CentreRight

I was simply aghast as I read the comments on Tim's post over on ToryDiary about the Telegraph's battle with Nadine Dorries.  I wrote the following as a comment there, and I repeat it here for those followers of CentreRight who might not have scrolled through the tons of posts there.

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To me, it is quite unbelievable that people with a national newspaper on hand as their voice think it appropriate to react to an online blog in this way. Indeed, their newspaper has, for the last 16 days (and counting) demonstrated the power that it can wield in our political environment. If they feel that they've been wronged, have it out - trying to squash Nadine rather than debate her seems absurdly heavy-handed.

Moreover, I think that there is a great deal to be said for the airing of her comments about this business more generally, for example:

* I'm sure that there IS a "depths of despair" attitude amongst our parliamentarians at present, and I think it useful to have the insights she offers into it.

* I think it right that we should know that MPs think (or at least this MP thinks) that the Fees Office (or whoever) colluded with / encouraged MPs to enter large claims.

* I think it significant that MPs think (or at least this MP thinks) that the media knew about the "it's really just part of our pay" attitude held by many MPs and let it slide.

for these reasons, and for basic (and, it seems from this thread, hitherto undiscussed) reasons of freedom of speech, I deplore the shutting down of this outlet of information. We keep saying we want to know what MPs are thinking - one tells us, and gets shut down - why aren't we up in arms on her behalf?

And finally I have to say that I'm firmly on the side of those who find the online vitriol poured upon this passionate and determined member of our Party quite unbelievable.

Dear Nadine,

I read in your article in The Independent today your reference to a conversation we had earlier in the week. You wrote:

The impression this gives is that I have sympathy for the use of the ACA as a form of supplementary income. I don’t. I think it should be there to pay for the genuine additional costs of doing the job of an MP, and that’s all. The fact that everyone knew how it was being used doesn’t make it ok. This is what the MPs just don’t seem to be able to understand, and what your article shows you still don’t understand: the public does not think this is right. No amount of self-justification changes this. It’s all very understandable on the human level. Had I been elected an MP when I stood in 1997, I might have done exactly the same. But it’s still wrong.

Having just returned from a three day campaign tour of the West Midlands for the upcoming Euro and local elections - visiting a car factory, two mosques, numerous shopping centres, knocking on hundreds of doors and attending campaign meetings with various candidates it has given me fresh perspectives on the current political crisis.

After two weeks of avidly watching the expenses gate saga unfold in the newspapers it was refreshing to get out on the doorsteps and realise that the great British voters hold more nuanced perspectives than the media gives them credit for:

Here are my three reflections from the front line:

1. Voters are very angry but they are also confused - not knowing what to do with their vote.  A protest vote will be uneven and temporary.

Contrary to widespread media speculation - the evidence I found was that alongside the deep anger and frustration with politicians voters are not embracing the minor parties in a consistent way. My impression was that people understand the main three parties are the only conceivable parties of government locally and nationally and they realise  that minor parties do not offer a real solution to the crisis. Yes, they want the mess sorted out; they want to see MPs who have made dodgy claims get their comeuppance but the notion that we will see hundreds of BNP and UKIP Cllrs or MEPs emerging is unlikely - their share of the vote will increase this time but this will be a temporary phenomena.  

This is not to say I think there is room for any complacency. It will be different everywhere but people can see the opportunism of the BNP and UKIP and it is politicians in general they are fed up with - the BNP and UKIP, alongside their obvious substantive flaws on policy , are not perceived to be any better than Labour, Lib Dem or Conservative.

Mark Field MP didn't write these things yesterday or last month but last July.  Read his full piece here.

At a time when the economy is in freefall and all of us face ever increasing bills and higher taxes, it seems wrong that the BBC are planning to increase the licence fee.

Last year, the BBC spent £15 million on taxi bills and £14 million on plane flights.  Many of its presenters are overpaid - look at the millions of pounds that Jonathan Ross gets for example.  Some BBC senior Executives get more than the Prime Minister in salaries.

