:: Kishwar Desai

An uncommon man

Kishwar Desai

June.27 : In the recent elections for the Speaker of the House of Commons, one interesting candidate who cropped up was Parmjit Dhanda - a Labour Member of Parliament who had little hope of winning, but attracted attention because of his untiring chutzpah. The undaunted Mr Dhanda is an MP from Gloucester, and a former communities minister. At 37, he was the youngest among those hopeful for the Speaker's post but was never the front-runner - a fact that didn't seem to affect him, at all.

He is known to have been outspoken in the past, and when he was removed from the post of minister he did not bother to hide his dismay. After the two recent shocks (losing his job, and then losing the Speaker's race), one expected that Mr Dhanda would have learnt his lesson and retired meekly. But no, just this week he decided to stick his neck out again. This time he was voting on the inquiry into the Iraq war and he proved to be a maverick once more: while most of the Labour benches were voting for the government, Mr Dhanda decided to vote with the Opposition which is asking for a change in the terms of the proposed inquiry. This is, indeed, a very sensitive issue and the Iraq inquiry, in its present form, may prove to be fatal for the Labour government.

Not only has Iraq been a hugely unpopular war, the parents of those soldiers who died in the conflict are demanding to know the truth. The truth, of course, may remain ambiguous forever and the commission may never reach the conclusion people want to hear. But, in today's scenario, to hold an inquiry in secret completely contradicts the mood of the nation. The country is tired of spin and secrecy.

After nearly 50 days of excruciating revelations over how MPs have spent the taxpayers' money on themselves, people want trust restored in democratic institutions.

Ironically, however, over the last week, when MPs' expenses were finally published by the government, they contained an enormous number of "redactions". We learnt a new word which simply meant that huge portions of the expenses had been blacked out and would never be put in the public domain. Ostensibly this was done to ensure the privacy of the MPs but in effect it meant that it was impossible for anyone to gauge the scale of the misdemeanours of the MPs, since most of the controversial information was hidden behind black ink. A furious electorate realised that the "redaction" process itself had cost over £1 million!

People complained that if they were paying the MPs salaries and expenses, they needed to know what they are spending their hard-earned money on. It has become a peculiar situation where the employee is hiding information from the employer.

Luckily, dogged journalism by the Daily Telegraph has ensured that no cover up will work now. It is a similar case with the Iraq inquiry. The more the government wants to conduct it in secret, the more it will seem that there is something to hide. The latest chain of whispers, stating that the all-powerful business secretary Lord Peter Mandelson has asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown to conduct the inquiry in private in order to protect former Prime Minister Tony Blair, has added to growing despair.

Therefore, one cannot underestimate the importance of MPs like Mr Dhanda. He appears to possess a spine, which is always welcome, especially, if I may say so, among Asian MPs. The problem with Asians is that thanks to our culture, we are usually trained to be far too polite and respectful. This is probably more prevalent in politics where chamchagiri is thoroughly appreciated. And this makes one hope for more vociferous, outspoken and fearless Asian parliamentarians (I am married to one of them, and may their tribe increase!). Therefore it is delightful to see someone like Mr Dhanda emerge. Certainly he added masala to a rather bland Speaker's election in which the result was known long before it was officially announced.

Of course, Mr Dhanda will have to re-examine his own record in some areas - for instance, when the ferocious Telegraph scrupulously listed out the "misclaims" that all the Speaker hopefuls had made, Mr Dhanda's name was on the list. He had also previously voted for keeping the MPs' claims a secret.

Recently, Mr Dhanda has been able to build up an identity for himself. But if in the future he hopes to become the first Brit-Asian Speaker of the House of Commons, he better start rigorously re-examining some of his decisions, and grooming himself for the position. The discredited House of Commons more than ever needs honesty - and let us hope Mr Dhanda lays claim to that attribute.

Meanwhile, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi may be finally realising that his "sexist" attitude towards women needs to change dramatically. His troubles appear to be increasing as sleazy details of his penchant for women pile up. Despite this, his male chauvinistic sympathisers still want to leave his private life alone. However, as one newspaper columnist pointed out, Mr Berlusconi (who is also a media tycoon) had encouraged the whole trend of "reality TV" to keep the Italians amused. Now that he himself has become the butt of a full-time reality media show, he can hardly complain!

As public unease mounts, more and more Italian women are trying to mobilise world opinion to get Mr Berlusconi to change his behaviour. One idea is to request the wives of the leaders attending the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Italy next month to boycott the session. If the wives register a protest against his behaviour by not showing up, it may make a slight dent in the Italian Prime Minister's teflon testosterone. But before that, it may just be the not-so-subtle hints from the Vatican, and advice from (hopefully) embarrassed members of his party, urging him to give up his philandering. Otherwise, he should just take a look around him: the world is populated by unpopular premiers who have tried or are trying to cling on to power. The message is clear: unless the former cruise singer cleans up his act, the protests against him may eventually push him out of the top job.

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com