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Sleaze, Old Corruption and Parliamentary Reform: An Historical Perspective on the Current Crisis
Authors:PAUL SEAWARD
Affiliation:Director of the History of Parliament Trust, and has written on politics and political thought in the seventeenth century and on Parliament in the twentieth century.
Abstract:There is nothing new about the existence of a political class, nor about the electorate's distaste for paid politicians. In the middle ages, voters made clear their preference for representatives who were prepared to serve without payment; in the eighteenth century, the increase in the number of MPs paid by the state, whether in salaried posts or as sinecurists, was seen as a corrupt and pernicious extension to the influence of the crown; in the nineteenth and early twentieth century the payment of MPs by the taxpayer was widely regarded as an improper and offensive idea. The current furore over MPs' pay and expenses is another example of the intense suspicion with which MPs who have received money from the state have been regarded from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
Keywords:Members of Parliament    expenses    corruption    House of Commons
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