When MPs salaries and expenses are rightly being scrutinised, why is it that BBC journalists and employees can seemingly spend taxpayer's money - also on expenses and allowances - without any kind of public examination?  Astonishingly, the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the whole of the BBC.

I have argued before on CentreRight that we need to democratise the licence fee, so that every licence-fee payer has the right to vote on the level of the increase on the fee, how they think the BBC has
performed and on the hefty salaries that are paid to high profile presenters.

I happen to enjoy and admire much of the BBC output - and am willing to pay for it.  Like many voters, I just want a choice on how my money is spent and not to have to fund unnecessary increases, when it is possible for the BBC to cut costs from its bureaucracy.

The call by Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday for a freeze in the Licence Fee, was a necessary first step in putting the public back in control.  It is a great shame that Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs chose to be so frivolous with Licence-Fee Payers' money and vote for an increase.

Helen Thomas is a research fellow with Policy Exchange's Economics Unit.

Standard & Poor today placed the UK on a “negative” outlook due to the potential deterioration in the debt burden. The IMF agreed, advising yesterday that the Government must "put public debt on a firmly downward path faster than envisaged in the 2009 Budget”, as well as warning that further capital may need to be put into UK banks.

This isn’t just more bad news for the Government in a bad news week. This highlights the potential for a very real downturn in the fortunes of the UK in the longer term. Of the 18 sovereigns rated AAA by S&P, the UK is the only one now on a negative outlook. It is also the first time the UK has been in such a position since S&P started rating it in 1978.

The last country to lose its triple-A rating was Ireland, in March. An emergency budget was introduced in April.

As things rapidly move forward on the expenses saga, where do readers think it's all going to end up? I'd be really interested to know what people think. This is probably a very premature discussion, but here are some thoughts:

• David Cameron has marked himself out as being in touch with the public mood and as having the strength to run the country through the tough years that lie ahead.  It's astonishing to see how he is basically firing Conservative MPs while Brown sits on his hands. Note the "marketing man" jibes have dried up as he pretty much leads the country through the crisis as though he were already PM;
• A lot of MPs still don't "get it". Especially on the Labour side. The public want to see a lot of reform of our politics. Yet on the issue of the next Speaker, many Labour MPs say they support John Bercow MP because they think it will annoy the Conservative Party. John has many qualities that could make him a great Speaker, but his case being made on such a petty basis shows how far out of step with the public mood many Parliamentarians still are. They need to wake up and smell the coffee. This area is still developing rapidly and in unpredictable ways;
• While there is massive public rage, the public increasingly don't want simply to tear down the ramparts. There is a mood for changing the way we do things in a positive way. It's spreading beyond Parliamentary reform. On the doorstep people rage about powerlessness, quangos and the general lack of accountability (in the past they'd yawn about these subjects!). The mood seems to be swinging in favour of localism and democratic accountability.  That's a major opportunity for the Conservative Party;
• People are not just angry about MPs expenses.  This too is spreading into concern about the size and wastefulness of public spending across the board in the middle of a recession. Again, there is an opportunity for the Conservatives to put the case for tougher action on wasteful public spending.  On what Government should and should not do. There is also the potential for radical reforms like publishing all public sector receipts, spending and so on online. It would certainly make public sector spenders think very carefully about spending if it could be seen and they could be asked about it by the public.
• Voters are angry, turnout could indeed be low, but people seem a lot more interested in politics than they have been for a long time. Everything has been thrown up in the air in what could turn out to be a form of political revolution as Alan Duncan MP has suggested. There is certainly a greater opportunity to reshape things than has existed since 1979, probably since WWII.

All in all, the worst recession in 60 years, the deepest political crisis for maybe 100 years . . . both at once. This is a very interesting time to be alive! We might find ourselves bouncing our grandchildren on our knees in years to come saying "Did I tell you about 2009..."

Candidates for speaker aren't supposed to campaign are they? It's all hushed encounters in dark bars and quiet corners, soundings being taken on behalf of others, significant glances and unspoken words. There aren't really supposed to to be candidates even, in the sense that we understand "candidate" with people making a positive case for themselves. Somebody emerges after a vote and is dragged ever so reluctantly to the Chair (although Michael Martin didn't look that reluctant on the footage). This might explain why David Davis, Vince Cable and others are being so robustly reluctant, at this stage anyway.

