Pretty dim of him, it has to be said. And corrupt etc. However, this line rankles:
The scandal also highlights David Cameron’s failure to bring in promised laws to allow disgraced MPs to be expelled from Parliament
Err, no.
The powers that be don\’t get to decide who sits in Parliament. The electors decide that. This is actually an important point too. My knowledge of the John Wilkes story is pretty sketchy but wasn\’t it rather about this point?
It isn\’t the party leaders who decide who sits in the Commmons. Not the government, a committee of moral arbitrators, it\’s the electors.
I\’m entirely fine with the whip being withdrawn of course. And with criminal prosecution for criminal acts, even with the few basic rules we have about eligibility (ie, no bankrupts may sit or be elected) and anyone being sentenced to over a year inside having to resign.
I\’m even just ecstatic about the idea of recall elections: but that\’s very much the point. As it is the electors who hire then it must be the electors who fire: and most certainly not some organ of the very State that the MPs are supposed to be (I knowq, fat chance but….) overseeing and monitoring.
Just not on at all.
They’re presumably referring to recall elections, just using really crappy English. In which case it is the electorate deciding they want to get shot of the Colonel early.
Yes, I think the key word is “allow” so I’m with the Ox here.
“Right of recall” is the electorate deciding.
Nothing to do with Cameron, the whips, or other MPs.
I do not much care for recall elections. The voters have made their mind up, and their member must be free to do what his conscience dictates, even if it is massively unpopular down in the shires or wherever.
On the other hand if we are going to do this, we should do it properly and the old fashioned way. Instead of expelling them, the best and most traditional solution must surely involve a large wicker structure in the shape of a man and some matches. (Bloody Romans, what did they ever do for us? Recall elections? Ha!)