ShameOnUsAll

When I was growing up in the austerity of post war England we had some certainties in our confined universe. Our country could always beat the Germans in a fight, our music and fashion were the best, our police were the best and our bureaucrats and politicians were boring, straight and efficient. Oh how sadly things have changed.

The Insight column in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper yesterday exposed four members of the House of Lords who it is alleged, accepted bribes to amend legislation. Today one of the Lords implicated stood up in our second House of Parliament and admitted he had accepted the offer of money in this manner but didn’t feel he had done anything wrong. He went on to add that he apologized if he had done something they considered wrong.

What world do these people inhabit? It is entirely wrong and deplorable behavior for any member of our political elite to accept money from anyone, ever, to do the job they were put in place and are well paid to do. It is even more worrying that their Lordships don’t appear to understand that they have done something wrong.

There is now some evidence that this is just one example of this legislation fixing. When you listen to the tapes already in the public domain recorded by the Insight team it soon becomes clear that there has been long-term endemic corruption of this kind in the House of Lords

The second house of the British Parliament is, it is now clear, used for this form of corruption because the elected House of Commons is too tightly regulated for anyone to get away with it. Ironically even if the House of Lords find their peers guilty the only punishment that can be imposed is for the colleagues to refuse to listen to them speak in a debate. There is little wonder that these greedy, grubby little men would risk such opprobrium for the large sums of cash seemingly on offer.

I am hugely disappointed that our previously revered system of government has allowed this awful pattern of action to become a part of the covert political reality of our country. We have to examine both ourselves and our country in light of this awful expose. How could such reprehensible actions exist in our society? Why do seemingly upstanding businesses feel it is appropriate or permissible to offer bribes to our legislators?

It is vital that the laws are changed so that the next time someone behaves like this in the House of Lords they will get thrown into jail for a very long time. Otherwise the citizens of our country will have no trust in their leaders or moral compass from those of whom we rightfully expect more.