The two faces of Tory MEP Philip Bushill-Matthews
1. Members' allowances and expenses.
Given that he became leader in the wake of the dramatic resignations of his predecessor, Giles Chichester, and Chief Whip Den Dover, financial rectitude and modesty must surely feature high up on the list of attributes wanted in a new Tory leader.
As it happens, Bushill-Matthews is the author of a book called "The Gravy Train". A no-holds barred critique? A revelation of untoward practices? Proposals for reform?
None of the above! When he finally gets to the subject of MEPs' pay and conditions (in the last chapter), it is to defend the system and to claim that MEPs are not paid enough! He says (pages 197 - 198) that, because an MEP's job is much more onerous than that of an MP, he "questions why we should get the same salaries for such very different jobs, working such very different hours" and that the salary level "actually represents a massive discount to our previous earnings".
As to the reform which will come into force next year, whereby MEPs salaries will be set at a proportion of the salary of a Judge in the European Court of Justice (i.e. somewhere between £60,000 and £70,000 per annum, depending on the exchange rate), he states "I personally think that these Judges are very underpaid." (page 204).
On MEPs' expenses, he spends several pages defending the system, again comparing it to Westminster and saying "I know which deal is the more generous" after listing a number of Westminster perks.
The above hardly tallies with the title he has given to his book. Given his line of argument, it should have been called "Not a Gravy Train" in order to reflect what he actually says.
He plays to the tabloid gallery in the title, but his own view of the job of MEP is: "The reward in terms of a real sense of achievement has been greater than I could ever have hoped, although the financial reward - despite pubic perception - has been limited." (page 205).
2. Eurosceptic or Europhile?
Another area where he is less than honest is his on-off Euroscepticism. On the last page, he moans that "people still peddle the view that 'Brussels' is taking powers away from Westminster" . Yet this is a view that he is not loathe to reinforce himself - when it will get him press coverage or ingratiate himself toTory Eurosceptics:
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He attacks the Working Time Directive (agreed when the Conservatives were in office without the UK voting against the Directive), but his main criticisms apply to "gold plating" by Whitehall in that he points out that the Dutch government's national guidance to companies for implementing the Directive consisted of "eight pages of notes, all really quite sensible" whereas the (then Tory) UK government sent him "134 pages" - yet he blames this on "Europe"! (page 13)
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He peddles the myth that there is an EU "directive on how to climb a ladder " and invents Euro myths of his own such as " UK Labour MEPs were joining other euro Socialists to put them (local papers) out of business" (page 98)
Yet he says the British public have an unduly negative perception of Europe . He commends the visits from constituents to the Parliament which "do much to dispel some of the myths about what really goes on" (page 70) and "I had assumed the problem would be Commission proposals for more and more red tape, with most MEPs rubber stamping them out of ignorance of the business impact. Here I was certainly wrong".
He says: "Before I became an MEP I thought that the UK was generally the odd-man out in Europe. The reality is somewhat different." (page 115).
He even supports qualified majority voting, and concedes that " with membership of at least 25 countries, the EU cannot expect to operate with all key decisions taken unanimously" (page 165).
3. Facts or partisan clichés?
Given that his book purports to be a thoughtful, factual book, his rather silly (and unfounded) attacks on Labour MEPs give all the signs of having been added by a second-rate Tory press officer with a limited understanding of libel law. Some notable examples are:
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He claims that it is not an exaggeration "to point out that UK Labour MEPs are the leftist of the lot" (in a Parliament containing assorted Communists and Trotskyists as well as various left wing Socialists!) (page 93).
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He claims that Britain switched to proportional representation for European elections so that Tony Blair "could better control the selection process and weed out Labour MEPs he disapproved of" oblivious to the fact that the Treaty - originally signed by a Conservative government - requires a common electoral system and that the UK was the only country not to have proportional representation (and ignoring the fact that it was not Tony Blair who chose the Labour candidates anyway) (page 14).
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His claim of Socialist MEPs only being interested in their expense allowances - as it is Tory (and UKIP) MEPs who have been accused of misusing their expenses, this must rank pretty high in the hypocrisy stakes (page 42)
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That Labour MEPs were responsible for MEPs' offices having to have loos and showers (page 46). News to me!
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That Michael Cashman MEP offered a committee of Matrix Churchill ex-employees £1 million (page 76). A completely unsubstantiated and outrageous claim.
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That the Capital of Culture 2008 award went to "one of the weakest bids, to the City of Liverpool" for "entirely political" reasons rather than to "the strongest bid, Birmingham". The fact that the choice was made by an independent panel and the fact that Mr Bushill-Matthews represents Birmingham are of course irrelevant. Still, it's good that he attempts to talk up his constituency, although the good people of Birmingham might be surprised to see that it was Birmingham, Alabama that featured on Bushill-Matthews' own website, until local press reporters pointed out his blunder!