But that's all seriously old politics now. Very closed-source. The Speaker had to go, because he didn't have the authority to restore public trust in the House of Commons. The next Speaker must have genuine credibility with the public as well as amongst MPs. That's not going to happen if candidates and MPs simply allow the process to be conducted internally amongst themselves. Candidates have the opportunity over the next month to do it all very differently: to engage with the public; to set out the principles they would apply and the reforms they would make; to be open to scrutiny and question; to seek open support from the public and from fellow MPs; to be, in a meaningful and transparent sense, candidates.

It is therefore shocking to see the Daily Mirror declare already that Labour MPs are likely to vote en masse for John Bercow. This is before we know who the contenders might be, let alone anything about what they might think. There is no positive case for him, at the moment. If the report is true, it shows that the parliamentary Labour Party still doesn't understand what open politics is all about, or how recent events have changed the way the Commons must operate. The new Speaker needs to have genuine cross-party support; this smacks of partisanship, even whipping. They know full well that John Bercow will have to work very hard indeed to persuade many of his Conservative colleagues that he would be suitable. John Bercow would be well-advised to distance himself from this, and all the party leaders and chief whips should publicly affirm that they will leave this contest to individual MPs.

It has emerged today that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to attend a Buckingham Palace Garden Party by virtue of being the guest of the party's London Assembly member.

Apparently all Assembly Members have been invited, with the opportunity to take a guest of their choice.

The Queen should put her foot down and block him from going. There are thousands of people from charities and voluntary organisations up and down the country who ought to get invitations to these kinds of events as an acknowledgement of their contribution to society and the country. Neither Nick Griffin nor his friend on the London Assembly fit that description and the Queen should not have to welcome them into the Palace garden.

As the Nothing British about the BNP campaign said this afternoon:

Today, the Commons vote on the level of the BBC licence fee. The Government seems to be planning to approve yet another increase, whilst the Tories are proposing a freeze. A freeze would of course be better than another rise, but in actual fact a cut is perfectly possible.

Leaving aside the larger issues of organisational waste and so on, which must be dealt with in order to produce larger reductions, there is a £6 slice of the licence fee which could be got rid of with no problem at all: the digital switchover levy.

This was added in 2007 to raise the BBC a total of £800m over 5 years that would be spent on the hardware changes involved in moving to digital TV broadcasting and the public awareness advertising to make sure everyone knew about it and got their telly set up in time.

In Parliament back in 2007, Tessa Jowell in her capacity as Culture, Media and Sport Minister made very clear that this was going to be a temporary levy:

'In particular the licence fee settlement will fund the £600m scheme we are putting in place to help elderly and disabled people make the switch and as part of our comittment to the universal broadcasting ensure that no-one is left behind. [...] The BBC will also pay for the £200m public communications campaign being run by Digital UK to ensure people are prepared properly and informed properly for switchover.

Should we have the right to 'recall' MPs? It can be done in America, why not here? Few of us had heard of recall until 2003 when California Governor Gray Davis lost the recall ballot to the 'governator', Arnold Swarzenegger. The idea is simple, as a Civitas online briefing proposed yesterday. Sometimes voters regret the choice they made at the last general election and do not want to wait until the next time. If a proportion of the electorate (say 20%) can be persuaded to sign a petition to recall the elected office holder, then an immediate by-election must be held.

There is cross-party support. Back in February 2008 a group of 27 Tory MPs wrote to The Daily Telegraph calling for local voters to be allowed to 'recall' their MP and at the weekend Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg came out in favour.

How common is it? In America 18 states allow elected officials to be recalled from their posts by a petition of between 12 and 40 per cent of voters. In 1903 the city of Los Angeles was the first large area to introduce recall, followed in 1908 by Oregon and in 1911 by California. Then Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Washington all adopted recall in 1912. In addition eleven more states, while not permitting recall of state-level officials, do allow the recall of local officials.

