THE ongoing shambles surrounding the now disgraced Lord Hanningfield during his reign as leader of Essex County Council is heightened once again by blame countered by blame and a virtual absence of responsible reflection.
There is little doubting that Lord Hanningfield regarded expense claims as a form of emolument for services rendered and that his dishonesty reflected less any real criminality than an expression of the commonplace approach of so many to dipping into the public purse.
He was by no means alone, albeit no excuse attaches to support the conduct. He has been punished for his actions in this regard.
In relation to ECC it was always going to be hard to find criminality with respect to the use of a credit card. The use of it was so well known and audited, involved so many and did not really depend upon conjuring truth, but relied upon a casual disregard for probity, the results of which were enjoyed by many others at ECC.
There is not much ground either to support a forensic division of his expenditure over a period of five years with a realistic expectation of recovering anything when Peter Martin the deputy leader and Joanna Killian the chief executive of ECC both knew about this expenditure. Along with others, by doing nothing, they by implication sanctioned the behaviour.
Lord Hanningfield has already been disgraced for taking advantage of a culture that was already well-established, for him eating out and trips abroad were enough, for others money and property were more alluring.
He frequently appears not to adequately demonstrate that he appreciates wrongness is not diluted by being commonplace and is at times perhaps too quick to be defensive when he could easily be contrite or accepting.
We can expect he has been deeply wounded and is reeling with the pain which must be hard to bear and this negatively impacts upon his responses.
My feeling is that this relentless tide of censure renders him temporarily and for others conveniently impotent and yet he can clearly be and was a lion, he is not a bad man he is a good man who like many of us has done something unremarkable but evidently wrong in amongst a very great deal that was good.
This is not the time for more legal actions or posturing, they obfuscate which is a disadvantage to Lord H, to him more than to any other player in this drama, candour and plain spoken, undefended honesty lies at his feet to be extolled.
For others they will have to reach out uncomfortably far and in doing so be exposed for what they are and possibly be compelled to answer for that.
There is a point after which I think Lord H is being used as a scapegoat to draw the gaze of us all from the circumstances that facilitated and accommodated Lord H's undisguised and unabashed conduct. Lord H has been a public figure for a long time with all that entails, and after all of that because he eats out at our expense we want to ruin the man.
I for one don't begrudge him some perks, people doing that type of work by their nature will be keen to be on show, and he was, and we paid for his lunches; now he has paid by being humiliated and suffered financially far beyond his actions just to defend himself from everything else that is now being thrown at him.
Enough is enough I think; we should examine those who are basically sticking the metaphorical boot in, he is trying to tell us something, we should listen and show some humility.
There are plenty of people who set out to do bad things, or are entirely self-serving. Lord H is quite demonstrably not one of them.
Well done to the Chronicle for being so informative on the matter, giving us the opportunity to comment about it. Thank you.
David Kirkwood
East Hanningfield
IT WOULD be interesting to know the precise reasons for Lord Hanningfield's overseas visits.
There must be one for each of the 24: a conference, a delegation, whatever?
It would be equally interesting, and just, to quantify, if possible, their value to the running of the county council, and inter alia the benefit that might have accrued to council taxpayers.
I cannot imagine that he instigated these visits entirely by himself. Surely there must have been a degree of authorisation at officer level – and incidentally 24 different countries over five years equates to approximately five a year, not an excessive number for the leader of a very large, wide-ranging authority, certainly fewer than I made annually in a job I once held. Are there any comparisons with the travel of other leaders of big councils with a similar spread of interests?
Of course he should have been less extravagant, and wiser in his choice of eating places, after all he was spending public money, but he could hardly have taken people he wanted to influence to a cheap chain restaurant.
I am not seeking to defend him, only, in the interests of fairness, to balance the picture.
Your front page illustration of the "Disgraced Lord" was amusing; it certainly went straight to the jugular and helped to tell the story.
However, I cannot visualise Paul White on a Caribbean beach – or for that matter on any beach.
Tom Corby
Melba Court
Writtle
IT SEEMS that to hold public office of any persuasion (whether as an MP or locally), it is a considerable advantage to be very skilled in prevarication, swindling, and extremely flexible on questions of personal morality.
How often have we heard words like, "I did nothing wrong", "it was legal and within the law", or "I was on a fact-finding visit"? (To Thailand?) Etc.
As an example; on his early release from prison where he was sent for fraud, it was reported that our own, one-time leader of Essex County Council, complained that while in prison he was treated like a common criminal.
It seems to have escaped his understanding that he is a common criminal.
I'm sure there are many men and women of high integrity in public office but I believe that the percentage of those who cannot be trusted to run Great Britain plc or its regional councils, is far too high.
Certainly they do not warrant the astronomic salaries paid to so many of them – paid to them by you and me.
Finally, no – I'm not a "leftie" but a proud British subject and card-carrying member of the Conservative Party (which I regard as the lesser of all the evils).
Sorry about the rant – but I feel better now.
Bernard White
Sandon
I AM BECOMING increasingly incensed at the pious self righteousness of Mr White (he does not merit the accolade of Lord).
Why all the prevarification? Yes there is culpability of the other council officers who accompanied him on his jollies, but this should not detract from the fact that he is a crook having been found guilty of fiddling his parliamentary expenses and therefore, despite his protestations to the contrary, he would have us believe he acted with propriety with regard to his ECC duties.
Perhaps he was breeding flying pigs.
Essex County Council should sue him on our behalf. If it is hesitating on grounds of cost, good money after bad as it were, then I for one will be the first in the queue to make a donation to cover the costs.
The Chronicle should start the appeal. Where shall I send my cheque, say £100, to?
Steve Jones
Manor Crescent
Little Waltham
I SMILED when I read Lord Hanningfield's explanation for the dropping of the police inquiry into the alleged misuse of his county council expenses.
He says it's because there was no case to answer.
My understanding is the matter was dropped as there was insufficient evidence to warrant a prosecution. Not the same thing, surely?
He now wants an independent inquiry into the behaviour of Essex County Council – don't we all?
I've got a better idea. By all means, have an inquiry, but let's change its terms of reference to investigate why he served just nine weeks out of a possible nine-month jail sentence for theft of taxpayers' money when fiddling his House of Lords expenses.
Kevin Greene
Roxwell Avenue
Chelmsford
