Never Too Late

The MPs' expenses scandal casts a long shadow at Westminster - where certain MPs and 'noble' lords still give the impression that they have their noses shoved deep into the public trough.

But here's a talke to gladden the heart, a former Labour Minister - Kitty Usher - who has belatedly accepted that she was wrong to avoid paying thousands of pounds of tax on the sale of her home.

I hope the Labour leadership are listening because the same holds true for accepting donations from party donors -- which are based upon avoiding tax bills  as well.

But back to Kitty Ussher - who was a Treasury minister in Gordon Brown’s Government until she resigned 2009 - after “flipping” her main home to avoid paying capital gains tax.

In her resignation letter that Kitty claimed that she "did not do anything wrong" - as so many MPs did at the time - hiding behind rules which were having the Parliamentary equivalent of a coach and horses driven through tme every day.

Yet Kitty Ussher has seen the light at least and now admits to being at fault - which is refreshing because there are many MPs of all parties who are in the same boat - of benefiting from public money when no private gain was intended.

The other day Kitty issued a written statement which said:

"At the time I said I had done nothing wrong — after all it wasn’t unlawful. But actually that’s not the point — it was still wrong, but for other reasons.

"Public servants should always be at pains to ensure that they are not only compliant with the letter of the law but also with the spirit of it, and I did not focus on that. It was my mistake — and I paid the price for it."

Good for Kitty, the penny has finally dropped - and I hope it proves to be infectious because Kitty revealed that she has now paid back the £3,420 she had dodged - by telling the tax authorities that her constituency home was her “principal residence” for just one month in 2007.
Just goes to show you the 'killing' that some MPs were making for years while the expenses rules were being so blatanly abused.

What would restore public confidence is for an Independent Body to go back over the books for a defined period - say from the 2002 Westminster Parliament onwards - and produce a detailed report which shows who benefited personally from this misuse of public money.

The people involved should then be invited to follow Kitty's example about the importance of  the 'spirit' as well as the 'letter' of the law - and if they refuse to do so, they should be shown the door - or pursued for the money involved, if they have since moved on.

Seems to me that too many MPs are keen to talk tough about the bankers - but prepared to ignore the excessses of their own behaviour.