MP addresses – no relevance

We’ve been shown or seen a few responses from MPs, after people wrote to them, saying that they are worried about their addresses being made public. If this is their main barrier to voting No on Thursday, they have nothing to worry about: they voted to exclude their residential addresses (and expenses on security, and future/regular travel) from the Freedom of Information Act in July 2008.

In fact, one of the reasons it is costing so much money to collate and edit these expenses is staff have been going through and making sure precisely that such information would not be released.

It is sad that MPs don’t seem to know what the law is, and I hope someone will stand up in the debate on Thursday and make this point.

7 Comments

  1. I know I’ve made jokes about this, but in all honesty this expenses issue is serious and needs addressing.

    WE employ Members of Parliament, and their salary and expenses are paid from the public purse. Therefore, as any employer, we have the right to hold our employees to account.

    I’ve written about this – and to my local MP – and have also joined the FB group. MPs can’t be allowed to bury this bit of troughing in other news – we must expect and demand transparency and accountability from our public servants.

    D

  2. Robert (Jamie) Munro

    My MP (who happens to be David Cameron) sent me a reply about Heathrow Airport expansion, because I opened the message with something like “I am disappointed the govenment has used the Heathrow Airport expansion announcement to hide the changes to the freedom of information act…”

    I replied to the e-mail and got a “Sorry for the mix up – we’ve been inundated with Heathrow messages” kind of reply.

  3. Could you name the MPs in question, at all?

    I think we should all know, because they are either being disingenuous and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their constituents or they don’t know the facts.

    Either way, anyone who is guilty of either of these two things should not be an MP in the first place.

  4. I have written to my MP John Gummer for all the good it will do, not for one minute will this lot of corrupt politicians let you know what they waste there expenses on, the Lib Lab Con lot are all the same (rouges) of the first order and could not be upfront if there life depended on it, I am not even bothering to vote in the general election but for the County elections I am voting BNP this time round.

  5. If MP’s feel the need to keep their addresses secret for fear of public anger or whatever, then they have failed in their Job.
    Similarly, if they need bullet proof cars and armed police escorts and a ring of steel round Westminster, they have failed.