MP expenses: Dan Byles says 'vote the buggers out'

Letter from Conservative Parliamentary Candidate - MPs' Expenses Scandal

Sir

I served in the Army for nine years, and I left to stand for election because I was fed up with the mess politicians were making of the country. After the expenses scandal, I'm even more determined to get into Westminster to bang some heads together.

When I served in the Army, I was taught that integrity and moral courage are two of the most important qualities of leadership. We desperately need some integrity and plain speaking in Parliament.

The new row over MPs' expenses would be farcical if it was not so serious. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is forced to repay some £12,000 of taxpayers' money which he claimed within the rules. Yet Jacqui Smith, who was deemed to have actually broken the rules and mis-claimed more than £100,000, does not have to repay a penny!

And now some fifty Labour MPs are so furious at having to return money to us taxpayers that they are considering setting up a legal fighting fund to go to court to keep their loot.

I genuinely don't understand what Gordon Brown thinks he is doing here.

When Labour minister Tony McNulty was caught claiming taxpayers' money for the house in which his parents lived, Brown didn't fire him - he supported him.

When Labour minister Jacqui Smith was caught claiming that the house where her husband and children lived was not her main home, but a back room in her sister's house was her main home (a situation that allowed her to claim even more taxpayers' money), Brown didn't fire her - he supported her.

And now, David Cameron has rightly said that any Conservative MP who does not repay the cash that Sir Thomas tells them to will not be allowed to stand as a Conservative MP. But all we get from Gordon Brown is mumbling and dithering. Where is the leadership?

This issue goes to the heart of trust and integrity in politics. There is something rotten at the core of too many of our MPs. There are too many lawyers and career politicians in Parliament. And too many of them have been there too long - they are completely out of touch.

We need more ordinary people in Parliament. People who have had real jobs and lived in the real world.

I knock on doors up and down the constituency every week to just talk to people, and they are angry. And my personal message is simple. Don't get mad. Vote the buggers out.

Dan Byles

Former soldier, and Conservative Parliamentary Candidate

for North Warwickshire & Bedworth