I'm also enjoying it because the details reveal that the class structure is alive and well. All the New Labour class traitors are behaving like the 80s yuppies they so admire: John Prescott charged the taxpayer for some beams to make his house look more Fake Tudor. Others claimed for designer goods and posher houses. The dear old Tories, meanwhile, lived up to their image of Lords of the Manor by claiming for chandeliers and, my personal favourite, Douglas 'Viscount Hailsham' Hogg's MOAT maintenance. Isn't that wonderful? Presumably their are also claims for mantraps, armour-polishing, drawbridge oiling and jousting equipment. Michael 'Marquess of Lothian' Ancram, a millionaire many times over, charged the taxpayer for maintaining his swimming pool heater.
Other highlights:
Sir Michael Spicer - thousands for trimming his helipad.
James Arbuthnot - swimming pool cleaning paid for by us, despite the fact that he managed to pay for a £2 million house without even needing a mortgage.
David Davis: £5,700 on a 'portico' (essential to his work for the nation).
Essentially, the Tories appear to feel that their expenses are a kind of National Trust fund: they get a second, third or fourth stately home, and we get to pay for it.
(Paul Flynn, the honest, decent Welsh Labour MP, is similarly outraged).
You all know that I think Hazel Blears is the epitome of everything that went wrong with the left. It appears that Steve Bell agrees (click here for the original):
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What is even more infuriating is the proposed new inependent auditors. Auditors paid by? Same as the current system - taxes. So instead of paying someone a very high wage you pay them a high wage and then give them loads of free stuff to make up the difference. Then pay another load of people to file the receipts.
This all stems from MP's desperate need to be seen as earning less than high ranking lawyers/ doctors/ bankers etc which they feel gives them some moral authority. It is a totally redundant move because to the average wage-earner in Britain MP's already earn more than they ever will, even without the expenses. Bunging an extra fifty grand on their wages and not having expenses would have hardly raised an eyebrow, whereas now they all look like the stupid shits they actually are.
I wonder how many different ways the phrase 'false economy' could be used in an essay on this whole palaver.
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