Houses of Parliament
Over the past few months, UK news coverage has been dominated by the so called expenses scandal. In May, The Daily Telegraph leaked details of the claimed expenses of MPs, ranging from second homes to duck houses. We were all equally outraged, shocked and disheartened by these revelations, which have effectively shook confidence in both the Government.
Then, we began to move on, swine flu, the unfortunate death of Michael Jackson and Wimbledon began to dominate news channels. However, I believe that, in the world of gambling at least, the publication of MPs' expenses has haulted progressive legislation and talks which could have helped soothe fears about match fixing in both football and at Wimbledon.
.As we reported back in May, Dr Ian Gibson, a former MP for Norwich North, had been asked by Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe to join a proposed UK gambling panel, which would maintain and monitor the integrity of sports betting. This was an area which Gibson had previously campaigned strongly in, noting that match fixing needed to be addressed by the Government.
On June the 24th, Gerry Sutcliffe announced the members of his Sports Betting Integrity Panel, they include (amongst others); Mark Davies, who is Managing Director at Betfair and Nick Tofiluk, Director of Regulation at the Gambling Commission. However, there's no mention of Gibson. You might be wondering why an MP, who is so strongly involved in this field and could offer relevant and useful advice has been left off the list? To put it bluntly, the expenses scandal happened.
.In May, just days after Sutcliffe expressed an interest in Gibson joining the betting integrity panel, The Telegraph published details of how Gibson had claimed £80,000 on his London flat and allowed his daughter to live there rent free. Gibson then sold the flat to his daughter, at a price which was well below market value.
Now, I'm not going to suggest what Gibson did was right; he did after all waste taxpayers money. However, because of the expenses scandal, the betting industry has arguably lost an important figurehead, who could have helped bring better regulation into the industry.
I'm sure it's not just the gambling industry who have also lost out on the advice and guidance of MPs' embroiled in the expenses scandal. There must be countless industries, as well as charities, which have lost out on the support of Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrats MPs', all because of their costly mistakes.
For now, we'll just have to see how Sutcliffe's Sports Betting Integrity Panel works.
