MPs corrupt practises cause constitutional crisis

Such is the situation faced by the country this Good Friday morning, according to former broadcaster and independent MP Martin Bell, as reported in the Guardian, linked here, as follows: "...Scotland Yard announced last night it would not be "appropriate" to launch an investigation into Conway after being advised by the CPS that "the lack of systems in this case to account for MPs' expenses would severely undermine the viability of any criminal investigation leading to a prosecution" The Metropolitan police statement added: "In these circumstances we do not believe that it is appropriate for a police investigation to be instigated." The gaps in the parliamentary scrutiny drew immediate criticism and calls for wholesale reform. Martin Bell, the former BBC journalist who was elected to parliament on an anti-sleaze ticket in 1997, told the Guardian: "This shows the need for external regulation. This has happened again and again and again. "Anyone who has tried to make MPs more accountable - from Elizabeth Filkin to Alistair Graham [both former Commons sleaze watchdogs] - has been removed. We are in a state of constitutional crisis. MPs are supposed to set an example to the rest of us and yet they think there is one rule for them and another for the rest of us." Conway was sacked as a Conservative MP and announced that he would not be standing at the next election after a Commons committee ruled that he had provided insufficient evidence to prove that his "all but invisible son" worked for him as a researcher at Westminster. A former Tory government whip, Conway had paid an annual £11,773 salary, plus bonuses of more than £10,000, to his younger son Freddie to work as a researcher while he was a student at Newcastle University." Our law-makers have contrived to make their own financial scams so woolly and disorganised that the nation's primary law enforcers, Scotland Yard, are unable to hold them to account. More on even graver aspects of this crisis for Britain over this holiday weekend.