignation.
However, the Don Valley MP has quickly discovered that there's more to politics than being a bit-part Cabinet member, albeit one with the contentious Europe brief. She can speak her mind, rather than being bound by collective responsibility.
Indeed, she quickly discovered that backbenchers can, in some instances, yield more power than Cabinet heavyweights when her rebellion forced her nemesis, Gordon Brown, to halt plans to scrap tax relief on childcare vouchers. As such, this liberating experience proved that independence of thought is a priceless political commodity.
Bad year: So many to choose from – including the pro-EU Richard Corbett who lost out in the European elections. Remember him? Yet, in expenses year, it has to be Elliot Morley, the Scunthorpe MP facing a police inquiry, and possible prosecution, after claiming 16,000 for a "phantom mortgage".
This came to symbolise the Parliamentary expenses crisis, forcing Morley to announce that he will step down at the next election. It's not just a personal crisis – Morley's downfall is Westminster's loss. As a former Agriculture Minister, and chairman of the Environment Select Committee, his years of experience are useful in holding the Government to account. He only has himself to blame.
One to watch: Ed Miliband, a Doncaster MP and untainted by expenses (apart from his office bill for bottled water). The smooth-talking Climate Change and Energy Secretary has also not become embroiled in the endless speculation about Labour's leadership – unlike his elder brother David, the Foreign Secretary.
If Labour miraculously wins the election, he can expect a big promotion. If it loses, Miliband junior is ideally placed to succeed Gordon Brown, in part because he's made fewer enemies than his rivals.
CONSERVATIVE
Good year: Many thought David Davis's career was over when he resigned, impetuously, as Shadow Home Secretary in 2008, triggering a "vanity by-election" in Haltemprice and Howden on the issue of civil liberties.
Yet, just as Caroline Flint is discovering, Davis clearly relishes being able to speak for himself from the backbenches. His attack this month on David Cameron's obsession with "green" politics also struck a chord with party members and climate change sceptics – the newly-named "flat-earthers". He remains one of the few voices of authority in the Commons.
Bad year: Elizabeth Truss may have avoided an attempt to de-select her in South West Norfolk after it was revealed she had an affair with a Tory MP five years ago – but the deputy director of the Reform think-tank remains deeply damaged. Born in Yorkshire, Truss, 34, cut her political teeth locally when she fought – unsuccessfully – the Parliamentary seats of Hemsworth in 2001 and Calder Valley in 2005. Her research work, however, brought her to Cameron's attention. Though highly-regarded, and tipped for Ministerial office, the de-selection row symbolised the Tory Party's attempts to ride roughshod over the views of local activists. It also exposed just how little grassroots party members – and voters – know about their prospective MPs.
One to watch: Having seen off a constituency backlash in the newly-created Thirsk and Malton seat which she will contest, Anne McIntosh remains the Tories' Shadow Floods Minister.
Always placed directly behind David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions, the Vale of York MP hopes to keep the floods brief in an incoming Tory government.
It will be a challenge. She'll be one of many rookie ministers who will be severely tested. If Yorkshire or Cumbria is flooded again, McIntosh will have to respond. She will only be able to blame Labour's inadequacies and under-investment for so long.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Good year: York-born Vince Cable stands head and shoulders above all other Liberal Democrats. For, despite his misjudged "mansion tax" proposals, Cable is a rarity – an economist whose stock has risen in the recession.
He uses language that the public understand, and his arguments are backed up by conviction. It's little wonder that he is Britain's most trusted politician. When Cable speaks, people listen – even though they do not necessarily support his party's wider economic message. Contrast this to Tory Shadow Chancellor George "we're all in this together" Osborne. When the "pipsqueak" talks, people switch off and contemplate voting Labour (despite the state of the public finances).
Bad year: There's only one contender – Richard Brett, the Lib Dem co-leader of Leeds City Council, for his handling of the tortuous bin strike. As well as losing the PR battle, he – and his Tory coalition partner Andrew Carter – had to eventually back down on many of the key union demands.
Street after street of uncollected rubbish became a national embarrassment to Leeds. No one believed – or trusted – the council's utterances. Their intransigence was insulting to council tax payers. It
left one abiding thought. If this is coalition working at a local level, can it work nationally? Not on this evidence.
One to watch: Greg Mulholland has become a doughty campaigner – particularly on transport – in the best Liberal Democrat traditions. The Leeds North West MP is also a highly-respected health spokesman.
He's clearly going places. Yet he was primarily elected in 2005 on the back of university students being vehemently opposed to the Iraq war. That will not be a factor next year in a classic three-way marginal. If Mulholland is re-elected, the Lib Dems could, potentially, deny the Tories an outright majority. If he loses, two-party politics will be back with vengeance.
Whatever happens in the year ahead, and irrespective of the election outcome, there is one cast-iron certainty – Yorkshire politicians
will be at the heart of the national debate.
Like this year, 2010 promises to be a year to remember. The imponderable, as always, is for whom – and for what?
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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