Labour's Decay and Conservative Pickles
Jacqui Smith, Tony McNulty, Harry Cohen. Who are these people you might ask?
Well, for those of you that have lost your Labour Party Top Trump cards, or skipped the weekend papers, they are all MPs, and they are currently causing a furore in the national media by the gross indecency of their parliamentary expenses claims.
I have to be careful with the wording here. Note, I have not said that the claims have been incorrect or fraudulent.
One of the worst parts of the current crisis in the MP expenses system is that the claims made by this Labour trio, and probably a good few others, is that they may well turn out to be within the rules.
As Michael White of the Guardian newspaper put it last week – 'If these are the rules, the rules need fixing'.
Rewind the clock twelve, thirteen, fourteen years.
Did we not have similar Tory stories?
It seems that when the media starts to uncover widespread problems with the trustworthiness and ethics of a governing party, it is a sure sign of decay, and they are on their way out.
But what are the Lib Dems doing about MPs expenses, I hear you ask?
Our Leader, Nick Clegg, has written to Gordon Brown and David Cameron asking for an emergency meeting to sort the system out.
Notably, no Lib Dem MP with a constituency in outer London claims the controversial second home allowance.
And what are the Conservatives doing about it?
Well, they must pray that their approach will not be characterised by the performance of their Party Chairman – Eric Pickles– on the BBC's Question Time programme on Thursday.
Quite astonishing.
In the course of a debate about the second home allowance, Mr Pickles was asked how far his constituency is from Westminster (that's Brentwood & Ongar, for those of you who like the detail).
After answering that it was 37 miles away, he then proceeded to argue passionately for his allowance on the basis that (I paraphrase), it's really difficult to get into work on time otherwise.
This, folks, is the radical New Tory that's driving the campaign bus.
Unbelievable.
Beware those Conservative parliamentary candidates who prophesy a new dawn under a Tory government.
I've heard that somewhere before...
(To read more about what Nick has been up to, check out his blog – 'Nick Perry for Hastings & Rye' at www.nickperrylibdem.wordpress.com]
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Weather for Hastings
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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