The front page of the Mail that I saw today – presumably a later edition – was highlighting dodgy claims from the Tories. I’m pleased to see they’ve done this, and it’s better than I expected from them, I have to admit.
Agree with the mail headline.what a rotten lot of MPs we have. Its nice to see Cameron shitting his pants for once as all he did during the smithgate incident was grin like a smug twat.
Mel Philps wrote an article on the whole thing and managed to use it to rant on about the loss of the country’s judeo-christian heritage (yawn). I was quite worried however that the mail wrote an article calling for the dissolution parliament. The mail got its readers to rinf ofcom over a phone call on a radip show. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have middle englanders smashing windows soon. Lol.
I started work and one of my collegues gets the Express (not sure which one yet), anyhow amusing letter basically saying that it was a shame that Guy Fawkes failed to blow up parliment.
It was highlighted in a Letter of the day style too…. These expenses are disgusting espically for the crap they are claiming for, one claimed for a packet of ice gems.
Is the expenses thing a disgrace? Of course. Should we be getting all red-faced and furious about it? No. Why not? Because it’s been going on for a long, long time and, every so often, the press reminds us about it. I remember back in the ’90s there was a minor scandal when it was revealed that a Tory (Heseltine, I think) had claimed an expensive re-fit of his personal office as “expenses”. It’s nothing new and we’ve had sundry chances to demand a change in the system and instead just let things carry on as normal.
More to the point, the culture of claiming things on expenses isn’t confined to Parliament or MP’s. Most white collar workers have done it at some time or other, I remember being with people on business trips and them buying stuff then telling me it didn’t have to be paid for as they’d “just put it on expenses”. When it comes down to it, a lot of people huffing and puffing about what’s going on would do and have done the same thing in the same circumstances. What’s happened here isn’t people embezzling money or “robbing” us but claiming things they’re legally allowed to and have been for a very long time and, when most people have the same opportunity, they do the same thing.
Also, I’ve noticed a few populists demanding the whole “crooked” lot be slung out. The last person to actually try this was Oliver Cromwell who dismissed the rump Parliament after having become tired of their crookedness, tendency to line their own pockets and lack of sense of duty to the Commonwealth. He replaced them with a hand-picked Parliament of “saintly” men. Needless to say, they were no better.
“Mel Philps wrote an article on the whole thing and managed to use it to rant on about the loss of the country’s judeo-christian heritage (yawn)”
That woman has an astounding case of idee fixe and, more to the point, back when Christian belief (there’s not really any such thing as “Judeo-Christian”, it’s a silly neologism) was much higher Parliament was still incredibly crooked (as were people generally) as I mention above. Still, why bother with actually learning about history when you can just use it as a stick to beat your imagined enemies with?
“I was quite worried however that the mail wrote an article calling for the dissolution parliament”
That’s stupendously silly, what possibly justification could there be for dissolving Parliament over this? As I said, wrong as the expenses thing is, it’s not actually illegal and it’s our own constant dismissive attitude to previous expenses scandals (and the fact that the culture of claiming things on expenses is nationwide) that has allowed this to happen.
I’m eagerly awaiting an investigation into the expenses claimed by the ermined crooks in the house of Lord’s.
£300 plus per day and some of them never set foot in the place.
I’m just loving the way every MP interviewed is going on about being the victim of a rotten system. The system is at fault, yeah! You’re just a product of the system that systematically made you claim for work on a chandelier, yeah? Smash the system! What a Swampy excuse, and one that I don’ t think I could use against the Inland Revenue which is obviously rotten too, because my money is being used to tart up rich people’s houses. Happy to see Cameron with a -5 to smug, though.
“I’m just loving the way every MP interviewed is going on about being the victim of a rotten system. The system is at fault, yeah! You’re just a product of the system that systematically made you claim for work on a chandelier, yeah?”
