Tuesday
Sep112012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Yeo resigns one of his interests
Sep 11, 2012 Climate: Parliament Tim Yeo has decided to resign from his role in EcoCity Taxis, a position that had led to accusations of conflict of interest in recent weeks. Guido has the story:
Yeo has quit as a director of the company. Da Costa is also standing down. With the lobbying mission accomplished, now Yeo is running for cover…
With Deben being accepted by the Energy and Climate Change Committee and Yeo still retaining several problem positions in eco businesses this move is nevertheless unlikely to do much to improve the perception of certain corners of the Conservative party as still retaining their troughing ways.
Reader Comments (22)
When I investigated Tim Yeo's involvement in TMO I found that his biggest earner was his shareholding of currently untradeable shares which were valued at zero. These shares are not declared by Yeo but the rules clearly state that if they have "future value" then they must be declared. Is it possible Yeo retains such a shareholding in EcoCity Taxis?
I am quite warming to the idea that each MP should be limited to just one term (maybe two with a gap). Right now it seems to be a career that extends from school to dotage, attracting quite the wrong sort.
Alan
And the reason for this state of affairs is that parliamentarians have no genuine outside interests (in the sense of another career and a balanced view of life), a state of affairs brought about — yet again — by the oh-so-reasonable demands of the political left for whom politics is a way of life.
Witness the extent that the "entryists" were prepared to go to in the 70s and 80s keeping poor little foot soldiers like me up till all hours of the night with endless points of order, composite motions and filibusters until those of us with a wife, kids, a home, a day's work ahead of us — and a life — gave up and went home to bed at which point they called the vote, won the decision (having lost the argument) and were cock-a-hoop at one more victory for the revolution.
When parliament met at 2.30 for barely half the year (and passed about one-tenth the number of laws it passes these days), members had a job and a life and some expertise and knew what they were doing.
"Politicking" was something you did at election time; now it's forced on members every day of the week and every hour of the day and you get opposition for the sake of it and every day is part of the next election campaign. Febrile doesn't start to describe it.
And it leads to bad government and attracts the "wrong" sort of person, both Yeo and Gummer being excellent examples.
As are Balls and Milliband and Clegg, just to be even-handed.
Mike
Everything you say is bang on about what is wrong with our system and I have been thinking about it a great deal.
As you will know; the problems are first what system could one suggest that could be put in place to solve the problems and second, how the hell you then make it happen?
@Alan - until MPs can be recalled by the electorate (and not just by other MPs under very restrictive circumstances as is proposed) even a one term limit is of little value, although it would be an improvement.
Dung
It's very simple. You start by demanding that every MP has a CV that includes at least a couple of years of working in the real world (anything more than that is unrealistic; look at Pitt - PM at 24, and he didn't make a bad fist of it).
It would be nice (if equally unrealistic) to demand that MPs all had something to keep them away from the Westminster Village for at least half the year. Excessive legislation is the curse of Westminster; if Parliament were to meet four days a week for 30 weeks of the year maximum that situation would be much improved.
Give the media lessons in what government is actually about. Which might stop them speculating about snap elections and the government "running out of ideas" just because the Queen's Speech had the third lowest number of Bills since Harold Wilson's third year and only two more than the last year but three of Margaret Thatcher.
The media love reading the entrails and digging up statistics like that which are totally ***king meaningless and a distraction from what they ought to be doing, never mind what the politicians are supposed to be doing.
I could go on but I suspect there enough people here with ideas of their own.
(Oh, and keep all lobbyists at arms length — especially ones with agenda that will never ever command a majority view of the British public. Think about it. Why is the government given any credence to people whose regular attempts to get into parliament get them fewer votes than the Monster Raving Loony Party? It's insane!)
Dung - sounds like you might be interested in the Harrogate Agenda - http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83014
Mike J - that's Worstall's Law - http://timworstall.com/2012/01/28/theres-no-escaping-worstalls-law/
Morph
I like the local recall concept. They should be afraid - very afraid.
How about one Act repealed for every one created. I hear Berwick Upon Tweed is still at war with Russia.
