:: Farrukh Dhondy

My adventures in the expenses trade

Farrukh Dhondy

"Light at the end of the tunnel?

The monster’s bought a torch!"

From Songs of Hope by Bachchoo

June.6 : There is a deep crisis of confidence in the Mother of Parliaments. Westminster is in panic. Do not ask for whom the Big Ben tolls, it tolls for the members of the House who have been caught fiddling their expenses, charging the taxpayer for the rents, mortgages, furnishings, refurbishments, absurd luxury touches and running of what they called "second homes".

On the face of it, most of the 649 members of Parliament should be entitled to this allowance so that they can have flats in London and keep a home in their constituencies.

It has now been painfully revealed that this legitimate arrangement led to a plethora of scams that would make a Mumbai accountant blush.

India is no stranger to the expenses game. Some years ago a close relative, employed in a very senior capacity in a reputable Indian capitalist firm, told me that his salary was a paltry few thousand rupees a month.

The sum he mentioned wouldn’t have covered the weekly dhobi bill, far less the malis, cook, house staff, cars, children’s school fees, holidays etc. I was puzzled. He explained. The salary was his taxable income. The rest — the household, the children’s education and salaries for the khidmatdars were all part of "expenses". They were perks in kind. That the expenses must have been thirty or a hundred times the taxable salary was not a problem. The law allowed it and the company awarded it.

Perhaps things have changed in India. Still, the fact that non-salaried people and the self-employed dodge tax on a massive scale is not a secret. The tax-dodge is to the accountant what a rabbit is to hawk — he has to spot it from a great height and if he can’t, he starves.

My own adventures in the expenses trade began only when I joined a TV company called Channel 4 as a bureaucrat. Before that happy time, in a perhaps happier time, I earned my living through writing, on occasion for Channel 4 itself.

As a writer of TV, the tab for infrequent lunches would, almost always, be picked up by the commissioning editor, producer or head of drama who had invited you out.

The thought that the bill for the posh Claret at The Ivy was going to be paid for out of "expenses" never occurred to me. I always thought these people were, in awe and pursuit of my talent, being judicious and generous. It was only when I accepted the job of commissioning editor at Channel 4 that I discovered the scope and extent of the expenses world.

In my first few weeks at the commissioning desk, I was unaware that the spare key in my desk drawer was for access to a cupboard on a certain floor of the Charlotte Street offices which contained a supply of wines which one could fetch to one’s office by signing a book. So it was only at my first weekly session of reporting to Paul Bonner, the channel controller, that I picked up, from my co-commissioning editor John Ranelagh, that one could submit a list of "expenses" for the entertainment, travel and hotel bills of the week. My first, I was assured by colleagues, perfectly justified snuffle in the lunching trough.

John was the commissioning editor for Ireland, chess and those programmes that defied categorisation. It was an odd post specially created at the behest of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher under whose government Channel 4 was finally born. John had been minuting secretary to Mrs Thatcher’s Shadow Cabinet and was taken on by Jeremy Isaacs, the channel’s first chief executive, to oversee what she and her government would regard as a "responsible" policy towards the reporting of Ireland.

He and I had joint weekly reporting sessions, at one of which Paul, after talking about programmes and arriving at administrative matters and the signing of expenses, frowned in puzzlement. John had submitted a dining bill having entertained the then Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey in Dublin. The restaurant bill for dinner was close to £500. "How did you manage that?" Paul asked.

"We skipped dessert", John said. He then explained that it included some arrangement for out-of-hours security for the Taoiseach.

Our expenses didn’t stretch to laundry bills, clothes, rent, mortgages or the installation of heating systems under tennis courts and the cleaning up of moats. Apart from the hotel bills we ran up when travelling, I suppose the largest expenses bill in the TV world went on taxis and the only memorable claim I can remember submitting was for returning from seeing the evening performance of a play in Birmingham 150 miles away. After I had bought the director of the play dinner to schmooze him into working for us, the last train had gone. I called London for a cab. Still, it was cheaper than staying the night and catching the train next morning.

The parliamentary expenses scandal has already forced the resignation of the Speaker of the House. It is expected that at least a hundred MPs from the present House will stand down at the next election. The party leaders are falling over themselves to promise reform of all and any sort.

Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, who it seems has built up a small proper empire by fiddling the expenses he was allowed on his second homes is about to be pushed if he doesn’t resign. Home secretary Jacqui Smith has also said she’d leave the Cabinet. She is in disgrace for claiming rent for a home which belonged to her sister and for including in her expenses receipts pornographic films that her husband rented. If the home minister and the finance minister are guilty of swindling the taxpayer, albeit through means they consider are "within the rules", there can’t be much respect left for the government. The earliest reflection of this disastrous blow to faith in the great democratic institution will be revealed next week when the electorate votes in elections to local councils (municipal elections) and for the parties it wishes to send to the European Parliament. The predictions are that the three main parties, the Liberal Democrats, the Tories and Labour, will suffer a thrashing at the polls and the beneficiaries of the protest vote will, alas, be the racist, neo-fascist British National Party.