Skip to main content

Commons Crisis - a Window on the Soul of Britain?

The recent scandal in the House of Commons has clearly shocked and angered a lot people. At least some of the expense claims exposed have been widely regarded as fraudulent, and few people will lament the exit of the politicians guilty of them.

The purpose of democracy is to produce political leaders who are servants of the people, and representative of the people they serve. Participation in fraud probably isn't what most people would have in mind when they think of representation. But the sad truth is that events in the House are depressingly typical of what is happening in Britain today.

Consider these figures:
  • In 2004, UK identity fraud is estimated to have cost £1.7 billion (Source: Association of Fraud Examiners)
  • Corporate fraud costs UK businesses £40 million per day (Source: Corporate Fraud Solutions)
  • Car insurance fraud costs the insurance industry over £1.6 billion per year (Source: Royal Sun Alliance)
  • In 2004-5, HM Revenue and Customs estimate that almost £1.2 billion was paid in tax credit claims that were either erroneous or fraudulent
  • Overall, fraud costs each UK household £650 per year (Source: Norwich Union)
The majority of us who have never participated in criminal activities may be shocked and angered by those figures, just as we are by recent events in government. But before you point the finger, stop and think. Have you ever twisted the rules and pushed the boundaries when making a tax or insurance claim? Or played down your role in a car accident? Or sold a dodgy car and concealed its true condition?

Every journey starts with a small step. Maybe our elected leaders are actually more representative of us than we realised. Just not quite in the way we would have chosen!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robbing The Poor To Feed The Rich?

Now that cuts in spending seem to be on the agenda of all the main political parties, the big questions still to be answered are: how much? And where will the axe fall? According to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, published by the BBC ( http://bit.ly/d168R ), the most popular candidate with most people is overseas aid. That’s not really surprising. It’s understandable that during severe financial crisis most people want our government to look after our own affairs first. Charity, as the saying goes, begins at home. But is it really right for the poorest nations of the world to be penalised for a crisis that was brought on by the rich? The developing world already spends $1.3 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants (Source: World Centric, http://bit.ly/b5C7f ). Every day at least $100 million flows from the poor of the world into the pockets of the rich. Existing problems like drought and famine will not go away just because there is a worldwide recession, and the poor are mo...
2 comments
Read more

A God Who Reaches Out

Years ago I was guest speaker at a conference of a group of churches in a remote part of SW Uganda. One of the delegates I met there had walked for a couple of days to attend, sleeping out in the bush under the stars, and drinking water from whatever muddy pool he came across. I've been back several times since, but I've never forgotten the remarkable dedication of that one individual. It's been widely acknowledged, and I've written here previously, that the universe seems to speak to us of an architect - a creator of everything we see around us. If that's true, it would require similar dedication on their part for us to have any chance of knowing and understanding them. The innumerable religions and concepts of God that we find around the world today, not to mention throughout history, and the many other theories of origins, are testimony to this. Left to ourselves we are incapable of figuring out definitively, to everyone's agreement and satisfaction, who or w...
Post a Comment
Read more

God the Omnipotent and Stupid?

One of the questions you will often hear raised about God goes along the lines, "If there is an omnipotent God why doesn't he do X?", where X may be anything from stopping wars or preventing earthquakes to curing cancer. Often there is a deeply personal reason behind the question, which makes a purely rational answer wholly unsatisfying. All the same, it's a rational question and some kind of rational answer is deserved. But two things make it a complex question to which no simple answer is possible. One is the extraordinary diversity of the things that 'X' may represent, all of them having different causes with different and completely unrelated solutions. The other is the sole focus on God's omnipotence. Because God, if he exists, must be so much more than just that. There is an old philosophical conundrum on the same subject, of the kind that philosphers love to pose and to ponder. If God is omnipotent, can he create an object so massive that he himself...
Post a Comment
Read more