All At Our Expense

The UK public have been asked to swallow an awful lot of hardship recently. And quite frankly it is none of their doing. We seemed powerless to stop obscene bonuses being paid to city workers who took greater and greater risks with investor’s money, only to witness the collapse of the banking system. Then we could do nothing but stand by while the Government took taxpayers money to keep the same banks alive.

Now, and as a result of the worst example of target driven consequences, we experience a steep rise in repossession of homes, loss of jobs, a plummeting bank interest rate pushing fixed income savers into hardship and more expensive food and services. My sympathies are expressed to those who have been so severely affected by the consequences of greed and immoral business practice. One would have thought that our Government, in fact any of our MPs, might have had the intelligence and vision to see it coming. Oh, well done Vince Cable (Lib Dem), you were the closest. Pity it wasn’t in anyone’s political interest at the time to listen.

Is it any wonder that the members of Parliament did not want their expenses to become public knowledge? First, when the information was requested through the Freedom of Information Act, the Speaker of the House of Commons used tax payer’s money to go to the High Court in an attempt to stop it. Then, when that failed, there was going to be a delay until July 2009 before expenses would be published.

Credit must be given to the ‘Daily Telegraph’ for publishing the leaked information; most possibly one of those rare times when the information given is not only non-partisan but well within the right of the people to know. And it also demonstrated why politicians did not want the people to know.

The people now hear how MPs claimed for things like cleaning a moat, maintenance to a chandelier, the purchase of horse manure and even for a few tins of dog food. But whilst that in itself might be considered a scandal, the worst abuse had to be the within the claiming of second homes allowances and its contents.

Today the political leaders of each of the main parties are falling over themselves to say how sorry they are. They all say that the system is wrong and needs to be changed. They all say that they recognise that the public is angry and that something needs to be done quickly to win back the public trust.

The question now remains as to whether the public is as gullible as the politicians hope they are.

Let me roll back the carpet of history that I feel sure all MPs would like the contents to remain firmly swept under. A BBC news article for 4 July 2008 – almost a year ago – reads:

“MPs have voted to keep their £24,000 second home allowances… …They rejected tougher auditing and an alternative expenses regime proposed by a commons review”

Where was ‘needs to be done quickly’ then I wonder? Now it must be said that not all MPs agreed with keeping the second homes allowance but this must be tempered with the knowledge that MPs from all parties have been found guilty of expenses abuse. So whilst those who voted to keep the second home allowance felt justified in raking in as much tax payers money as possible (The Speaker said he was claiming his due), it cannot be conceivable that those who disagreed did not feel compelled to take full advantage as well. No political party is innocent and any amount of apology for this outrage will not do. The whole political system must be restructured.

Because whilst the politicians seek to justify their expense claims – including new kitchens, refurbishments, big flat screen TVs and other exorbitant items, people are losing jobs their personal goods and the only home they had and could no longer afford. Can we dwell on this a moment? These are supposed to be the people that matter. Perhaps politicians should be donating their second home to those who no longer have one.

But it goes f