Basically, yeah. People (all of them) will take what they can get if offered. It’s the same reason people on a jolly for their company will claim everything they can on expenses because they’re entitled to. I’ve never met anyone who turned-down the opportunity to bill their company for something they would otherwise have to pay for themselves. And everyone has an excuse that they use to justify it in their head, with MPs it’s the notion that they aren’t paid as much as other professionals and so the expenses is a form of “top up”, their internal logic is the same as it is with most peoples it’s just that they became divorced from reality and think nothing of filing things like cars to “expenses” (I suspect the same sort of thing happens in a lot of big organisations, state-owned and non state-owned). The main problem here is that the system allows people to claim ludicrous things on expenses and so they do, the question is why this system has persisted and why, when it’s hardly been a secret, nobody demanded things change far earlier? Blaming people for doing what anyone and everyone does in such a situation is ignoring the wider problem: that for far too long we’ve simply allowed legal corruption to fester, not just in the banking sector and Westminster but just about everywhere.
“I’m eagerly awaiting an investigation into the expenses claimed by the ermined crooks in the house of Lord’s.
£300 plus per day and some of them never set foot in the place.”
Good point. Has anyone ever seriously considered whether government would be noticably altered by the wholesale abolition of the House of Lords? I’m not entirely sure what their purpose is since their only legal power seems to be that they can block bills from the Commons which the Commons can push through anyway via the Parliament Act.
Fuck the system being at fault, and that ‘everybody does it’ mantra doesn’t hold. If MPs wanted to get more money and play silly beggers with an accounts department then they should go and work in the corporate world where many of them will find ther qualifications just won’t cut it anyhoo. Government isn’t a corporation, and plenty of people do far tougher work for far less because, y’know, they have a calling for that sort of thing.. and shit. Charging for a meal when your on a business trip and sneaking in a bottle of wine isn’t the same as getting some bloke up a ladder to clear out wisteria, and who cares if your husband lives miles away – you can’t use tax money to set him up with a house. Even a meerkay knows it’s simples. It’s our money. The mail can still fuck off, though, whatever the news. They are vile.
Go back to previous years when it was deemed an honour to serve one,s country without the need to be recompensed for it. That would certainly cut out the “snouts in the trough” syndrome
“Go back to previous years when it was deemed an honour to serve one,s country without the need to be recompensed for it. That would certainly cut out the “snouts in the trough” syndrome”
Except then, only the rich could afford to do it. Best way, I suppose, let our betters rule us, they knows best don’t they? (Doffs cap, tugs forelock)
I agree with Stephen Fry who commented on how they’re all get upset about this instead of the rather more important (in the world scheme of things) issues of governments who take us into an illegal and unjustified war. Who think no one will notice their going back on the agreement (under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to disband our nuclear weapons, and who think it’s ok to spend £billions on new weapons. And who think it’s a good idea to sell off the Royal Mail, bits of the NHS/Education/Housing etc which are meant to be public. I could go on.
But no, why would we have to worry about any of that when we can get angry about some hapless MP claiming stuff on expenses, stuff which wouldn’t get noticed if that person were the owner of the Mail or the Telegraph, or the editor for that matter.
I can’t be the only one who feels that all this is some way to increase public cynicism about politics, to make most people switch off, so as to increase the likelihood that the people they really approve of (Tories? Rather more right-wing types perhaps??) will get into power. My grandad always said if you don’t vote the Tories get in. One could now say that if we don’t vote the BNP will get in.
Go back through history Claire and you will find that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now.Most of them now come straight from university without getting their hands dirty.Fine, as we do need M.Ps with brains but not those that only know an ivory tower exsistence.Get them out there on production lines or building sites etc. they may then bring some commonsense to the job.
“Go back through history Claire and you will find that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now.”
When? When only property owning men were allowed to vote? In what way were they more representative of the public than those nowadays? That is, the whole of the population, including women? People who worked the land rather than owned it? People who worked in the factories, mills and mines?
I agree with you that MPs need to have lived in the real world of work (or out of work, even), and that those with experience of the production line (suppose there may be one or two left in the UK) or the building site may well be better qualified, and certainly more representative.
What I can’t understand is your assertion that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now. How can that possibly be?? Given that most of the population were not even allowed to vote, let alone stand for parliament.
Oh,The ‘Royal Romance’ is back on the agenda is it? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………..
They are in a bit of a tail spin as the Tories are at it big time.
The front page of the Mail that I saw today – presumably a later edition – was highlighting dodgy claims from the Tories. I’m pleased to see they’ve done this, and it’s better than I expected from them, I have to admit.
Agree with the mail headline.what a rotten lot of MPs we have. Its nice to see Cameron shitting his pants for once as all he did during the smithgate incident was grin like a smug twat.
