That is an uncomfortable option, since the Labour government faces almost-certain annihilation and many opposition MPs will find themselves out of the job. The reason for this black cloud is symbolized by the 67 pence that one veteran MP has claimed for a package of Ginger Crinkle biscuits on his expenses, the bags of manure another Conservative MP bought with public money and a swimming pool that another one of his colleagues maintained on the taxpayers' shilling. British MPs have been engaged in the wholesale padding of their expense accounts, using their deputies' allowances to buy plasma television sets and, in the bizarre case of a former agricultural minister, dredge out the moat around his estate. Some of the abuses seem artfully crooked -- like claiming for second “constituency homes” that are nothing of the sort, claiming mortgage relief for loans they have paid back and using other people's money to repair properties they have sold on at a handsome profit.The scandal has already forced the speaker of the House of Commons to announce a date for his resignation, the first speaker to be forced out of office since 1695. His offence was not what he claimed for himself, but trying to keep a fetid system under wraps. The crisis has also claimed the scalp of a junior minister of justice and forced a senior aid of the leader of the opposition to give up the job. The damage it has done to the reputation of elected officials is much harder to calculate. The tolerance that MPs show for their own foibles contrasts with the censoriousness they, and society in general, display to those who abuse social security benefits. The subtext to this all is that the UK government and bureaucracy have been slowly building up the capacity to interfere with and pry into the private lives of British citizens without being accountable either for what they do with the information or how they conduct themselves. That particular immunity has now collapsed and it happened because a man with a data processor was outraged by some of the items passing across his desk. He leaked the expense accounts to The Daily Telegraph newspaper -- motivated by the public's right to know and what is rumored to be a very large check.
What is curious is how little resonance the story has outside of Britain. It hardly makes it to the inside pages of the Turkish press. Partly this is because it is hard to take a profound interest in the particulars of other nations' scandals. Indeed, Italians seem to admire their prime minister for the liberties he takes. Scandal appears to fuel his popularity. In Turkey (I suspect) the public would find it confusing to know what the fuss was all about. Much of the money claimed in Britain is improper rather than illegal and does not exceed $5-6 million. Compare this to the $1 million commission a deputy head of the ruling party was reported to have got for being the middle man in an attempt to change zoning regulations and thus dramatically increase the value of a piece of İstanbul property. He eventually slipped away from his job but, to the best of my knowledge, does not face prosecution. And what Turkish newspaper would be prepared to take up arms against the whole political class? The Doğan Group tried to point the finger at government corruption over money extorted from a charitable trust and found themselves under a sudden tax investigation. Other newspapers were reluctant to rush to its defense because the media group has used street-brawling tactics to defend its own commercial interests in the past.
So while cynicism might be a healthy emotion, there is clearly a danger of taking too large a dose. Democracies need to view those who serve them with suspicion, but not so much that they themselves feel powerless. In Britain, importantly, the expense account crisis has focused attention less on individual misdeeds and more on the need to reconstruct parliament so that it is seen to be accountable. It is a valuable lesson to learn.