Douglas Carswell, obviously. He has rightly emerged with great credit as somebody who cares deeply that we have an effective House of Commons. He understood the problem earlier than anyone else and so we should listen carefully to his analysis about how to put it right. Beware of attempts to dismiss him as a "maverick".

And also those who spoke out in the House of Commons on Monday.

However, the list of those who put their names to the no confidence motion makes interesting reading. 23 members signed it: 11 Conservatives; 8 Liberal Democrats; 4 Labour. None from the Nationalist parties. The UKIP Independent* MP, Bob Spink, was still praising the Speaker even after he had gone. Let's keep that in mind when the minor parties try to parade as "anti-politics".

A disproportionate number of signatories came from the 2005 intake: 12 altogether. 7 of them Conservative (Carswell, Hollobone, Main, Davies P, Davies DTC, Stuart, Walker) and 5 Liberal Democrat (Hemming, Featherstone, Swinton, Williams, Mulholland). None from Labour. Indeed the 4 Labour signatories were all old hands - the most recent entrant was Ian Gibson in 1997.

Iain Duncan Smith has written movingly today on ConservativeHome about the Holocaust Educational Trust-sponsored trip to Auschwitz which he, I and others joined a week ago.

It is quite a harrowing experience and helps you to comprehend the sheer scale of mass extermination undertaken by an evil regime which was in power in Europe during my grandparents' lifetime.

And it is a timely lesson that the Nazi ideology which resulted in the mass murder of Jews, Romany Gypsies and others is the very same ideology subscribed to by the British National Party.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has spoken chillingly about his "final vision" of a "genetically white country" and is, of course, also on record as having denied the Holocaust, despicably describing it as "the hoax of the 20th century".

All the more reason to remember that there is nothing British about the BNP.

As Michael Martin concedes that the game is up, attention shifts to the list of his potential successors. One thing is clear: the personal qualities of the new Speaker, especially his or her attitude to expenses (the new proxy for decency and integrity) will override all party political considerations.

 Rachel Sylvester in today's Times believes that the balance of power has shifted away from organisations and towards individuals, because we've lost faith in institutions and will no longer defer to elites.Certainly Michael Martin has discovered to his cost that he cannot rely on the protection afforded by deference to his office. But Sylvester omits an important point: that the reason why we are reluctant to accept the authority of institutions is because the holders of office have abused their position. This is not about institutional failure, but personal failure. Institutions which still command popular respect do so because of the personal qualities of those who represent them, the Queen being a conspicuous example.

Rebuilding public trust in politicians will be dependent on their personal conduct. But the ultimate objective of those politicians must be to gain respect for Parliament, rather than the pursuit of individual success. The health – indeed, the survival - of a free society depends on the strength of its institutions. Yes, the new Speaker should have a clean expenses record. But he (or she) must first and foremost believe in the institutional significance of the office of Speaker and the sovereignty of parliament.

It is good news that Michael Martin is going to resign.  His credibility was destroyed when he tried, in vain, to use taxpayers' money to prevent taxpayers discovering the details of MPs' expenses claims.  With the scale of the abuses uncovered by the Telegraph, it is now quite clear that was nothing more than a taxpayer funded cover up.  After that, there was never any chance that Michael Martin could lead the reforms needed to restore the reputation of parliament.  Douglas Carswell deserves huge credit for his strong and early stand on this issue.

There are now three things that need to happen:

1. MPs' can't assume that the resignation of the Speaker draws a line under this affair.  He bore a significant measure of responsibility but so do the MPs' who made the unethical claims in the first place.

2. His resignation has to be immediate, he can't get a big payoff and there can be no question of shuffling him on to the Lords.

3. The next Speaker needs to be someone committed to transparency and democratic accountability.  We can't just have a new face leading the same old attempts to hold back reform of the system.

The TPA has issued a statement.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“Michael Martin has been an awful Speaker and his arrogance and incompetence have betrayed the interests of taxpayers and Parliament, so his resignation is welcome. He has allowed MPs to get away with outrageous expenses claims, and wasted taxpayers’ money on legal action to try to keep those expenses secret. His resignation should be immediate, he should get no payoff and he absolutely must not be elevated to the Lords. The next Speaker must have a commitment to full transparency and democratic accountability.”