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He claims that the severance package for the dismissed Santer Commission "was bound to be generous, thanks to the Socialists". But no severance package was ever voted by the Parliament.
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He attacks Labour MEPs for approving the Prodi Commission (page 153) although his own group did likewise.
4. Own Goals
If a Tory press officer did go over the book, he or she missed a number of crucial own goals scored by Mr Bushill-Matthews:
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He claims that "the selection board process for Conservative candidates for the European Parliament is modelled on the Nazi officer assessment course" (page 12)
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He recounts (page 37) how his political group had a meeting in Marbella at which they adopted a declaration which they decided to call "the Malaga Declaration" because " the Marbella Declaration would have sounded too much as if we were on a jolly".
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Having attacked the Labour government for introducing proportional representation for European elections, he later explains (page 29) how alarmed he was when the Conservatives tried to block these proposals in the House of Lords, saying that "it was just another example of politicians playing games with other politicians" and describing how he and Roger Helmer helped jam party chairman Michael Ancram's fax machine in protest (page 29). He says that "Tory Lords and MPs were cock-a-hoop at the embarrassment they had caused the government. The media, the membership and above all the candidates all thought they were pretty potty" (page 30).
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He says that the best lobbyists are those who tell you "precisely how you should vote on specific amendments and why, and even give you the wording of amendments they would like to see tabled" (page53).
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He lambasts "the formerly Socialist-led Parliament had just rubber stamped Socialist-led legislation from the Socialist-led Commission", although none of these bodies have Socialist majorities or Presidents and his own group is the largest in the Parliament (page 38).
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At one point in the book (page 57) he quips that the phrase "I shall waste no time in putting [the matter] at the top of my agenda" can be read to imply extreme urgency but, if anything, "actually promises the opposite". Having said this, it is all the more remarkable that on page 70 he has the gall to say "I do encourage constituents to keep in contact and to write to me on any issues that worry them. If they do write I suggest they let me know if they are Conservative party members. It always helps to know. In return I will always promise to give the issues they raise the attention they deserve. In fact I usually go much further than this and make a solemn commitment: I promise to waste no time whatsoever in putting their concerns at the very top of my agenda!"
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He admits, in his own words: "cynically, I even suggested to one local newspaper that the idea had only been put forward so that the two MPs for Warwick and Rugby, both Labour, could appear to be local champions if they oppose it and the idea was subsequently withdrawn" - an admission of not just spin but of actually lying to the press for political advantage. Not surprising that he ends that chapter with the words "I don't expect my readers to believe me. After all, why should anyone believe a politician?"
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He admits that he "managed to orchestrate a campaign" whereby companies organise their employees to write personal letters to Stephen Hughes MEP disagreeing with a position he was taking (page 95) without admitting to him that he was behind it when Stephen commented to him on the volume of correspondence he was getting.
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He openly admits to hoodwinking the press: "the local press were very excited by such an initiative: the fact that I had apparently written 99 separate letters had really impressed them. It was actually only one letter, sent out 99 times.. I accepted the media congratulations graciously without correction".
5. Hasn't a clue
To cap it all, there are numerous factual errors in his book, among which:
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That the European Parliament is the only Parliament in the world that is not allowed to decide for itself where it sits and that John Major brokered the deal for Parliament to have its sessions in Strasbourg only "on a five year trial basis". (If only!!)
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That Ladin is spoken in Germany and Occitan in Spain. (In fact it is Italy and France respectively) (page 137).
- He gets a number of facts in a muddle when describing the Maastricht Treaty negotiations:
- that John Major opposed having a Social Chapter in the treaty (there always was a Social Chapter - it was the strengthening thereof that Major opted out of):
- that Maastricht provided for "the super-state giving its own passport to its own citizens" ( Maastricht does not mention the subject - the common European format for national passports had been agreed years before, under Thatcher)
- that the CFSP would have meant "the UK asking EU permission to take back the Falklands" (pages 168 - 169).
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That Germany was the only country not to keep its tally of MEPs intact with enlargement (page 172).
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That the two Irish referendums on Nice produced a decisive "no" the first time and a narrow "yes" the second time (in fact it was the no that was narrow and the yes that was large (page 173).
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That the Convention proposes a single EU Finance Minister (page 174).
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That monetary union "has been tried over the centuries and it has failed every time" and that it requires "a single overall government and a single overall taxation policy".
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That the Major-Lamont recession was caused by the ERM.
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That the German people "had no say" in the decision to join the single currency (page 179).
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That the eastern European currencies were due to join the single currency by 2006 (page 180).
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That UK taxes "would have to go up sharply" if we joined the single currency
- That Parliament refused to adopt the 2001 budget (page 153).
So much for what his book reveals about the man. If Bushill Matthews is the best the Tories can offer in Brussels , it's no wonder that David Cameron despairs about his MEPs. But, on closer inspection, Bushill-Matthews is a bit like his boss: opportunistic, vacuous and facing both ways on Europe .