Monday, March 30, 2009

If we're going down we're taking others with us?

You have to laugh when the snouts in the trough, porn-loving politicians and spouses have their back against the wall. Like a cornered rat they strike out and spin whatever might be a worthy diversion, say for example taking the other pigs in local government down with them?

And 'lo, it came to pass, at almost the same time that this years MP's expenses are published, the Department for Communties and Local Government pumps out a press release to announce 'tough' new measures for transparency in local Government pay, pensions and perks.

The minister quoted in the press release, the Rt Hon John Healey - £137K in expenses - is quoted saying how necessary transparency is in the current economic climate to stop taxpayer funded salaries and perks 'spiralling'. Oh yes he really did say that I swear.

It kind of makes me want to go up to one of them and squeeze their cheeks and say 'ahhh bless, are the nasty public being nasty to you so you thought you'd take some others down with you?'.

The only transparency going on really is the transparent spin attempt to start sounding tough on perks at local Government level in the hope that people will stop looking at Westminster politicians and their masturbating spouses.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if Ms Smith had spent less time in her sister's bedroom and more time in her second home her husband would not have needed to watch porn films

Sam Duncan said...

Your mention of Healey's expenses has given me an idea.

The convention of citing an MP's party affiliation after his name - "Joe Bloggs, MP (Lab)" - seems to have died out a bit (no, not completely, before some smartarse flames me), but what about including their expenses as well from now on? "Rt Hon John Healey (Lab, £137,000)". That might make them think a bit if it caught on.

Anonymous said...

But John Healey's constituency is near Rotherham, a three and a half hour drive from Westminster. You can't really expect MPs to vote until ten or eleven o'clock and then travel all the way back to Yorkshire, and come back again in the morning. That's why there is an allowance for staying away from home, which he has claimed part of. In any other line of work (within reason) if you were working half the week in London and half in Rotherham you would be entitled to claim costs.

Moving on, £84,204 of Healey's claim is for the three members of staff he maintains in order to help him with his parliamentary duties - diary, casework, etc. etc. I never understand why MPs are accused of having their heads in the trough over this one. Actually, I do, it's a cheap and easy shot.

Healey also claims (shock, horror) for maintaining an office, buying office supplies and maintaining a website or sending newsletters. These aren't the luxuries that people would have us believe. They are what is expected of a modern MP.

Oldrightie said...

The end is definitely getting closer, thank God.

Anonymous said...

ooh - strange you should hit this topic.....

Westminster doesn't have a monopoly of greedy pigs - it's simply unfair to leave the provinces out - and local government and the ahem, the "executive branch"?

It's just that we've just had a local government reorganisation (5 = 1 unitary council) which has resulted in £5 million (or £7 million) redundancy being handed out to 20 (or 29) council managers (£200K ish each) - the divvi being decided in secret with 95% of the council deliberately excluded from the process (and boy, they aint happy!) - some of above gents n ladies having been in post less than 4 years. And some likely to return after a well earned short rest as "transition consultants"

Nice work if you can get it.

http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/search/4214748.__5_5_million_redundancy_package_for_council_officers_before_merger/

you may notice some rather contradictory arithmetic.

In principal - it's a sensible plan - in execution though - it seems well, rather self serving - to put it mildly.

Some simple sunlight on the pigsty would be great - the local dead tree press publish PR handouts with comments blocked - democracy in action.