Was Devine’s biggest crime being caught?

Demonstrating the milk of human kindness for which they are famed, Emma Boon of the Taxpayers’ Alliance opined that his early release made his sentence “a hollow gesture”. We need not dwell on the public spirited nature of the Alliance save to note that they were founded by a number of right-wing libertarians whose idea of heaven is only the little people paying taxes and the rest contributing as little as they can get away with.

Devine’s defence, similar to that of Eric Illsley, also freed under curfew and tagging arrangements after a quarter of his sentence, was, in essence, that everyone was at it, but only a handful were investigated. Sadly they were not being all that economical with the truth. That only a few cheating MPs became temporary guests of Her Majesty was largely due to only a few having their claims examined in detail.

The prevailing culture for some members was an attitude that the expenses were less recompense for legitimate domestic need, expenditure and inconvenience, but a de facto top-up salary.

How else to explain the extraordinary coincidence that so many annual expense claims came in a few pounds under the notional limit? How else to contemplate the acquisition of the infamous duck house, or the restoration of tennis courts as instances of second home essentials?

Outside of Devine’s clumsy fraud lay many more common circumlocutions of the law, from the transparently illegal – claiming rent on houses owned or belonging to relatives, to low level cheating – travelling mob handed in the same vehicle and submitting individual claims.

So, though guilty as charged, the small, sad parade of MPs and peers in the dock are entitled to a certain sense of grievance that what principally separated them from many of their colleagues was the additional crime of breaking the 11th commandment … getting caught.

The convicted MPs doubtless also reflected how much easier life might have been to have had friends in higher places. David Laws, whose illegal rent and maintenance claims paid to his partner topped £60,000 got away with an apology and a brief parliamentary suspension.

You might argue that the situation in the Lords provides even more ambiguities. Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield also suggested to their respective judges that their fake claims were made on the back of colleagues’ advice that such behaviour was not unusual. Yet while they were jailed, the reprehensible behaviour of Lord Paul, Lord Bhatia and Baroness Uddin, when discovered and investigated, resulted in no more than a suspension from the upper house. Not to mention an assurance from the Conduct committee that a public apology would not be necessary.

Yet Lord Paul’s main residence turned out to be a flat in a hotel he owned but where he had never stayed, while the central London domiciled Baroness Uddin bought Kent premises, never used, for the purposes of making claims from them.

In fact, should you wander through the Lords register of interests and claims you will discover that very many peers whom you thought happily ensconced in rather splendid London residences have a designated “primary” dwelling, often many hundreds of miles distant, which carry eligibility for overnight allowances and free travel for themselves and spouses.

Never again will there be this kind of scandal, intoned Lord Strathclyde, as two peers were jailed. I’d do a bit of fact checking before making so bold m’lud.

In truth you’d hope that most honourable members are just that. I think of folk like Chris Mullin whose rented London base boasted a black and white telly and his bus stop outside. All elected representatives are entitled to a decent level of comfort while engaged on parliamentary business. But only the sin-free are also entitled to chuck stones at the sad figure that is now Jim Devine.