With new polling figures in, the general election prediction model we covered in November and December has churned out a new prediction for the next general election – and it’s a striking one:

New prediction: Conservative lead of 6% but Labour largest party with 299 seats (27 short of an overall majority)

December  prediction: Conservative lead of 9% with 315 seats (11 short of an overall majority)
November prediction: Conservative lead of 10% with 322 seats (4 short of an overall majority)

Oh let's hope it keeps going in the right direction.

As I wrote previously about the voting down in the summer of 2008 of plans to reform MPs’ expenses:

The bulk of the blame for blocking the reforms must lie with the Labour Party as 146 of their MPs voted to block the reforms but given David Cameron’s strident recent comments, it’s striking to see that seven of his frontbenchers, and 21 MPs in total, voted to block reform when they had the chance. This was enough to see the measure defeated.

A year and a half on from those 21 voting against changing the expense rules, what do we now know about them? Here’s a summary of what has since come out about their expense claims:

To see Mark's article click on link.

Cultural reference in case you don't live in the UK

Help Vote-for-a-Change to send 50,000 leaflets of protest to the marginal constituencies - click on LINK above

• 
• • Jackie Ashley
  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday 7 February 2010 22.00 GMT
  • Article history

Who's above the law? Not MPs accused of expenses fiddling, it seems. Today a trio of big-hitters – Alan Johnson, William Hague and Ken Clarke – flung derision on the idea that MPs being charged by the Crown Prosecution Service should be protected by parliament's ancient rights. Though their case still has to be argued, it looks as if they have very little support at the top of politics.

This is as it should be. The 1689 Bill of Rights is indeed one of our founding constitutional documents, but its clause on protecting MPs from criminal prosecution was meant for their debates and voting procedures, not for arguments over the personal misuse of public money. Scrutiny of politics is being changed for ever by public anger over the expenses row, and before that by freedom of information law and websites as a way of scrutinising an MP's voting and speaking record.

Jackie Ashley is absolutely right - why haven't we been properly protected from bankers?

Why haven't the bankers been brought to book?

Click on link to read her article.

“The Prospects for Electoral Reform”

Vernon Bogdanor
Professor of Government
Oxford University

“No political issue attracts more fallacious arguments than proportional representation. Perhaps the most foolish one is that a proportional system would be too difficult for the voters to understand. The implication must be that English voters are the most stupid in Europe.” Professor Vernon Bogdanor

Separate the facts from the fiction. PR Myths. Now available from the Electoral Reform Society

Preface by Prof Vernon Bogdanor

electoral-reform.org.uk

The ongoing saga of the British parliamentary expenses crisis crossed a major watershed with the charging of three Labour MPs, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, and one Tory peer, Lord Hanningfield, and the possibility of more to come.

There are so many layers to this. For a start the ‘gang of four’ are attempting to hide behind parliamentary immunity to prevent themselves being found guilty, literally explicitly making the case of ‘one rule for them, one rule for us’. Then there is the unprecedented nature of what is taking place, MPs being charged and held to account, which does in some sense remove another layer of the pretence of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’.

The last two MPs to be charged were Mohammed Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan and Fiona Jones, Labour MP for Newark, both first elected in 1997. Sarwar was found innocent, whereas Jones was convicted of election expense fraud which was overturned on appeal only for her to lose her seat in the 2001 election.

None of the Tory MPs in ‘cash for honours’, Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith, were ever charged, although their political careers were ruined. Neither Jonathan Aitken or Jeffrey Archer were MPs when they were charged, found guilty and served time in prison, although Archer was the Tory Mayoral candidate for London.

I don’t for one minute want to rush to the defence of the charged foursome, but isn’t there a sense that they are being hung out to dry to preserve others and deflect from the endemic corruption of the Westminster system? A mere three MPs are facing charges, while more than 350 faced having to repay expenses, over half the House of Commons.

Click on link to read article.

Gordon Brown has thrust the issue of Tory party donations to the centre of the election campaign by declaring that the secrecy surrounding its biggest financial backer – Lord Ashcroft – is "a scandal".

In an exclusive interview with the Observer, in which he spoke at length of the need to restore faith in politics following the controversy over MPs' expenses, the prime minister attacked the lack of transparency over the peer's financial links to the Tories, saying it was profoundly wrong.

Delivering his strongest comments yet on the "Ashcroft question", Brown said it was now the duty of journalists and opposition politicians to "press these people for answers". "It's a scandal that we haven't had proper answers about where the [Ashcroft] money has come from and what the status of this person is."

Click on link to read story