Dr Rowan Williams: Enough humiliation. We must move on

The “systematic humiliation” of MPs is threatening Britain’s democracy, the Archbishop of Canterbury warns today.

Dr Rowan Williams, writing in The Times, says that the issues raised by the expenses scandal are grave and that urgent action is required.

“But many will now be wondering whether the point has not been adequately made," he says. "The continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy.”

Dr Williams says that it would be a tragedy if the expenses saga ended any confidence in the idea that politics and public service could be a calling “worthy of the most generous instincts”.

The warning came as the Conservative MP Andrew MacKay said at a constituency meeting that he would stand for reselection after both he and his wife, the Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed for their homes on expenses.

Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, claimed that MPs were victims of a “McCarthy-style witch-hunt”. She said that the drip-drip of leaked claims was creating such an atmosphere of terror that there was a risk of an MP committing suicide.

Hours after Ms Dorries made the remarks, David Cameron ordered a public statement insisting that her comments were her own and did not represent those of the party.

According to one Tory source, party officials have had conversations with Ms Dorries on more than one occasion to rebuke her for her “increasing tendency to make wild and eccentric statements”.

After Ms Dorries drew a comparison between the expenses scandal and the anti-Communist witch-hunts of US senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, a number of other MPs criticised the backbencher.

Stephen Pound, the Labour MP, described Ms Dorries’s comments as “facile” adding: “The idea that anybody is going to play the violin and ask people to contribute to the MPs’ relief fund has absolutely no grasp of reality whatsoever.”

Mr Cameron attacked Ms Dorries’s judgment insisting that: “Of course MPs are concerned about what is happening but, frankly, MPs ought to be concerned about what their constituents think and ought to be worrying about the people who put us where we are.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Dorries said: “People are seriously beginning to crack. The last day in Parliament this week was, I would say, completely unbearable.

"I have never been in an atmosphere or environment like it, when people walk around with terror in their eyes and people are genuinely concerned, asking, 'Have you seen so and so? Are they in their office? They've not been seen for days.'

"There's a really serious concern that this has got to a point now which is almost unbearable for any human being to deal with."

Ms Dorries' comments, echoing postings on her weblog, followed an angry outburst earlier in the week in which one MP, forced to stand down over the size of his gardening bills, complained that his critics had merely been jealous of his "very, very large house".

"I've done nothing criminal, that's the most awful thing," Totnes MP Anthony Steen, who spent £90,000 his second home, including big sums for lopping trees, said. "And do you know what it's all about? Jealousy."

Mr Steen was one of two MPs who confirmed their departure at the next election, the other being Ben Chapman, the Labour MP for Wirral South, who insisted that he had done nothing wrong despite allegations that he over-claimed £15,000 extra for mortgage interest.

Mr Chapman said that he had been given permission by the Commons Fees Office to maintain claims on the mortgage for his second home in London despite his decision to pay off £295,000 of it, which reduced his mortgage bill from £1,900 a month to around £400.

Another Labour MP, Ian Gibson, also offered to stand down if the voters demanded it after claims that he had sold his taxpayer-subsidised second home to his daughter at a knock-down rate. He, too, insisted that he acted within the rules.

In his article for The Times today, Dr Williams says regulation has taken the place of virtue and questions the “no rules were broken” mentality that has underpinned many of the MPs’ and peers’ responses, arguing that this represents a basic problem in contemporary moral thinking.

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