The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said there was “no intention” of MPs having to go “into any detail” about the work they pay family members to do. Erm, why? We, the poor suffering taxpayer, are paying for them so why should we not know what work they are doing?
Besides, what exactly would the point of just having a register of who has family members working for them without any further details? The issue with Derek Conway wasn’t that he was employing his sons, but that he was paying them …

More than fifty MPs have laid off members of their staff recently after the Derek Conway expenses scandal, presumably since they were family members and the MPs did not want to – or simply could not – defend their employment.
Presumably this is why MPs were given until April to declare the details of family members they employ, so that they could all lay them off and thus claim to be shining paragons of virtue.
Despicable.

Seventy Conservative MPs – including David Cameron – and “about 12″ Lib Dem MPs employ members of their family. Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have made no declarations of the number of their MPs who employ family members, though 33 Labour MPs are said to have admitted they do.
I can’t see any issue at all with MPs employing members of their family. Derek Conway wasn’t “employing” his children, but just passing them money under the guise of employment. But actually just employing them to do a job is no …

So Derek Conway has resigned. He really had no choice after the revelations that he had employed both of his sons at the taxpayer’s expense for minimal work, and Cameron withdrew the whip from him. Personally, I appreciate Iain Dale’s stance on Derek Conway: he’s a friend, so anything he wants to he’ll say to Derek’s face. Simple human decency. It appears to be a dying breed.
But after the furore that has risen around Conway, there appears to be suggestions to ban MPs from employing family members. Really, this is …

If this makes Cameron weak, Mike, what does that make Brown?!
At least Cameron is actually taking action against someone who broke the rules, rather than ignoring it with members of his Cabinet! Conway, at least, was just a backbencher.
If Cameron has shown himself to be “weak”, what has Brown shown himself to be in comparison?!

Tory MP Derek Conway has been outed as employing his son as a parliamentary researcher whilst he was a full-time student and paying him £1,000-plus per month, with a total of around £13,000 salary – plus bonuses. And all from taxpayer’s funds, for work that wasn’t done. Certainly not work to that value, anyway.
There is no excuse for what he has done. It is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable. He should have to repay every penny that has been wrongly taken. Every. Single. Penny. From his own money.
Just giving him a …