Statesmanship and sleaze

Someone sent me a link the other day to a speech given in flawless English by the prime minister of Belgium at the college of Europe in Bruges. I confess I didn't know Alexander de Croo beforehand but that made the speech all the better. He is obviously a statesman of the kind we used to have but haven't produced for decades. He spoke about the EU and what it's future is or should be and I think it's reassuring for those who support the project. Europe will be fine as long as they have men and women like him at the helm.

If  you want to listen to the speech it's about 20 minutes long on YouTube here:

He said the last thing we need is a big ideological clash, between Eurofederalists and the Eurosceptics, a trench war between extremes while the wider world moves forward.  De Croo recognised that people were concerned about all sorts of things: climate change, the digital revolution, migration, off shoring of jobs, global issues that directly impact people’s lives.

And conceding that the EU has faced crisis after crisis after crisis which "tested our belief in progress" he said it was Europe’s role to restore that belief which involved protecting people, protecting our interests and protecting our European values.

"Not with a protectionist project, but with an empowering agenda. Reconciling ‘openness’ to the world with ‘security’ for people. Not pulling up the draw bridge. But using our openness to shape the world, engaging with others to set the standards and defining the playing field." 

He talked about Brexit and how unity in the bloc had held despite British efforts to divide it, how Barnier and his team had been able to satisfy all the different concerns of member states.

"Brexit meant the rebirth of the European spirit - or at least the rebirth of the notion that Europe works best when united. On their way to the exit, the British government wanted to rummage one last time in the bucket of European benefits. All the blessings of Europe – especially our single market - but none of the burden. In sight of the end game, the UK government tried to divide us. They tested our political unity, but we succeeded.

"Michel Barnier and the European Commission took into account every sensitivity of every member state and merged it into one, solid European position. Faced with the prospect of losing what was dearest to us – the internal market as engine of our prosperity - we rode it out together.

"At the outset, most observers predicted a domino-effect; more member states leaving. A Mexican army strategy – a Union dispersing in all directions, but what we saw was the opposite. Europe didn’t undergo Brexit, we led it. There was no domino-effect. Two months after the British referendum, support for EU membership grew by 5%.

"Four years after Brexit, support for the EU had even risen by more than 10 percent in countries like the Netherlands and the Nordics. We rediscovered the power of unity."

It was the speech of a statesman not like Johnson's comedy efforts about Kermit the frog at the UN. De Croo is a serious politician.  

Where can we find one in this country?  Do not imagine you will find any in parliament.

I mention this because later today there will be a vote in the House concerning Owen Paterson MP for North Shropshire who has been found guilty of bringing the House into disrepute. Tory MPs are looking to bring an amendment to get him off the hook, even though the punishment is just a 30 day suspension, hardly severe is it?

As I wrote a few days ago, Paterson was paid £112,000 a year by two Northern Ireland companies for 'consultancy' work and he then arranged meetings with officials from the Food Standards Agency to promote their products in one way or another.

In his defence he claimed he was using an exception to the MPs code of conduct rule that bans 'paid advocacy' by an MP. He said he was doing it to prevent a 'serious wrong' and any money he received was 'incidental.' If you read the report from the standards commissioner Kathryn Stone and the cross-party standards committee including lay members, there was no dissension and their findings are absolutely damning.

He even accused the commissioner herself of being biased against him.

It is as clear as a bell that he broke the rule and he did it "repeatedly" but he may get off Scot free or at least some sort of reinvestigation will be ordered. He seems to think he was prevented from bringing witnesses to vouch for him and this would somehow have made a difference. It's like Harold Shipman thinking a court wouldn't convict him if a few friends swore on oath he was a nice bloke.

We will see what happens later but the reputation of parliament is not helped even by the suggestion that the rules are wrong whenever a senior MP is found to have broken them.

The Belgium prime minister is a statesman and one of the reasons we don't have any is the pool from which they are drawn is a swamp of self serving MPs like Paterson who apparently needs £500 an hour (his going rate) to right a wrong. What have we come to?

The Telegraph launched a ferocious attack on Kathryn Stone this morning (Parliament’s chief sleaze inquisitor faces questions about her own partisanship) amid rumours that the prime minister is going to get rid of her. The Boris supporting newspaper says:

"Summing up the mood on the backbenches, David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: 'What Tories in the tea room and beyond agree on is the current system isn't fit for purpose. Nobody thinks this is a good system and there are concerns about Kathryn Stone's partisanship. People are calling for reform'.”

The 'system' he refers to is the one MPs themselves created, The 'reforms' he talks of will last until the next Tory MP is found guilty of breaking the new rules, when someone else will call for reform, and so on and so on.

Bernard Jenkin (a knight of the realm no less) was defending Paterson this morning on Radio 4 and claiming the system, the one parliament had set up and approved, was unfair and against 'natural justice' and needs to be looked at.  It is the NI protocol all over again.

The Tory party's reaction to rule breaking is not to strengthen the rules but to rewrite them. If this applied in law making the speed limit would quickly get to 50 mph in built up areas and 200 mph on the motorway, murder would be excused if you were angry at the time.

Half of MPs. members of the Privy Council, go around with Right Honourable in front of their names and all deem themselves to be incapable of telling a lie in the House. Let us be clear: most of them are chancers or crooks, cheats and liars on an industrial scale, out for themselves at all times.  Personally, I wouldn't trust a single one.

Ms Stone isn't the first standards commissioner to come under pressure to step down. I seem to remember the one under Tony Blair was forced out although I can't quite find a link this morning. The sorry truth is that MPs think they are above the law.

If we are ever to climb our of the cesspit we have descended into the first thing that must happen is MPs must accept when they are wrong.

To become a statesman you must behave like one.