I see that the husband of the Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith has apologised for renting pay per view porn movies and charging them to his wife's expenses. Given that his wife has been a noted campaigner against the sex industry in all its forms and given that she presumably signed off on her expenses before the claim went in, it would seem that this is yet another case of certain politicians effectively saying do as I say, not what I do. It of course also pales into insignificance when placed against Ms Smith's £116,000 claim for expenses on a room in her sisters house as being her main residence.
I dont doubt that politicians of all the main parties have been at this sort of thing, in one way or another for decades and that its only because of legislation like the Freedom Of Information act that we know what we know about these things now. Its also instructive that none of these things seem to be actually illegal and that most of these MP's also pick up fat pay cheuques from outside employment.
Still, come the next election we can kick the current ruling bunch of rascals out and replace them with an almost identikit bunch, who will just change the rules to suit themselves and will carry on with business as usual.
Perhaps its time that elected MPs were banned from taking outside employment and forced to live on the wages of the average worker for the next four years. They might have to rent property in some of the areas of London where their next door neighbours are not likely to be another bunch of barristers and journalists.
The experience might just concentrate their minds on the everyday lives of those who cannot so easily fiddle their expenses.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I've just seen on the news that our wonderful government has awarded MPs a 2.33% pay rise. They also cut the senior public service managers'award to 1.5%. Now there's a surprise !! What a bunch of s**ts !! This government is more riddled with sleaze than the last John Major shambles !!
More to the point, those lower down the public sector ladder are being expected to take even lower pay rises and accept job cuts and workers in the private sector are being forced into pay cuts and redundancies. I suspect the political class in general are adding fuel to a potentially very big fire of public anger.
I suspect that the really important protests against the current Government and its policies are not going to be the daft circus currently being played out in London, but protests like the recent refinary protests and the current occupation at the car plant in Belfast and the associated actions in north London.I suspect that something like a factory closure with some special circumstances could potentially, trigger off a really unexpected mass movement over the next few months.
Post a Comment