Retrospective rulings are not the answer Britain

Come on now Britain. Retrospective law is not cool. It’s not the way we do things. Not even for politicians. Honestly.

What became abundantly clear during the expenses row over the summer was that the system of MP’s allowances was badly out-of-date and in need of reforms to make it more transparent and acceptable to the electorate. These changes are coming. In fact, many have already come. However, changing the rules and then applying them backwards to MP’s claims over the last five years is not the answer.

Yes they had a jammy system; yes they were claiming lots; yes Alan Duncan boasted of their ‘great system’ on Have I Got News For You, but whether we like it or not most of them were claiming for expenses legitimately and with the sanction of the Commons authorities. They weren’t breaking the rules as they stood. I know the whole ‘I acted within the rules’ line has become a cliché trotted out but it’s actually mainly true. There are a few very shady characters who’ve been exposed as fraudsters or liars, but most were simply making the most of the ‘great’ system. Lucky sods, but not criminals.

And so punishing them retrospectively really is unfair. Perhaps they should’ve reformed the system, but come on! There’s a lot of things they ‘perhaps’ should’ve done and we’ll punish them for that at the polls, but to change the rules and then say they should’ve stuck to the future rules rather than the present ones is totally unfair. I think that it’s pretty jammy that you don’t have to have a TV licence to watch BBC iPlayer and am cashing in as much as I can. If the BBC were to change the rules and then charge me for the last year because I’d been making the most of the old (jammy) rules I’d tell them to stick it. And anyway they couldn’t enforce it – it’s retrospective rule and it’s arbitrary and unfair. The same is true for Legg’s new rules. Stick them. Many MPs have already been punished and there is a lot more to come as we enter the run up to the Election – we don’t need to use unconstitutional, arbitrary decrees to pay back £710 to achieve this.