The Wardman Wire

The Wilson Doctrine states that privileged conversations of Westminster MPs and Peers should not be bugged.

This morning I heard on Radio 4 a description of why the security apparatus had kept quiet when this happened:

“We didn’t tell them about it becuse then we’d have to have admitted what we have done”.

And - as far as I know - that is the story under both shades of government in the UK, and so is a non-partisan civil liberties question.

But the problem is similar to that of seeking a more acceptable set of principles, rules and structures for managing expenses and all the rest in the Houses of Parliament.

House Rules for Parliament

Later on (the time depends on whether Garbo does a weekly column at lunchtime, or whether yesterday’s article counts) Dave Cole, writing the next article in the “House Rules for Parliament” series, will be arguing that we actually need to make a clean of “skeletons in cupboards” sweep now, in order to set up a system that will work in the future.

What I would propose is a two-step solution.

Step one is an amnesty on political declarations. I am quite sure that there are a lot of skeletons in the closets of all the parties. I happen to think that they’ll be small skeletons, but skeletons nonetheless. Bringing them out into the open has three beneficial effects.

• Firstly, it says, in loud, clear tones, that the British polity recognise that there is a problem.
• Secondly, it stops the poisonous drip-drip of stories; perception biases mean that if something is repeated, it will be given more importance even if it is not the most important story.
• Thirdly, it means the parties can get their houses in order without giving advantage to the other side, increasing the likelihood that it will actually happen.

Step two is, as mentioned, to make all members of staff appear on the aforementioned Register; to declare close relations; and to acquire, in some manner, housing stock for MPs.

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As a PS, the Daily Roundup and Podcast will be out around 10:00 to 10:30am. You can get that via it’s own dedicated podcast feed.

Watch this space.