Goes to Nadine Dorries supported by Iain Dale, though it was closely contested by Anthony Steen. I shall leave commentary on Ms Dorries amazing car crash of an outburst to others, as quite frankly I’m past caring about MPs not getting it. I’ve seen a couple that have understood what the problem is (but unfortunately only on TV at work whilst getting coffee so can’t name names) they’re news, the more common not getting it has had pretty much everything said. Though Ms Dorries claims about the Barclay brothers do take it to a whole new level (links to the interviews via Plato says and commentary by Behind blue eyes and of course the indomitable Leg Iron).
However it’s Iain’s fantastic supporting role that I’d like to consider, as it really is quite impressive. Apparently “the public” , amongst which from the phrasing I must assume Iain doesn’t count himself, aren’t in the mood to listen to the “very valid indeed” . Well as a member of the public I’ve been listening , listening quite lot in fact and I’ve heard very few valid points being made. Unlike Iain I do have to differ with the view expressed by the archbishop of Canterbury in that obviously the point hasn’t been made for if it had we’d not have the likes of Ms Dorries complaining about how beastly it all is, nor Mr Steen claiming we’re all just jealous. Sadly Iain doesn’t enlighten us as to what these very valid points are that we’re all ignoring, so I’ve no idea how valid they are or if they’re ones I myself have been ignoring or just haven’t heard. Perhaps he means some of Ms Dorries points such as how their tax free allowances have always been counted as part of the salary (which must suck for London MPs who don’t get the ACA), who knows it will have to remain a mystery.
To return to Iain he feels that we the public are somehow wrong to blame all MPs, as some of them are “totally blameless” and here he comes so close to understanding why we’re angy at all MPs but manages to swerve away from understanding at the last moment. For he goes on to say “the public regards them all as condoning a system which has been used to line their pockets.” , which according to Iain is down to the whips and the fees office encouraging them to view it as a top up salary (yep it’s that nasty mean system forcing MPs to fraudulently claim money again). So according to Iain the nasty mean system encouraged MPs to trough at our expense and Ms Dorries tells us that it has “always been known and has always been counted as part of an MP’s salary“, yet we are wrong to blame all of the MPs for condoning this system they all knew about yet somehow never managed to speak out against until the Telegraph had the audacity to point out that perhaps it stunk rather a bit. See it was that nasty system and everyone knew about it, it’s just us poor deluded public that think that claims were really only meant to be for expenses incurred by MPs in the course of their duties, tsk silly us. But dear dear Iain he’s prepared to give us some time to reconsider how we really feel about MPs either enriching themselves at our expense or keeping silent about their mates doing it, I mean how dare we expect our representatives to look after our interests and properly hold the system to account? Still as Iain puts it: “The public view it as wrong, so there’s little point in banging on about it at the moment.” so once we come to our sense I assume we’ll realise that it wasn’t actually wrong charging us for plasma TV’s, duck islands, false mortgages or anything else that could be slipped past the fees office.
Iain feels that it would be best all round if the politicians stayed quiet for a bit, presumably to let us the public calm down and remember how to tug our forelocks and doff our caps. Iain has gauged the public mood and determined that: “No one wants to hear from them. The public don’t want a running commentary. They don’t want to hear any politician defending the past, defending the status quo or feeling sorry for themselves.” This would make me, and statistically at least a few other people, No one – as I do want to hear from them. I want to hear from those that haven’t abused the system to know why they didn’t speak out before, I want to hear from the likes of Mr Steen so I know how little our representatives think of us and most of all I want to hear from the party leaders and the “blameless” MPs what they’re going to do to repair the damage they’ve allowed to occur after all everyone knew about it. He’s even wrong to say that I don’t want to hear them defending the past for if I as a member of the public only “view it as wrong” then I want to know why my view is incorrect. I want to hear them defend the status quo so that perhaps they can explain why we should ever trust them again and why bloody revolution isn’t our best choice. I even want to hear them feeling sorry for themselves, but that’s just because I’ve got a sick sense of humour, and it’s a long weekend and I’ve got some beer in.
I utterly fail to understand why at this time when we are more engaged with politics than we have been for years, Iain things it would be better if everyone just stopped talking about it. Is he hoping some exciting twist in celebrity apprentice get me out of here will distract us? Would the front pages talking about Baby P and missing Maddie do for that? Orperhaps we should be talking about the economy instead and the down grading of our national debt rating? After all we have a parliament that gets confused over simple expense claims, forgets when it’s paid off mortgages, so why on earth would we worry about our credit rating falling?
Just for the record I do think that MPs should have somewhere in London they can stay and that it should be reasonably furnished. But every item must be accounted for and when they leave politics it can all be sold at auction to recoup our money, the same goes for any property they buy with our money. They do have expenses that should be met and some of these are being lumped in with the actual abuses of the system as Dizzy observes. Though I would observe that for the rest of us if we used that sat nav for something other than work it would cease to be an expense and become a benefit in kind and taxable. I even think that they probably are somewhat underpaid, taking 4 years off work can really put a dent in your career and we want useful people in parliament, not just people who can afford 4 years out due to wealth or general uselessness. But none of that excuses the profligate abuse of the system by individual MPs that we’ve seen, nor the silence on the issue beforehand by “blameless” and decent MPs.
Which is why despite Iain wishing otherwise this blogger at least, and I expect many others, won’t be zipping it.
