Elected on 4th July Thanet East MP Polly “Parachute” Billington has wasted no time in jumping aboard Westminster’s notorious, freebie showering, gravy train which many less scrupulous MPs appear to believe is a fringe benefit of occupying senior political office.
According to her recently published register of MPs financial interests Billington’s gravy train freebie was
“Tickets for me and my partner to attend a Pet Shop Boys performance at the Royal Opera House, value £500”
The donor of the tickets was large multinational company Warner Music.
Make no mistake these tickets were not a gesture of goodwill. They are, in my opinion, legalised bribes which are part and parcel of the filthy and corrupt system called political lobbying.
Having been a lobbyist herself, Billington knows damn well the purpose of the tickets and knows that sooner or later Warner Music will come knocking at her door to cash in its £500 investment, by requesting her help with parliamentary matters which might assist this already mega-rich company become even richer.
Having taken a gift so early in her parliamentary career suggests to me that Billington is likely to take multiple gifts and hospitality from lots of other donors with ulterior motives during her time at Westminster.
As an MP Billington must adhere to the Seven Principles of Public Life which require her amongst other things to act with integrity and:
avoid placing.. (herself) under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. They should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. They must declare and resolve any interests and relationships.
Although Billington declared her gift, this does not mean that she, or any other MP who has declared a gift or hospitality, have resolved or absolved themselves of any conflicts of interest the gift or hospitality might be seen to cause. Nor does declaring the gift or hospitality mean that it will cease to influence an MPs judgment or behavior.
In my book providing MPs with gifts and hospitality is a bride pure and simple. If you are a honest person the only way to deal with a bribe is to reject it. MP Billington did not, which says a lot about her moral compass and lack thereof.
In a country where politicians and our political system are no longer trusted and held in contempt by a growing majority of the population, for an MP earning £91,000 a year to brazenly freeload on a gravy train of freebies is beyond contempt. Such selfish behavior serves only to bring democracy into greater disrepute and opens the doors to the far right.
This is especially true for MPs such as Billington who represent the most deprived constituencies in the country where thousands are forced to get by on poverty level low pay and benefits and where few people could ever afford to go to a £500 gig at the Royal Opera House, let alone have the opportunity and connections to be gifted the tickets. The taking of freebies in such a situation will never go down well with voters and rightly so say I.
I, along with organisations such as the Independent Commission on Standards in Public Life, the Institute of Government, Unlock Democracy of which I am a member, Transparency International (UK) and many other groups are demanding that politics in this country must be dragged out the sewer and cleaned up, and that abusers of democracy such as the lobbying industry and the associated giving of gifts and hospitality to MPs and councillors must be ended and criminalised with jail terms for the givers and the takers.
Polly Billington still has time to redeem herself for diving headfirst into the cess pit of political corruption. Although she attended the Pet Shop Boys gig, she could always pay Warner Music the £500 cost of the tickets and make it clear that she will not accept any further offers of free gifts or hospitality again.
If she doesn’t then in the words of the Pet Shop Boys “it’s a Sin”.
Here they are performing at the gig in question. It not where’s Wally its where’s Polly, Dancing in the private box in the upper right I think.
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