First among equals
If nothing else, the rancid squabbling over MPs’ expenses serves to reinforce the popular stereotypes of the two leading political parties in this country.
New Labour MPs, with their home improvements and their little property empires, use the expenses system to get away from the working classes as fast as they possibly can. Tory MPs with their moats and country homes and porticoes (whatever the hell they are) have already got away from the working classes as fast as they possibly could and now use their expenses to shore up the defences.
It’s politics as a gated community. I’m surprised some of them didn’t claim for landmines and water cannons.
Posted on May 12th, 2009 at 9:39am under New Labour, Sleaze, Tories
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And white phosphorus*.
(*For illumination and screening purposes only, obviously.)
Trebuchets throwing the manure they claimed for on expenses are surely the best way to keep us plebs “orf my land”.
That and the land mines.
I wonder how many of the expenses-abusers are qualified lawyers (either solicitor or barrister). Many of the pompous, intricate rebuttals and mealy-mouthed excuses have the ring of the legally-trained about them. People trained to find loopholes, experienced in using abstruse legal reasoning to defend the indefensible.
We live in a country run by lawyers (have you seen how many MPs are solicitors or barristers?). While the bankers are rightly lambasted for their part in our economic woes, lawyers – who observed, facilitated and framed the catastrophe in the markets – always get away scott-free…
Legal thinking is all about the possible, not the principle, and this expenses scandal reeks of its sleazy pragmatism…
Nice to see you featured on the Beeb, Justin!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8044998.stm
Cheers! Just glad they fixed the page formatting that was making me look like I was saying Peter Hitchens’ bit. It pained me.
[...] Justin: New Labour MPs, with their home improvements and their little property empires, use the expenses system to get away from the working classes as fast as they possibly can. Tory MPs with their moats and country homes and porticoes (whatever the hell they are) have already got away from the working classes as fast as they possibly could and now use their expenses to shore up the defences. [...]