Let’s have a quick show of hands; who actually, genuinely cares about the expenses ‘scandal’ currently engulfing anyone who’s ever set foot inside Westminster?
If you do, then kudos to you for having the time and inclination to get worked up about something that literally has no effect on us. We don’t have to pay any extra for their claims, so it doesn’t matter one iota what they get up to.
Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re taking the piss. £100 to get some blokes to change a few light bulbs or having the audacity to claim for the repair of a pipe under your tennis court is OTT in anyone’s book. The expenses system was implemented because it was deemed bad form to be giving MP’s pay rises, so they give them a basic wage and let them claim for other, legitimate expenses that occur in their normal political business. I didn’t realise tennis featured so highly on their political agenda.
When I accrue expenditure as part of my job, I claim it back as any normal person would. However, I only claim for the food/fuel/prostitutes I’ve used carrying out the work. You won’t see car washes or a round of tequilas at Hooters mentioned on the form, because it had nothing to do with it. To me that’s the point; if it emerged that an MP had claimed shitloads, but they countered with a pile of receipts that explained every penny spent was for their job, you’d hold your hands up and say ‘fair enough, guv’. Quite why you’d say that, I’m not sure, but you get my point.
The thing is, anybody put in the same position would do exactly the same thing. I would; I don’t because I know I can’t get away with it. It’s not actually against the rules for them to claim for all the guff they do end up claiming for, so there’s not really a scandal after all. They’re just a shower of greedy bastards manipulating a pathetically-governed scheme.
As you would imagine, the leaders have been falling over themselves to apologise and promise change (and my favourite – order an independent review) but the simple fact is anything they do is a direct result of being caught. If somebody had come out a few months ago and said that they thought it was a bid naughty to claim for a housemaid and they were going to sort it out now, fair play to them. In the event, The Telegraph has pulled everyone’s pants down and the public have been treated to the display of general-election-later-this-year panic from anyone with ‘MP’ in their name. Like I said earlier, it has cost us nothing more than we would already have paid, so I’m quite enjoying the playground level one-upmanship being served up by Brown and Cameron as they each pretend they thought of sorting this out first. If they just said “you know what – fair’s fair. We’ve been taking the piss for yonks now, but it’s about time we knocked it on the head” at least we’d think there was an element of humility within them. But they didn’t, and we don’t.
Right, the company’s paying – who wants an Castlemaine XXXX?
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