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All four trotters in the trough
By Wolfie | May 14, 2008
These two stories from the BBC concerns a wider issue that has been bubbling away in British politics for a little while now, the issue of MP’s expenses.
Given that an MP currently earns just over £61,000 - and a Cabinet Minister earns an extra nearly £77,000 on top of that - it seems somewhat obscene that they can claim £23,000 for running a second home. There are those (and I would be one of them) who might think that if they need a second home then they should damn well pay for it themselves. After all, no-one forces them to take the job, so why should the taxpayer be forced to support a lifestyle that the majority of taxpayers cannot afford for themselves?
But the one that takes the cake (at least today - this one promises to run and run, so there’s bound to be one that beats it) is the Speakers wife claiming over £4,000 in taxi fares which were “mainly for shopping trips”. Apparently, these trips met the criteria for assisting the Speaker to carry out his official duties, which seems odd. If that is the case, then it’s time the criteria were changed!
Apparently “the House of Commons is fighting to avoid releasing the details of expenses claims under the allowance of 14 MPs and former MPs under the Freedom of Information Act.” Could that be because they don’t want the great British public to find out how much they’re being fleeced by their elected representatives?
Of course, this all comes on top of the fiasco that has been the scrapping of the 10p tax band, leaving several million taxpayers worse off than they’ve previously been. Alistair Darling’s hastily announced ’support’ package makes a mockery of the whole affair; rather than just re-instating the 10px tax band, he instead raises the personal allowance for everyone that earns less than £40,000 a year - even though it’s only those that earn up to £18,500 and who either are aged between 61 and 64 or who don’t have children that are affected.
I’m not sure I’d trust this lot to manage a piggy bank properly, let along the finances of the whole country!
Categories: Politics, Rant-O-Meter |
Tags: Expenses, Pay, Rip Off
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