Currently, Parliament does not meet for a long enough period of the year. Far too much of its time is spent with MPs effectively being “on holiday”. Of course, much of this “holiday” is nothing of the sort – the majority of MPs will be busy doing work in their constituency instead.
It does look really rather poor the amount of time they spend away from Parliament at the moment. They had a 24 day break for Christmas 2009 and currently take a 12-week summer break. 3 whole months! That’s a …

The annual cost of the new parliamentary body to be set up to monitor MPs expenses – the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – is due to cost £6.5 million per annum, with most of this expected to go on recruiting 80 staff.
Let’s look at the costs:

From the Legg review, MPs paid back £1.12m, referring to the past five years.

The Legg review cost us to run £1.16m.

Just after the Legg report, we’re actually down £40k. But, of yes, there was also the inquiry by the standards watchdog.

The Sir Christopher Kelly …

A hung parliament is, if we take the recent poll results as gospel, on the cards. The Conservatives need a national poll lead of 11 points in order to guarantee a majority, but the current polls are suggesting a lead of seven to nine points. Hence the plethora of “what will happen in the event of a hung parliament?” questions being posed. Even the Queen is being primed on what could happen.
But a hung parliament is still a relatively unlikely event. The MPs expenses won’t make have of an impact …

This is how David Cameron wants to do it:

I’ll be writing some commentary on this tomorrow.

As if it isn’t bad enough that they defraud the taxpayer through their expense claims to such an extent that the CPS has felt necessary to prosecute them – the first time so many parliamentarians have been brought before the courts since the build up to the Civil War – the three Labour MPs are trying to claim immunity.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine… have employed leading constitutional lawyers to argue that their conduct cannot be tried in a criminal court and that only Parliament can discipline them.
It is …

It sounds rather like a middle-class sex position, doesn’t it? But if you ignore that (and get that image out of your head – that took me a while…) and read this Political Betting post:

So here we are – what many MPs are hoping will be the low point for them in the whole expenses saga – the publication today of the Legg Report…
The general theory, backed up by election after election, is that incumbent MPs get an electoral bonus. Could this affair see that produce the opposite. Will 2010 …

Oh the irony:

MPs’ select committees must be streamlined to make them more effective at scrutinising government business, a report says.
Some have up to 14 members, making it “well-nigh impossible” for them all to question witnesses properly, the Commons liaison committee adds…
The 32-member liaison committee – made up of the chairmen of all the Commons select committees – urges Parliament to “act courageously” in making changes. (BBC)

So 14 members is too many, but 32 isn’t? Hmmm…

“Sir Robin” MPs – Labour and Lib Dem MPs in a Tory target seat who have decided to stand down rather than contest the next general election against a Tory – and so named by Tory Bear (after the Monty Python sketch) should not get any of their up-to £60,000 pay-off. And the same should go for all MPs – regardless of party or reason – who are standing down at the general election.
The reason for this is simple: by choosing not to stand for re-election, they have effectively resigned. …

Under Conservative plans to bury the “Zac Goldsmith is a non-dom and Michael Ashcroft might be” news stories, all members of the UK Parliament – both the House of Commons and the House of Lords – will be required to be, or be treated as, a UK taxpayer.
A new law will be introduced immediately after a Conservative general election victory making all peers and MPs have to pay UK taxes.
This is precisely the sort of move that is necessary both from a PR and political point of view. It shows …

MPs will be given the right to appeal the expenses claims requested by Sir Thomas Legg, which is fair enough. If the MPs think that what they are being asked to repay is incorrect, they should have the ability to appeal it. But on one condition: if their appeal against the claims fails and that the repayment is deemed “fair and equitable”, they must then repay the money without any further complaining.
If they don’t, it’s nice to see that they’ve been reading this blog (or, more likely, just come up …