The Legg and Kennedy reports on MPs expenses are out today and live here. It's not great news: 390 out of 650-odd MPs are being asked to pay some money back.
Even worse - these two reports disagree with each other. Mr Legg decided to rewrite the rules for claims had already been accepted as valid rather than set new rules from a particular date, which seems very odd. Mr. Kennedy thinks this is wrong, and I tend to agree.
However, this is a blog, and so we don't do nuance or fairness. Instead, we poke fun at the minutiae. Luckily, this is always fascinating. How about Tory Sir Anthony Steen, who charged us for 'a flagpole rope and binding' as well as 500 trees and described criticism as 'Jealousy… because I have a large house that looks like Balmoral'. It's overwhelmingly Tories who've been ripping us off, with the notable exception of unpleasant plutocrat Barbara Follett, who spent the 90s ordering Labour MPs to get hairstyles if they ever wanted to govern. She seemed to think that we should pay for (totally unnecessary) bodyguards and fine art insurance… in case you can't place her, she appeared on Brass Eye explaining that internet paedophiles can fondle children if the child presses its face to the computer screen.
Update: Mike Gapes MP has finally come clean and settled his case. He's finally had the decency to pay back that 40p he overclaimed from the trusting taxpayers. The Augean Stables are that little bit cleaner.
No comments:
Post a Comment