The Great Declarations Fiasco

Here in Britain we are going through another round of the Great Declarations Fiasco where MPs, who are supposed to register any donations in excess of £1000 to two bodies, the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary Register. Only the British, surely, could come up with a system that is so fraught with anomaly and so open to abuse.

During the Deputy Leadership for the Labour Party contest last year we had the unedifying situation of two of the candidates, Peter Hain and the Hideous Harman, accused of either concealing donations or accepting them from 'dodgy' sources. Of course the Conservative opposition made great play of this, particularly when it was discovered that Hain had accepted a lot more than he had admitted, through a 'Think Tank' created to further his ambitions and, presumably, to 'launder' money..though I'm sure he would deny that as a fair interpretation.



The situation became farcical when George Osborne, the Conservative Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and most outspoken critic of Labour's 'devious' misrepresentation, was himself found to have either not declared or incorrectly declared £487,000 in donations.



Now Conservative leader David Cameron is accused of not declaring air flights worth over £1000 and his officials are busily calculating what the plane load was at the time and consequently Mr Cameron's actual 'donation'.

All this is crazy. Surely all this could be put to bed if Government invested in a computer system which disseminated the necessary information to both bodies, compelled all MP's to input to it monthly, and insisted that EVERY donation was recorded...even miniscule ones plus gifts in lieu, like holidays, free weekends, plane flights etc and then estimated their total donation receipts not just those valued over £1000. The current system invites, and receives abuse, because it is so loose and vague in its definitions. Every MP is working to offset donations worth £3600 into, say, four chunks of £900 each so none of it had to be declared. It's like tax avoidance with those who can fiddle the system doing so.

Make MP's responsible for their own input. Lets not have excuses of 'maladministration' as Peter Hain is attempting to claim. I don't doubt that someone did input his returns..probably his accountant...but this would all be obviated if every MP simply recorded everything on a computer, as soon as that donation is received. Then they are absolved from criminal liability and both parliamentary bodies are satisfied. Or, for the British, is that too straightforward?