As soon as the politicians of the country thought they might be able to turn the corner on the sleaze and scandals shrouding Westminster it seems they just can’t help themselves. Channel Four’s dispatched exposes MP’s who describe themselves as taxi’s, the fare? £5000 a day. The Budget is to be released on Wednesday and across the pond ‘change’ has finally come as Obama secures his healthcare bill in the senate.
Channel Four and the Times secretly filmed Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon in an investigation into Lobbying and ‘cash for advice’. It seems the three would offer their services to companies in return for hefty sums. Basically Lobbying on behalf of the company, or whoever, in the House of Commons and in turn getting money for their services. Stephen Byers, a former transport secretary, compared himself as a ‘cab for hire’ and working for up to £5000 and day. Now if MP’s didn’t already have a bad reputation with the public, this is going to make things that bit worse. Labour has since suspended all three of them for the time being.
This may look bad for the Labour Government, but Gordon Brown he could kill two birds with one stone. As you may recall both Hoon and Hewitt were behind the failed cue to oust Brown from the party leadership back in January. If he axe these two he’d loose two troublesome backbenchers from his party. Byres has always been a Blairite and has never supported Brown. To loose these three would probably be a good thing for the PM. As well as this it cold give him the opportunity to appear strong and decisive to remove members of the party who will now have sealed their unpopularity with the public.
In America history was made this Weekend as Obama had his healthcare bill passed in congress. His bill narrowly passed winning 219 to 212 votes. 34 Democrats voted against the bill with 100% of the Republican party. Nevertheless this is change that Obama promised, and is signs he may finally making the big decisions he promised. I find it strange that his popularity has gone down as people oppose the bill, yet they voted for him in full knowledge this was one of his key policies. The opposition to the bill has been fierce, dividing the nation into bitter disagreements. From a British perspective it seems ridiculous that the opposition to the bill has been so strong. He hasn’t introduced a National Health Service, but simply taken the pressure off a lot of the poorest families in the country. The bill now means a further 35 million people will be covered with healthcare and will pay for senior citizens pills and drugs.
That’s all for this week. read next week when I’ll be covering the budget as well as all of the weeks happening in politics!
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