The political firestorm over MP’s expenses shows no sign of abating, as public anger continues to grow at seemingly unending stories of home flipping and unjustifiable claims. By itself, the stench of corruption can often be enough to bring down a government. However, it is the growing sense of mistrust that Labour has cultivated in its past three terms which have had such a damaging cumulative effect on political life more generally.

Labour’s broken promise to hold a referendum on the European Constitution (later Lisbon Treaty) is undoubtedly a big part of the public’s mistrust of this Government. At the last General Election, all three major political parties were committed to holding a referendum on the European Constitution. Yet only the Conservatives stood behind their commitment when EU elites birthed a virtually identical twin and gave it a new name.

Labour’s broken promise to hold a referendum on the Treaty didn’t come close to bringing down the Government. However, it confirmed to the British electorate a sense that regardless of what they promise in their manifestos, governments no longer feel honor-bound to stand behind those commitments. Labour’s sheer brazenness over Lisbon has not gone unnoticed and it will not go unpunished.

"Melanchthon" has written a defence of MPs' extravagant expenses claims on the Platform.  His argument starts from the premise that MPs' do need to have some kind of provision for having two homes.  I'm not sure anyone disagrees with that, except when they don't attend Parliament for ideological reasons or live close enough to London that many of their constituents commute.

From that, he argues that we should, except in those cases where actual fraud has been committed, stop attacking MPs whose claims appear excessive because that's somehow just the way expenses work.  Apparently everyone claims for things that aren't necessary to do their job, so we should shut up and stop whining when politicians do the same with taxpayers' money.

Clearly, penny pinching could be taken too far.  But, no one is yet suggesting that MPs sleep in tents on the floor of Westminster Hall.  The basic standard that most people appear to be working to is that, just because the MPs are away from home, ordinary people shouldn't be expected to subsidise a lifestyle for their elected representatives that is significantly more luxurious than their own.  That isn't too much to ask.

For most people, around £700 is a pretty large amount to spend on a television and thousands of pounds is taking the piss.  As such, they find the idea that Shahid Malik submitted a claim for that offensive.  Equally, most people don't have moats and MPs' homes are supposed to be just that, not the kind of ambassador's residences that "Melanchthon" suggests they are.

Most companies aren't nearly as generous as "Melanchthon" pretends.  Certainly, at the TaxPayers' Alliance, it isn't seen as acceptable to claim your meals as expenses just because you happen to be on a work trip.  And it isn't just us, plenty of people from all walks of life have written into their newspapers making it clear that MPs are enjoying, at taxpayers expense, treatment ordinary people would never expect where they work.

The Daily Mail has a story that Esther Rantzen has been inspired by Martin Bell and is considering standing against the expense-abusing Labour MP Margaret Moran in Luton South. Tim Montgomerie has written elsewhere on ConHome this morning that unless we clean up our worst MPs, we face a barrage of independents standing against sitting MPs. Tim is right about that, but thought should be given to where it happens.

Let's start with the case at hand: Luton South and why it is not the same as Tatton.

Martin Bell beat Neil Hamilton because his independent status allowed other parties to get behind him to unseat a sitting MP with a huge majority.

In Luton South, there is an excellent local Conservative candidate in Nigel Huddleston who was on the way to beating Moran even before the scandal of her expenses broke. Nigel should now ask Esther to come out and campaign for him if she wants to clean up politics!

An independent simply is not needed in Luton South. As the Daily Mail points out, Moran already faces "a furious backlash in her constituency" and the "narrow 5,650 majority" means Nigel must be odds on favourite to win even if Moran decides to stand again, which is surely open to doubt given her dreadful behaviour.

Independents can never quite deliver the impact at Westminster that traditional MPs can but are great where mainstream politics has failed. It will not do so in Luton. Esther should let Nigel run in Luton and she should stand where she is needed. There are plenty of sitting MPs that she could target. According to the Sunday Times, yesterday, nine out of the top-ten expense claimants are Labour (and all of the top five). Maybe there is someone there to set her sights on where an independent would be needed to clear out the dead wood as was needed in Tatton.

