Don't let the press Do It Yourself regulate

There's no doubt about it.  Over the years we've all allowed the issue of wages and allowances to become a real mess. The electorate is furious - from members getting wives, partners and relatives on the parliamentary payroll to expense claims for duck houses, flipping and servants quarters.

The message is loud and clear - the major political parties have got to put this House in order, and as I've blogged before, its been too long. But let's not forget that Gordon was the first party leader been pushing for reform of the system (which he originally called for back in April - BEFORE the story broke and Cameron became 'really really angry' on a daily basis.)

The whole sorry episode shows self-regulation has become increasingly discredited. It failed in politics and led to the biggest crisis in Parliament in over three decade. And it failed in the banking industry leading to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

If you look at politics, even when we had independent reviews of pay and conditions for MPs,  successive Governments refused to implement them. In fact if these reviews had been accepted, the basic salary for an MP would now be £108,000 - still less than the Head of a London secondary school but still more than it is now.

So since we're reviewing the regulation of politics and banking, perhaps we can now have a frank and honest debate about arguably the worst area of self-regulation of all.

The press themselves.

Columnists and editors have had the time of their lives in the last three weeks. They label every MP as a 'trougher' just as they used to claim that we only worked four days a week.

Being an MP is a 24 hour job that takes over your life - actually it becomes your life. You're never off duty and that's one of the reasons why I don't think members should have a paid second job. (I've yet to convince Cameron's front bench on that one.)

One of the main reasons why Parliament broke that link with the Civil Service grade and MPs pay fell behind and allowances were encouraged as a top-up, was because of the fear that the press would have a field day!

Well, they've had a field month now and there's no end in sight. Bad for Parliament but great for circulation.

These papers continue to paint us as the villains of the piece. As I said in my last post, some alleged claims were bordering on being criminal but others were willingly misinterpeted by the media to sell papers.

These papers were some of the loudest campaigners for greater regulation of the banking system and Parliament. And they're right. But perhaps they should think about clearing up their own back yard too. On this issue, they suddenly fall quiet.

But the press still has the easiest of rides when it comes to regulation thanks to the Press Complaints Commission.

How effective can a regulator be when it is not only funded by the newspaper industry but senior editors sit on the board adjudicating the editorial decisions of their colleagues. Amongst them is Sunday Telgraph Editor Ian MacGregor and Mail on Sunday editor Peter Wright. The Chair of the PCC committee that reviews the Code of Practice is the editor of the Daily Mail Paul Dacre.

Both the Sunday Telegraph and the Mail ran stories given to them by Damien Green who'd had them leaked from Home Office civil servant Christopher Galley -  a Tory Party activist with direct links into the Shadow Cabinet. Galley originally said he repeatedly leaked documents because they were in the public interet but has subsequently confessed that he was promised a job by Green if he was caught.

I'm not a police officer, but you'd think that such an allegation showing that there was an incentive of private personal gain should now be properly investigated by the police? I wait to see what happens there.

But the public interest defence is being trotted out yet again to explain why the Metropolitan Police are not to investigate the stolen expenses disc.

The man responsible for hawking this stolen disc around Fleet Street was John Wick -  another Tory Party activist who was also a Conservative fundraiser at the highest level and according to the papers, left considerable debts in failed companies and had former Met Police commissioners on his boards. One left because he said he "felt very uncomfortable about the way he did business."

Now to be fair, several papers refused to pay for this stolen disc, including the Sun and The Times. But the Telegraph - which saw a 6% drop in sales over the last year in an increasingly cut throat market - reportedly paid upto £350,000 to someone representing the person who stole the disc.

Wouldn't it be great if the Editor of the Daily Telegraph - who has refused all media requests to discuss the story - came out and answered the question did you pay for the the stolen expenses disc.

Just as he did to me and my colleagues, I'll give him to 6pm tonight to reply.

Anyway, let's see what the Press Complaints Commission's Code of Practice has to say on paying criminals:

Now it's quite clear that this disc was stolen from the Fees Office. But like the Met Police, the Telegraph uses the issue of public interest as its main defence for publication.

But these expenses were going to be published anyway in July thanks to Labour's Freedom of Information Act. So the public interest defence looks a bit spurious when the information was going to be shortly released to the public.

No. This was a clear case of chequebook journalism driven by a desire to sell more newspapers. As I've said, several newspapers knew this and decided not to publish them. But the Telegraph took the chance.

Now I see the Press Complaints Commission has a new Chair - a Conservative peer, Baroness Buscombe. I really hope she's an improvement on the last one.

The last Chair Sir Christopher Meyer was hopelessly ineffectual. Under his watch, we saw a record number of complaints - upto 4,000 a year - and a damning report from the independent Media Standards Trust, whose Chair Sir David Bell (also Chair of the respected Financial Times) said the PCC was no longer fit for purpose.

In fact, a recent YouGov survey found that 93% of the public don't trust newspapers to behave responsibly.

So can I now invite Baroness Buscombe to investigate the publication of this stolen disc and publicly declare whether there has been a breach of Clause 16 of its Code of Practice preventing criminals profiting from crime.

It's time for the PCC to stand up and prove that it's an effective regulator and not the toothless tiger it became under its previous Chair.

Strong regulatory reform is coming to Parliament and the banking sector - and not before time.

But there are many who'll say after recent events that the Fourth Estate shouldn't escape change too by being allowed to keep own classic Do It Yourself-regulation.