Mel Philps wrote an article on the whole thing and managed to use it to rant on about the loss of the country’s judeo-christian heritage (yawn). I was quite worried however that the mail wrote an article calling for the dissolution parliament. The mail got its readers to rinf ofcom over a phone call on a radip show. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have middle englanders smashing windows soon. Lol.
I started work and one of my collegues gets the Express (not sure which one yet), anyhow amusing letter basically saying that it was a shame that Guy Fawkes failed to blow up parliment.
It was highlighted in a Letter of the day style too…. These expenses are disgusting espically for the crap they are claiming for, one claimed for a packet of ice gems.
Do they? In other shock revelations, rain is still wet when it hits the ground.
Who’s the odd faced lady in the flannel panel who divorced the same man TWICE? It is somebody I should know about?
“Who’s the odd faced lady in the flannel panel who divorced the same man TWICE? It is somebody I should know about?”
It could be Susan and Karl Kennedy off Neighbours? They’ve been married three times.
Mmmm, Susan Kennedy….
Mmmm, Susan AND Libby Kennedy…
Is the expenses thing a disgrace? Of course. Should we be getting all red-faced and furious about it? No. Why not? Because it’s been going on for a long, long time and, every so often, the press reminds us about it. I remember back in the ’90s there was a minor scandal when it was revealed that a Tory (Heseltine, I think) had claimed an expensive re-fit of his personal office as “expenses”. It’s nothing new and we’ve had sundry chances to demand a change in the system and instead just let things carry on as normal.
More to the point, the culture of claiming things on expenses isn’t confined to Parliament or MP’s. Most white collar workers have done it at some time or other, I remember being with people on business trips and them buying stuff then telling me it didn’t have to be paid for as they’d “just put it on expenses”. When it comes down to it, a lot of people huffing and puffing about what’s going on would do and have done the same thing in the same circumstances. What’s happened here isn’t people embezzling money or “robbing” us but claiming things they’re legally allowed to and have been for a very long time and, when most people have the same opportunity, they do the same thing.
Also, I’ve noticed a few populists demanding the whole “crooked” lot be slung out. The last person to actually try this was Oliver Cromwell who dismissed the rump Parliament after having become tired of their crookedness, tendency to line their own pockets and lack of sense of duty to the Commonwealth. He replaced them with a hand-picked Parliament of “saintly” men. Needless to say, they were no better.
“Mel Philps wrote an article on the whole thing and managed to use it to rant on about the loss of the country’s judeo-christian heritage (yawn)”
That woman has an astounding case of idee fixe and, more to the point, back when Christian belief (there’s not really any such thing as “Judeo-Christian”, it’s a silly neologism) was much higher Parliament was still incredibly crooked (as were people generally) as I mention above. Still, why bother with actually learning about history when you can just use it as a stick to beat your imagined enemies with?
“I was quite worried however that the mail wrote an article calling for the dissolution parliament”
That’s stupendously silly, what possibly justification could there be for dissolving Parliament over this? As I said, wrong as the expenses thing is, it’s not actually illegal and it’s our own constant dismissive attitude to previous expenses scandals (and the fact that the culture of claiming things on expenses is nationwide) that has allowed this to happen.
Ref the woman who divorced the same man twice, my favourite biblical quote applies “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly”
That headline is atrocious: it should be MPs not MPS
I’m eagerly awaiting an investigation into the expenses claimed by the ermined crooks in the house of Lord’s.
£300 plus per day and some of them never set foot in the place.
I’m just loving the way every MP interviewed is going on about being the victim of a rotten system. The system is at fault, yeah! You’re just a product of the system that systematically made you claim for work on a chandelier, yeah? Smash the system! What a Swampy excuse, and one that I don’ t think I could use against the Inland Revenue which is obviously rotten too, because my money is being used to tart up rich people’s houses. Happy to see Cameron with a -5 to smug, though.
“I’m just loving the way every MP interviewed is going on about being the victim of a rotten system. The system is at fault, yeah! You’re just a product of the system that systematically made you claim for work on a chandelier, yeah?”