If it was up to me, I would encourage her to consider the constituency of Speaker Martin as one good place to begin!

Both have this morning welcomed the re-election of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. David Miliband sees it as a sign that incumbents can stay in power.  'Who said the recession is bound to punish governing parties?' he asks. Guido prefers to see it as a triumph for capitalism in India. Guido is right, of course.

There is a growing use of a campaigning technique by the BNP in these elections which seeks to present the British National Party as the defender of ‘Christian’ Britain. This should not go unchallenged. They use careful imagery in their leaflets designed to scare voters into belief that their traditional values and way of life are under threat. I wish to argue the case that the BNP is the exact antitheses of Christianity and it is they who represent the true threat to Christian values in this country.

In Section 2 (b) of the BNP Statement of Principles we read: ‘The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic  character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples. It is therefore committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.’

There are at least two points here that the Christian would wish to carefully consider:

(a) The BNP is ‘wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European people’ and (b) the BNP is committed to ‘legal changes’ which would ‘restore’ the overwhelmingly white make-up’ that existed in Britain prior to 1948’.

These phrases have a sinister echo in modern history and follow Nazi Party claim that the Germanic and claim to be part of an Aryan race and that the Jews and other non-Aryans such as Slavs and Roma were engaged in a sinister plot to ‘dilute’ racial purity and destroy the Germanic peoples and must be stopped. The eventual result was the Holocaust.

By Daniel Kawczynski MP

Even by the standards of the peculiar atmosphere that has descended on the Commons, it is fair to say that MPs on all sides reacted with incredulity when Yvette Cooper found a further, “deeply disappointing” way to delay justice for Equitable Life policy-holders.

I have sought to harness this sense of genuine disbelief and injustice among colleagues by establishing an All-Party Group on Equitable Life. Our aim is simple: to block all Government attempts to lose this issue in the thick rough. We already have 100 Members.

There is insufficient space here to run through the full timeline of delays and dead ends that policyholders have been put through. The Government needs no reminding that these poor people have pursued justice at the highest levels, from the House of Lords, to the European Parliament and through our own Parliamentary Ombudsman. Yet the Government could not be shamed into belated action, even following a finding by the Public Administration Select Committee that Ministers’ actions have been “shabby, constitutionally dubious and procedurally improper”.

The Prime Minister promised me in the House that we would have a proper statement from the Treasury at some point last year. Mr Brown’s word proved nothing more than a further stalling tactic. Parliament did not get its statement. This year, Alistair Darling eventually caved in to pressure and asked his number two, Ms Cooper, to make a statement. Incredibly, the statement rejected the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s central recommendation that payment should be made to policyholders to reflect the relative loss resulting from maladministration, subject to the state of public finances.

David Chaytor, the Labour MP for Bury North, is the big target of today's Daily Telegraph, which reports that he managed to claim almost £13,000 in interest payments for a mortgage that he had already repaid.

He was on parliamentary business in America but is understood to be heading back to Britain to face the music - which is likely to see him suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party - confirmed as definite at 11.15pm by the Press Association - as was the case when Elliot Morley was found to have done the same thing.

But one of the more remarkable features of the story is that a reporter on Sky News has just told the nation from his constituency that she has met some of his constituents who had "never heard of him". Needless to say, they have now.

How can an MP represent an area for twelve years and go completely unheard of? It's a pretty damning endictment for a man who has been MP for the same constituency since 1997.

Mr Chaytor will defend a perilously thin majority of a little over 2,000 at the election - that is if Labour allow him to fight the seat again - and Conservative candidate David Nuttall will gain the seat on a modest swing of 2.5%...

Al Gore is fond of suggesting that the Chinese word for "crisis" consists of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity."  As with so many other things he says, he's wrong about that (see here), but it strikes me that in the depth of this severe political crisis, there is a genuine opportunity for the conservative movement in Britain.  We can capitalize on the anti-politician sentiment most effectively if we adopt, explain and push a series of policies that reduce the power of politicians and their opportunity, not to put too fine a point on it, to rob us blind.

