UK allowances scandal

Perhaps the biggest outrage in UK politics in the past few days have been the detailed revelations through the Daily Telegraph of MPs, including Cabinet Ministers, claiming expenses for items that in the private sector would be paid for out of salary. The most damning revelations have been those claiming a "second home allowance" when their first home is either commutable to London, the second home isn't commutable to London or when the second home being claimed has expenses that are luxurious.

Most of those implicated are Labour MPs, though the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and even Sinn Fein are also caught up in the scandal.

The true scandal is that all of these were approved, apparently allowed under the rules, so there is little likelihood of any legal redress- the system itself allows MPs to featherbed at taxpayers' expense. At a time when so many taxpayers are struggling int he recession, it looks quite simply as if MPs see their salaries as a perk, while they can claim most of the costs of living from the taxpayer.

What is astonishing is the complete disconnect between so many of these MPs and their association with the general public. One MP, Margaret Moran, appeared on the BBC to justify claiming £22,500 to treat dry rot at her second home in Southampton, days after selecting it as a second home, (she is the MP for Luton South, not that far from Westminster). She said:

Margaret Moran: "I have to be able to have a proper family life sometimes which I can't do unless I share the costs of the Southampton home with him (her partner, Booker)."

Andrew Sinclair: "But why should the taxpayer pay for your home in Southampton when clearly you are not using it for work?"

Margaret Moran: "Well, I... I... I...you could argue that I use it to be able to sustain my work. Any MP has to have a proper family life.

Margaret - you chose to be MP for Luton South, you chose a partner living in Southamption, deal with it and take your filthy pilfering hand out of taxpayers' pockets to pay for your lifestyle choice. Pay it back you thief.

Further revelations include Sinn Fein MPs Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, claiming £3,600 a month for a flat in London that is rarely used as they never attend Westminster out of opposition to British control of Northern Ireland.

The Daily Telegraph has extensive details of all the claims, including how one Labour MP bought three beds in nine months, one Conservative MP claimed the cost of coathangers, one Conservative MP claiming chimney sweeping for a country home, one Labour MP claiming 23p for a lemon, one Liberal Democrat MP claiming a Sky TV subscription with family pack and now the Conservative MP who claimed money for someone to change a lightbulb for him (the Skills Shadow Minister no less).

However for the easiest summary try this slideshow.

The clearest implication of all this is how much this scandal brings into disrepute not only the Labour Party and the government, but MPs generally. The Daily Telegraph was accused early on of political bias for highlighting Labour MPs, and given the well known political leanings of the Telegraph ("Torygraph" being one commonly used description), that was not surprising, but the revelations about MPs across the political spectrum destroys that.

The upcoming local authority and European Elections are likely to see Labour punished, but one of the concerns is that people will vote for the closet racist BNP, as the "anti-politics" party in protest. UKIP (UK Independence Party) may also do well.

Sadly, whilst many Britons hold politicians in disrepute, the idea that politicians would give up control of the health, education, pension and welfare systems would remain an anathema. That is the disconnect that the fledging UK Libertarian Party ought to take advantage of. Sadly, socialism remains ingrained in British politics that so many fear they will be ripped off by the private sector in health and education, but don't recognise that is exactly what is happening by the state sector.

Gordon Brown has since apologised on behalf of all political parties and calls for public trust to be restored in the "profession". Guido Fox rightfully says:

"Politics is not a profession Gordon, it is a racket, and this has been going on for decades not days. Guido won't believe they are sorry until they pay back the money they have embezzled. Then they will be really sorry…"

Quite. However, will the public have long enough memories to damn those exposed in this scandal at the 2010 election?

Road User Charges review sensible outcome

Transport Minister Steven Joyce has just released the results of the Independent Review into the Road User Charging system. Given that, with one exception, nobody else in the blogosphere knows this area more than I do, I thought I'd give it the once over.

Overall, most of its conclusions are wise. There is no case for diesel tax, as diesel tax would not be a charge for using the roads, but a tax on fuel. 36% of diesel is used off road, so those users would need to be refunded if a diesel tax were about road use. Diesel tax is easier for governments to siphon off for other purposes, but road user charges have always been dedicated to the land transport fund.

The economically rational idea of charging an access fee for road users was never going to fly, although I'd advocate getting rid of rates funding for local roads and for local road owners to charge access fees for driveways for adjacent properties.

Beyond that, the report recommends many tweaks to the system, including (finally) moving to buying RUC licences online, and the NZTA commit itself to improve service delivery. Frankly it needs to be open to competition from service providers, with NZTA wholesaling the activity.

Reviewing RUC annually would be helpful too, review meaning rates can go in BOTH directions.

A trial of an electronic system should be welcomed, but a far better approach would be to set the road operators free. The state highway network should be split from NZTA into a SOE, which could set its own charging system directly with road users if they wished. Council roads should be set up similarly, and all of these road companies would receive money based on usage, and would be able to raise and lower charges as they saw fit.

Funnily enough this was National Party policy until 1999, and is currently ACT policy. It's simple - bureaucrats cannot run an efficient customer service or pricing system that is responsiuve to demand and costs, and avoid politicians siphoning off the funds for other purposes. The sooner roads are commercialised, and then a trial of privatisation (the Auckland Harbour Bridge and its approaches are a good start), the better!

UPDATE: The Institute of Professional Engineers of NZ is supporting the outcome of the review. Given IPENZ understands highway construction and maintenance I am not surprised.

The Motor Industry Association is upset, because it supports a diesel tax (because it is simpler), and thinks that RUC is unfair because it doesn't recognise environmental advantages of diesel. Well, a system designed to pay for road maintenance wouldn't be, would it? Government doesn't pay environmental "costs", so you might ask why it should charge for them.

Tony Friedlander for the Road Transport Forum is pleased with the recommendations, no doubt focusing on introducing a new access fee that would mean RUC drops!

Budapest - museum capital of the world

Well maybe. Besides a good selection of art galleries, the Museum of Terror focused on communism and fascism, the Jewish Museum and Holocaust museum, national history, transport, and standard national and metropolitan museums, Budapest has ample evidence of a past when whole families were expected to go out on a Sunday and observe the past (going to church wasn't a big deal under Marxism-Leninism).

I haven't been to any of these, but it is rather sad that I am curious about more than one of them (and have no time to go now):

Pharmacy Museum
Museum of Actors and Actresses
Stamp Museum
Bible Museum
Underground Railway Museum
Military Baths Museum (baths would be too big a category)
Ambulance Museum
Electrical Engineering Museum
Museum of Hungarian Commerce and Catering (how did people cook in the past?)
Television Museum of the Technical and Programming TV (not just communist TV)
Marzipan Museum (see how unnatural it is?)
Agricultural Museum
Geological Museum (don't look at new rocks)
Foundry Museum
Postal Museum (not the stamp museum, don't expect stamps here!)
Museum of Crime (got to be worth a look!)
Museum of Medical History (not pharmacies though!)
Sport Museum
Telephone Museum
Textile Museum
Fire Service Museum
Flag Museum

So it is either the place for museum buffs, or a place to bore most kids senseless.

Keep politicians away from roads

The nonsense of Auckland City Councillors arguing about whether a barely used bus lane should be allowed to have wider usage speaks volumes about why politicians are profoundly incompetent at running what is essentially a utility service.

It's very simple. The NZ Herald reports that the Auckland City transport committee has decided to allow the Tamaki Drive bus lane to be open to any vehicles with 2 or more occupants, largely because the lane lies empty every 7.5 minutes at peak times, whilst parallel lanes are congested. An intelligent decision, although it could be better (as there is no reason why all heavy vehicles couldn't use it, since they pay more than any other vehicles to use the roads anyway, and have no reasonable alternative.

However, the leftwing halfwits at City Vision disagree. They would rather a precious scarce resource (road space) remain empty, whilst cars, taxis and trucks sit held up, wasting more fuel (and emitting more pollution and CO2) than would otherwise be the case. They baulk at money for the conversion coming from the "public transport fund", which of course is a little precious.

It's a quasi-Soviet central planner attitude that people using cars are "bad" and should be punished (presumably also trucks, because freight should go on rail), but public transport is "good" and everyone else should be forced to subsidise it.

Auckland's local roads should be given over to a new council controlled organisation, at arms length from all politicians, with a board, and a mandate to operate the road network to encourage free flow of people and goods and make a profit doing so. It would get money from kerbside parking (which it would run to maximise profits), any tolling, rates (as a transitional measure) and bidding funds from the National Land Transport Fund (as councils do at present). It should also be allowed to hand over local streets to body corporates of adjoining property owners if they so wish, and build new roads (tolling them if it sees fit).

Then you might get roads for those who pay for them, with the highest priority going to those who pay the most - at the moment truck owners and private cars.

So do that along with amalgamating Auckland councils (and getting rid of the power of general competence), and you might help address Auckland transport far more than an electric train set.

ACT's first serious (partial) let down?

A law on what people wear in public in one district.

After all, couldn't pubs, clubs and restaurants just enforce private property rights and set their own rules?

Good on Heather Roy and Sir Roger Douglas for being principled opponents, shame on Rodney, David Garrett and John Boscawen. You cannot pretend to be for less government or the liberal party by supporting the criminalisation of what people wear in public in one district.

It is not just authoritarian, but ludicrous that there is now a separate criminal law (not bylaw) for a distinct local authority district.

It is one thing for ACT's policy to disappoint me as a libertarian, but to actively machinate to support a new - victimless - criminal law, is appalling. The issue of course is that it isn't party policy, but for individual MPs - of whom only Rodney Hide is directly voted (and without whom none of the others would be there).

So I'll leave it to Bernard Darnton, Lindsay Mitchell and Blair Mulholland to conclude. Garrett and Boscawen appear to believe it, but Rodney Hide? He always talked differently - now with this, and the mega city, he looks like the others, it's a pity. I always hoped I would be wrong about ACT in government. This appears to be its first active support for MORE government not less. Shame.