Basically, yeah. People (all of them) will take what they can get if offered. It’s the same reason people on a jolly for their company will claim everything they can on expenses because they’re entitled to. I’ve never met anyone who turned-down the opportunity to bill their company for something they would otherwise have to pay for themselves. And everyone has an excuse that they use to justify it in their head, with MPs it’s the notion that they aren’t paid as much as other professionals and so the expenses is a form of “top up”, their internal logic is the same as it is with most peoples it’s just that they became divorced from reality and think nothing of filing things like cars to “expenses” (I suspect the same sort of thing happens in a lot of big organisations, state-owned and non state-owned). The main problem here is that the system allows people to claim ludicrous things on expenses and so they do, the question is why this system has persisted and why, when it’s hardly been a secret, nobody demanded things change far earlier? Blaming people for doing what anyone and everyone does in such a situation is ignoring the wider problem: that for far too long we’ve simply allowed legal corruption to fester, not just in the banking sector and Westminster but just about everywhere.
“I’m eagerly awaiting an investigation into the expenses claimed by the ermined crooks in the house of Lord’s.
£300 plus per day and some of them never set foot in the place.”
Good point. Has anyone ever seriously considered whether government would be noticably altered by the wholesale abolition of the House of Lords? I’m not entirely sure what their purpose is since their only legal power seems to be that they can block bills from the Commons which the Commons can push through anyway via the Parliament Act.
Fuck the system being at fault, and that ‘everybody does it’ mantra doesn’t hold. If MPs wanted to get more money and play silly beggers with an accounts department then they should go and work in the corporate world where many of them will find ther qualifications just won’t cut it anyhoo. Government isn’t a corporation, and plenty of people do far tougher work for far less because, y’know, they have a calling for that sort of thing.. and shit. Charging for a meal when your on a business trip and sneaking in a bottle of wine isn’t the same as getting some bloke up a ladder to clear out wisteria, and who cares if your husband lives miles away – you can’t use tax money to set him up with a house. Even a meerkay knows it’s simples. It’s our money. The mail can still fuck off, though, whatever the news. They are vile.
Go back to previous years when it was deemed an honour to serve one,s country without the need to be recompensed for it. That would certainly cut out the “snouts in the trough” syndrome
“Go back to previous years when it was deemed an honour to serve one,s country without the need to be recompensed for it. That would certainly cut out the “snouts in the trough” syndrome”
Except then, only the rich could afford to do it. Best way, I suppose, let our betters rule us, they knows best don’t they? (Doffs cap, tugs forelock)
I agree with Stephen Fry who commented on how they’re all get upset about this instead of the rather more important (in the world scheme of things) issues of governments who take us into an illegal and unjustified war. Who think no one will notice their going back on the agreement (under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) to disband our nuclear weapons, and who think it’s ok to spend £billions on new weapons. And who think it’s a good idea to sell off the Royal Mail, bits of the NHS/Education/Housing etc which are meant to be public. I could go on.
But no, why would we have to worry about any of that when we can get angry about some hapless MP claiming stuff on expenses, stuff which wouldn’t get noticed if that person were the owner of the Mail or the Telegraph, or the editor for that matter.
I can’t be the only one who feels that all this is some way to increase public cynicism about politics, to make most people switch off, so as to increase the likelihood that the people they really approve of (Tories? Rather more right-wing types perhaps??) will get into power. My grandad always said if you don’t vote the Tories get in. One could now say that if we don’t vote the BNP will get in.
Claire-who do you think are ruling us now?
Yup, most of them are toffs even now. But there’d be only the toffs if it was only those with their own independent income who could get to be MPs.
Anyway, are those that have ultimate power really the MPs? Or are we ruled by the military-industrial complex? And the banks of course?
Go back through history Claire and you will find that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now.Most of them now come straight from university without getting their hands dirty.Fine, as we do need M.Ps with brains but not those that only know an ivory tower exsistence.Get them out there on production lines or building sites etc. they may then bring some commonsense to the job.
“Go back through history Claire and you will find that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now.”
When? When only property owning men were allowed to vote? In what way were they more representative of the public than those nowadays? That is, the whole of the population, including women? People who worked the land rather than owned it? People who worked in the factories, mills and mines?
I agree with you that MPs need to have lived in the real world of work (or out of work, even), and that those with experience of the production line (suppose there may be one or two left in the UK) or the building site may well be better qualified, and certainly more representative.
What I can’t understand is your assertion that M.Ps were more representative of the general population than they are now. How can that possibly be?? Given that most of the population were not even allowed to vote, let alone stand for parliament.