Cometh the hour, come the men.  Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, both sea-green incorruptibles who have come to public attention recently, have already outlined the perfect policy response in their book The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain (and, incidentally, have used a genuinely innovative print-on-demand service to publish it).  Just try these ideas on the doorstep and see what response you'd get:

• Clean Up Westminster by abolishing MP's perks, binding MPs by the same laws as everyone else and decreasing the size of HMG and the House of Commons.
• A Return to Law, Order and Accountability with directly-elected sheriffs, local control of police and local control of prosecutions.
• Supremacy of the (Reformed) Parliament, by scrapping the HRA, withdrawing from the ECHR and reserving certain powers exclusively for Parliament.
• Independence for State Schools, by scrapping the National Curriculum, granting parents rights to take their children where they'd get a good education and getting HMG out of classrooms.
• True Localism, by avoloshing QUANGOs, granting real powers to counties and replacing VAT with a local sales tax to fund it.
• Putting Patients in Control, by allowing people to opt out of the NHS and into private insurance, reatining a strong safety net and incentivizing prevention rather than cure.
• Neighbourhood Welfare to secure social justice; fighting poverty and allocation of benefits to be local.
• A Great Repeal Bill to get rid of burdensome and costly red tape, provide a mechanism for continuous repeal, and introduce sunset clauses on new laws.
• An Independent Britain, with foreign policy controlled by Parliament and replacement of our current relationship with the EU by a genuine free trade zone.
• Introduce Direct Democracy with the right of citizens to propose laws directly, referenda to block bad new laws and local referenda established as a new way of thinking about democracy.

I can't imagine many areas where this plan would not be applauded if it was put to the voters directly.  What is clear to me is that the pre-financial crisis political consensus has been swept away by the financial downturn and the utter barrage of revelations about just how bad Parliament is.  The public is demanding radical action.  The conservative movement has the blueprint for such radical action, and also some - like Douglas and Daniel - who possess the credibility to advance that platform with the voters. 
Can we put two and two together?  If we do not take this opportunity now, the public will look elsewhere for radical action.

Given how the news has been dominated by the MPs' allowances story all week, I almost forgot about an interview I recorded on Monday for Radio 5 Live about the Conservative MEPs leaving the EPP in Brussels.

It went out at 3am on Tuesday morning on Up All Night, but interestingly Caroline Jackson - who is retiring as a Conservative MEP this month - refused to debate with me on the very issue about which she has been so vocal these past couple of months: the fact that David Cameron is delivering on his pledge to take Tory MEPs out of the federalist EPP faction and form a new, eurosceptic, free market-oriented group in the European Parliament.

It's all online for a few more days if you click here: the feature begins at 2:06:38 with Mrs Jackson's interview and I hit the airwaves at 2:12:55...

I appeared on Question Time Extra on the BBC News Channel last night immediately after the most extraordinary edition of Question Time broadcast for many a year (Those links will only be live for a week).

After a whole week of daily revelations about MPs' use and abuse of parliamentary allowances, the sheer scale of the anger felt by the audience was remarkable, with only that one issue up for discussion. Theresa May for the Conservatives - not one to have been targeted by the Daily Telegraph - gave a measured performance and was relatively calmly received by the audience.

But the same cannot be said for Margaret Beckett and Sir Menzies Campbell - both of whose expenses claims have been highlighted by the Telegraph - who were constantly heckled and interrupted by livid members of the audience unsatisfied at the explanations being given.

Tim posted the news in a tweet earlier that Alan Duncan - an early target of the Telegraph - is no longer appearing on tonight's Any Questions on Radio 4, with Jeremy Hunt taking his place instead. I don't know whether that decision was made by Mr Duncan or the party, but I dare say that many politicians from across the political spectrum must now dread the reception that would greet them from the audience on these panel shows.

But shying away from such scrutiny is no solution and MPs are not going to be able to run away and hide on this one. The public - not to mention the media - simply won't let them.

Watch again below how the the audience in Grimsby treated the MPs on the panel last night: