Good Socialist Values
I laughed at this recent article in Private Eye which made a very serious point about the use of public money for personal gain - as well as lampooning the behaviour of Westminster MPs.
For me, the great irony is the fact that 'good socialist' MPs seem to see nothing morally wrong with their behaviour - because to some extent you expect this kind of attitude from Tory MPs or some of them at least.
So when MPs from the 'People's Party' which espouses the common good, of course - think nothing of enriching themselves from the public purse - then to me it seems perfectly reasonable to that something's wrong with the values of the Westminster Parliament.
Such a shame that none of the Westminster parties feel strongly enough to show some leadership on this issue which is right under their noses - yet they feel able to pontificate all day long about standards of behaviour eslewhere - for example within the press and media.
HP SAUCE
Last week the Daily Telegraph revealed more boot-filling by MPs who speculated on the London property market. Treasury minister David Gauke, who clearly hasn't suffered from a double-dip housing recession, made a £67,000 profit on his south London flat thanks to the kindness of taxpayers, but has only been asked to repay £27,762.
Will the lucre-grabbing legislators be sanctioned? This is one for the standards and privileges committee, aka the double standards committee, so don't hold your breath.
Its chairman, Kevin Barron, made a profit of almost £500,000 on the sale of his taxpayer-funded flat; and the vice chairman, Sir Paul Beresford, used public money to pay a mortgage and most of the running costs at his lucrative dental practice in Putney, which is located in his house. Neither has reimbursed the taxpayer for the gains made from the pre-2010 mortgage payment scheme.
Perhaps Barrons' committee will now ask former parliamentary standards commissioner john Lyon whyhe never investigated the most blatant examples of MPs exploiting taxpayers' generosity.
Perhaps it will look into the "petty cash" scandal, whereby MPs such as chancellor George Osborne, former deputy speaker Alan Haselhurst and, er, Kevin Barron claims 3250 a month without having to show any receipts.
Perahaps it will also explain why, despite forcing Labour MP Denis McShane out of the Commons for the dodgy way he secured a £12,000 reimbursement for his work as Tony Blair's envoy in Europe, Barron's committee was so much more lenient with David Laws MP, who diverted £50,000 of taxpayers' money to his live-in partner as "rent" but is now back in the cabinet in his ministerial car and attending cabinet.
Perhaps it will. But, then again, probably not.
