Integrity in politics: beams and ‘moats’
Michael Bartlet, Britain Yearly Meeting's Parliamentary Liason Secretary, looks at the loss of public trust in politics
While journalists attack MPs with righteous ferocity for exposing beams and digging out moats, the real beam in our national eye, the collapse of authority of parliament and its failure to check a growing inequality of wealth, gets rather less attention. Had this issue been given the oxygen of publicity that ignited the firestorm on expenses, it could have transformed political debate. At one end of the spectrum – claiming for non-existent mortgages – the activity of some MPs was simply criminal. Fraudulent claims for mortgages should be treated no differently from fraudulent claims for social security benefits. The police should investigate and the courts determine responsibility. At the other end of the spectrum, that of innuendo and slur, we would do well to remember the insight of William Penn: ‘Believe nothing against another but on good authority; and never report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to some other to conceal it.’ It is a shame that the claim for a duck island may never have happened. It was such a good story it should have been true.
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