Demoralised MPs were last night bracing themselves for a potentially lethal backlash as constituents, journalists and political opponents trawled through their expenses claims, and started to publicise how they had used taxpayers' money to subsidise mortgages, enjoy food worth £400 a month free of charge, pay parking tickets, or purchase pastel-shaded sofas.They’re demoralised?
Good:
The immediate damage to the political class will come less through the revelation of complex property deals, since such detail has been censored, but in the sense that MPs lived a life apart.Which is what people have been saying for a while now – we don’t have a representative democracy when we have MPs who are, for the most part, insulated from the effects of the policies they impose on everyone else by virtue of being able to exempt themselves from regulations and live in areas unaffected by the mass immigration and building projects, and by doing so while awarding themselves ever increasing piles of taxpayer cash.
And if people are angry about the expenses scandal, how are they going to feel when the MP Pay Board recommends yet another inflation-busting ‘pay’ rise for them? Figures like 10% are being alluded to, in the middle of a recession when most will get 01.0%, or even no pay rise at all.
On the ever-unforgiving blogosphere, there is talk of protest marches through the towns and cities of Britain, as well as reheated promises to put up independent candidates, in an attempt to rekindle the anti-sleaze mood already reflected in this month's European parliament election results.People always say it was ‘sleaze’ that brought down the Major government, but that was nothing compared to this.
And this is cross-party. No party is innocent. They’ve all had their snouts buried deep in the trough.
Sir Stuart Bell, a member of the members' estimates committee (MEC), the Commons body that has struggled to handle this fiasco over the last year, told the Guardian last night: "There are many more MPs going to give up, and not just because of the allowances fiasco. Some are looking at the other changes, the end to MPs' self-regulation, the changes to the appointment of select committees, and they have decided [not] to be part of it."In other words, stop the ride – I want to get off, now it’s not fun any more!
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of people, frankly.
… MPs now look as if they are shutting the proverbial stable door, not just after the horse has bolted, but sold to the highest bidder at auction. A Speaker and parliamentary leadership without a tin ear to the public's outrage might have printed the lot weeks ago. But parliamentary authorities said that would have been unlawful.And as we can see from the shameless excuse spewing of the likes of Brian Binley, they don’t have a tin ear – they have two!
Regardless of the narrow requirements of the Data Protection Act, John Mann, the reforming Labour MP, said: "We are our own worst enemies. We look like we are ducking and diving."If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc, John!
And no, you are not ‘your own worst enemies’. Not while I’m still drawing breath, anyway…
Good. I want to see them homeless, broken people merely surviving. It's nothing less than they deserve. Absolute scumbags.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC World Service was very mealy-mouthed this morning, saying that they had 'allegedly' claimed for mortgages that had already been paid off. Bollocks - these people are criminals.
And they still try to cover up their thievery.
A damn good post young lady - as they say, exactly!
ReplyDeleteused taxpayers' money..... or purchase pastel-shaded sofas.
ReplyDeleteOh fuck ME!!! PASTEL shade!!!!
Well damn fuckery DOOO!!
Why can they just not buy ORDINARY €20,000 sofas, in black, or shite Brown, or... whatever..., RED fer feks sake, like the REST of us???
But NOOO THESE bastards have to have PASTEL shades.
Then people ask me why I think all journalists are slimy pieces of sewer rat bollock sucking pond scum that no more deserve to live than the M.Ps that are paying them.
Von Brandenburg-Preußen.
P.S Demoralised MPs were last night bracing themselves for a potentially lethal backlash.
NO such bloody luck!
And yet the Chipmunk still has her job...
ReplyDelete"The BBC World Service was very mealy-mouthed this morning, saying that they had 'allegedly' claimed for mortgages that had already been paid off. Bollocks - these people are criminals."
ReplyDeleteAnd they wonder why their audience is dwindling...
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ReplyDeleteAll criticism of the BBC aside, I'm fairly sure that they're covering their arses by not simply stating that MPs are corrupt, swindling, greedy bastards.
ReplyDeleteOn balance, I think that may be for the best - we wouldn't want one of the pigs to get away with their troughing over some point of law.
Not that I'm confident that many of them - if any - really will be hauled over the legal coals.
I have this really bad feeling that things aren't going to change much at all - when you've got support for someone like Blears from her local constituency, you have to ask whether anyone in the second tier of the main parties actually gives a fuck what the electorate thinks.
Will we get a chance to actually vote for prospective candidates as members of the general public?
If it's left to the local parties and associations then I really do think we're doomed.
My prediction is that MPs will still continue to trough, but they'll have to do it more subtly - in the form of backhanders from 'interested' parties.
Time to equip an army of gorillas with machetes, feed them all PCP and let them loose in the Commons...
steveshark said...
ReplyDeleteAll criticism of the BBC aside, I'm fairly sure that they're covering their arses by not simply stating that MPs are corrupt, swindling, greedy bastards.
Would you say that in public about YOUR bopss?
No matter WHAT the BBC tell you (You can not believe a word they spout any way, but...) they rely on the "Government" for every penny they get.
Now in MY deffinition book the one who controls my pay packet, and can tell me to "fuck off" if he does not like my choice of breakfast cereal is the bloody boss. No matter WHAT shite is written into so called "constitutions".
THAT is why all the "alledged".
Von Brandenburg-Preußen.
It's all we've got unless something radical happens - I don't see any point in examining the current situation without taking into account the BBC as it exists today.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't totally the government's bitch yet and generally - although not always - reports on matters which show the government in a bad light.
Besides, other news services are available...
But I didn't really want to get bogged down in the meeja.
The important point in my view is that the vast majority of MPs are going to get away with it - and that's not the BBC's fault.
Ultimately it's down to Brown, Cameron and Clegg and their lack of balls.
You simply can't believe a single word that they say. Bloody hypocrites of the very worst order. ALL of them!
ReplyDelete