Sir Nicholas Winterton is a man with a history of racist jokes and outrageous expenses claims. He's also a Conservative MP. The Great British Public seems to have decided that his party (which disastrously privatised the railways, by the way) deserves power in the upcoming election. He has just
announced that:
MPs should be allowed to claim expenses for first-class tickets because standard coaches are for "a totally different type of people".
After declaring himself "infuriated" with proposals from the new expenses watchdog to ban payments for first-class tickets during a magazine interview, the MP for Macclesfield told a radio interviewer that people travelling on standard tickets were "in a different walk of life" and their children might disturb an MP's work. "They want to stop members of parliament travelling first class. That puts us below local councillors and officers of local government. They all travel first class … So we are supposed to stand when there are no seats … I'm sorry, it infuriates me."
YES!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping you'd blog about this, because Winterton is absolutely bloody spot on. Just because he'a Tory scum doesn't mean he's necessarily wrong about everything.
a) yes it does
ReplyDeleteand
b) most people travel in standard class, including myself. Little infuriates me as much as seeing 4 crammed standard coaches and 6 empty 'first class' ones.
Not the point.
ReplyDeleteI have an objection to the way Winterton put it, but then he is a doddery old buffoon.
The point of the matter though is that MPs absolutely should travel everywhere first-class. This is basic common sense!
This is the first time I have read your website, and I must register my disappointment at you having a Label entitled "Tory Scum".
ReplyDeleteJudging from your sticker proudly proclaiming you love unions, I presume you are a Socialist of some sort. This is no problem, as we are all different, however I would have expected a slightly higher level of critique than simply branding every Conservative as "Scum".
Please refrain from doing so in the future.
Tarquin de Quincey
The outcome of the election is not a foregone conclusion – I think it will be a hung parliament – that is if people can be bothered to vote at all.
ReplyDeleteTarquin, you seem to misunderstand the purpose of a personal blog - it is to convey one's own opinions in an uncensored fashion.
ReplyDeleteVole, if Winterton wishes to travel first-class then he should personally fund the upgrade. I too travel standard-class and have yet to encounter anyone who would consider themselves 'a different type' of person; his statement is pretentious and entirely deserving of the 'Tory Scum' tag.
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ReplyDeleteMPs shouldn't travel first class: many of them have little enough cntact with normal people and should meet us as often as possible.
ReplyDeleteThere shouldn't BE a first class section.
Tory MPs should travel standard class in particular because they privatised the railways, and should therefore suffer the consequences.
Tarquin: which of my friends are you? Tories ARE scum. They despise the poor, the foreign, the public-minded, the BBC, the NHS, and any of the institutions which level the playing field.
They are scum because the core of conservatism is the belief that inequality is a good thing, that individualism is a sensible way to run a society and that people are inherently evil and require restraint from a class of people which somehow knows better.
Tarquin de Quincey? Genius. I genuinely laughed out loud.
ReplyDeleteI hate to break the news Vole but your local Labour Councillors also travel first class, I don't think they should, and neither should MPs, but it isn't just the Tories that are ethically questionable.
ReplyDeleteGraham - how dare you mock the name Tarquin...I'm sure his post was most sincere...
ReplyDeleteYours,
Lady Felicity De Montfort
Ha! nice one Sam.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the line about how 'their children might disturb an MP's work'! How typical of a class of people who routinely send their children away to be brought up in care homes, sorry, boarding schools.
ReplyDeleteI'd love for him to spend an hour in the company of my two!
Or as Jeremy Hardy calls them, 'kennelling for the youth of the rich'.
ReplyDelete