I was only thinking of the Autumn term so they couldn't foul my holidays.
Whichever way you look at it, Yeo remains compromised. He still retains all his other outsideso called "green" interests. He has shamelessly used his position as Chairman of the Climate Change Select Committee to advance his financial interests. Clearly this acceptable in Westminster since no one on the committee has asked for him to stand down. Hopefully his constituents will see him for the fraud he is and vote him out next time round.
David
Thankyou for the link. We didn't have time to create Laws. We were too busy trying to prevent the Trots from destroying much of what our fathers' generation had fought for so forgive my less than enthusiastic reception.
At a slight tangent, those same parents would have likely started a new war if parliament had become the rest home for rent-seekers, parasites, layabouts, and all-round incompetents that inhabit it these days.
I can't help feeling that when some politicians choose between financial interests and political interests they are still making a financial decision.
So what first attracted EcoCity Taxis to Yeo: his knowledge of the For Hire business perhaps?
@Alan - thats a good idea, although I'm more for the role of MPs being abolished as not required. There is no point in "Representative Democracy" if the representatives listen more to vested interests and their own self-interest than those who elect them, which is sadly the case.
It is curious that Leo Hickman is all over the sleaze relevations yet it falls for Guido, the Mail and the Telegraph, not the Guardian, to ventilate the Conservative John. Perhaps its the environmental religion's version of absolution and indulgence.
Spoke too soon! No sooner had I posted the above, when up comes the Bishop's next post!
Guido's having a field day on Yeo yet again
http://order-order.com/2012/09/12/tim-yeo-made-10000-from-green-interests-in-july-alone-336-an-hour-conflict-of-interest-for-select-committee-chair/
Maybe we should vote for our favourite manifesto but draw our MPs from a hat.
Well - as Barroso is now quite openly calling for a 'federal' Europe - isn't our (to steal Billy Connolly's description about Holyrood) 'wee pretendy parliament' a bit surplus to requirements..?
(Don't get me wrong - the concept of a 'federation of nation states' fills me with horror...)
Tim Yeo resigns as non exec Chairman of EcoCity Taxis but .......er.....um..... what about the 2 million shares he holds? Since he is no longer a director there is no need for the company to keep us informed. It will be interesting to see the next update of Members Interests.
The online accounts do not show whether he paid for the shares or was "granted" them.
Morph
It does not matter whether the MPs listen to us or not ^.^ as long as we are in the EU then Brussells makes most of our laws and we are not a democracy anyway.
If the Telegraph report today is accurate then the proposed Banking Union will include complete control of British banks. Cameron's reaction to that may be the last throw of independent government in the UK.
VOTE UKIP!
Limiting terms for politicians has two major drawbacks, both of which can be seen in action in California, which has limited terms for both Senators and Representatives.
The first is that it takes politicians at least most of their first term to have the faintest idea what is going on. As a result, the unelected bureaucrats have even more power because they can easily fool their political masters.
The second is that there is a great incentive for politicians to carve out for themselves a future "career" after politics. As a result, California has more unnecessary boards than any other jurisdiction on the planet, all sinecure positions staffed by ex-politicians. Both sides of politics have an incentive to maintain this system, so it will be hard to dismantle.
@Alex Heyworth
I accept both your points.
It seems:
Modern UK MPs enter the House with only faint understanding of anything other than politics. Sadly, their primary skill is to deliver messages without regard to the questions being asked. Ministers barely conform to the manifesto but deliver messages prepared by the party. They can shuffle rapidly from one Ministry to another because they do not need more than a faint understanding of each. Note that few ever return to a Ministry even throughout long Parliamentary careers.
Limiting their term reflects some of those realities. Constituency recall would turf them out even quicker. Picking MPs from a hat to administer the nation's favourite manifesto should help avoid the glib and absolve them of conflicted interest.
The 'system' presents itself as generous elder Statesmen lending their gravitas to grateful corporation(s). A limited term should reduce their stature to little more than, say, jurists. I don't doubt that the system would be hard to dismantle.