So the talk of the steamie seems to be Derek Conway employing (or under employing as the case may be) his two student sons on his allocated parliamentary allowances.
Many of my colleagues employ members of their family at the Scottish Parliament. Let me state for clarity that I do not. However I am not going to criticise those who do.
Some segments of the press, egged on by the seemingly ever more quoted Taxpayers' Alliance (who are these guys anyway, they seem to be a bunch of discontented neoliberals as far as I can make out) are calling for an end to Parliamentarians being able to employ family members.
This misses the point somewhat. I don't think there is any problem with such a practice provided the person employed is actually doing a days work for the money they receive. The nub of the case with Mr Conway is not that he chose to take on relatives as members of staff. Rather it seems that he assigned them to his payroll at the public expense but they undertook no actual work in return for payment.
That is clearly wrong and is what Mr Conway should rightly brought to task for.
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