Finishing with Fiona - thoughts on how to sack your MP

Three things about Fiona Onasanya's imprisonment and whether she should be sacked as an MP.

1. We might need a better mechanism for the voters (Peterborough's voters in this case) to recall their MP. Although that MP going to jail does allow for a recall petition under the current rules but only once any appeals against conviction are concluded. The problem is that collecting 7,500 names is not a small task even in a case as egregious as that of Ms Onasanya. It remains the case, however, that it should be the electors who do the sacking not some commission or board

2. Sending anyone to jail for three months is a waste of time effort and money. I get that there needs to be a process and that perverting the course of justice is a serious matter but three months is essentially symbolic - spent in a comfortable open prison where she can catch up reading, text her friends and write a book about how she was wronged by a corrupt racist justice system. If perverting the course of justice is so serious maybe the sentence should be two years? If not a suitably humiliating community sentence - cleaning public toilets, grubbing up roadside weeds, painting over graffiti - might be a better approach.

3. If Ms Onasanya had any semblance of honour or decency (and I appreciate that this case shows she's deficient in these respects) then she shouldn't be waiting to get kicked out, she should just resign and allow Peterborough to be represented by someone less tainted.

I do think we need a simpler and less constrained recall process - the Clegg reforms were welcome but, in the end, were a total fudge that didn't deliver on the central purpose of giving the electorate a tool to hold their MP's feet to the fire.