I may stand as an MP, says Waite

Wednesday, 04 November 2009

BRITAIN’S most famous former hostage, Terry Waite, waded into the expenses scandal which has brought about the political downfall of Totnes MP Anthony Steen, among others, during a high-profile visit to Dartington.
The 71-year-old humanitarian who was kept in solitary confinement in Lebanon for four-and-a-half years until his release in 1991, launched a stinging attack on the failures of government over the Iraq War and the banking crisis as well as MPs’ expenses.
‘One can be diplomatic for far too long,’ he said, speaking in the morning room at Dartington Hall where Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst once lived.
He was at Dartington to speak about isolation and his help-the-homeless charity, Emmaus – which he insists could help the street dwellers of Totnes – at a social justice networking dinner.
But beforehand he confirmed that he was considering standing as an independent MP at the next general election – and will finally make up his mind in the New Year. But he made it perfectly clear he thought they were paid well enough.
‘I am willing to stand corrected, but personally I think a salary of £64,000, plus secretarial help, plus an office, plus transport, plus postage, plus goodness knows what else, I don’t think that is too bad.
‘When I think of what many people have to live on who have got university degrees, and they have got a mortgage to pay and what have you, by heaven it isn’t too bad.
‘So come off it, what are you in the job for? Are you there as a public servant or are you there just to line your own pockets, and of course we know very well that many MPs have other jobs as well, so £64,000 is only the thin end of the wedge. And also when it comes to the European Parliament this is when you throw your hands up in the air and say well what on earth is going on here?’
The systems of government did not have the trust of the majority of the British people at the moment, Mr Waite, now a writer and broadcaster, said.
‘They have failed us,’ he insisted. ‘They have failed us by taking us into a war in Iraq, which we should never have gone into, they failed us with the financial authorities who should have been better regulators and they haven’t been.
‘At the end of the day who is paying for all this? The local taxpayer. That is where the burden is lying, and next year we are going to feel the squeeze.’
Mr Waite said he had ‘strong objections’ to the Parliamentary whipping system which saw MPs roaming the streets saying one thing and going into the House of Commons and saying quite another.
‘What sort of democracy is that? It’s rubbish, absolute nonsense. They are not representing their constituents, they are safeguarding their own interests. And I’m sorry I’ve got to the stage in life when I am not going to be quiet about it any longer. One can be diplomatic for far too long.’
Mr Waite said that he had been put in ‘extreme solitary’ when he was captured by Islamic jihadists while attempting to negotiate the release of four hostages – including the British journalist John McCarthy
– while working as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy in Beirut. He was chained to a wall for 24 hours a day and allowed just one visit to the bathroom each day and no natural light.
That experience of severe deprivation had motivated him to carry out his unpaid work with the homeless through Emmaus – an organisation which brings recovering alcoholics and addicts into small communities of 25 people where they leave behind state support and work according to their capacity.
‘The people who come into the community will get a good room, a good en suite bathroom and are treated with respect from the word go – and almost without exception they treat with respect what they are given.
‘The aim is to enable them to regain their dignity so they get back into normal life, or so-called normal life, at their pace. Some times people say for six months, 12 months, it all depends on the individual.’
There are 19 communities in the UK – Mr Waite opened the first in Cambridge in 1992 – with 15 coming along.
‘We require funds to get the place established, and that’s the most expensive part, but once it’s up and running there is a shop on the premises where the community will collect goods, they will renovate goods, they will sell goods and after a period of time the community will become self supporting.’
The Cambridge community now had a turnover of £1 million a year and a study has shown that on average the Emmaus communities save the local taxpayer £600,000 a year. ‘That’s an awful lot of money,’ Mr Waite said. ‘It’s useless in my view to expect the Government to take care of all our social problems, in fact sometimes they make them worse, if I may say so.’
If Totnes residents got an Emmaus community going they would help deal with the problem of some of the people on the street, not all, but some, he said. ‘And that is good for the town because it is not good for the town to have people just begging. It is not only demeaning for the person who begs it is also a blot on the town.
‘I am not saying you do it just to clean up the town but we do it so that we have reasonable living space together, quality of life really. We should be aiming for quality of life in all our towns and cities.’

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