“Wholly, exclusively and necessarily” : Expenses raise their ugly head again

Well, it seems that no sooner are we out of the conference season, than expenses have raised their ugly head again. The conference season – despite Mandelsonian spin, and attempts by Mandy to position himself as the next Labour leader (and rumour has it that he will renounce his peerage so he can be parachuted in to stand for parliament in my local seat of Darlington) – has been an unmitigated disaster for Labour: the Sun switching sides to back the Tories, and the latest opinion polls putting Labour up to 19 points (C 45 , L 26, LD 18 etc) behind the Conservatives.

And now we hear that there are to be about 325 MPs asked to justify or pay back their expenses, which should be

wholly
exclusively and
necessarily

incurred for the purposes of carrying out their duties as an MP.

Indeed, the BBC carries a notorious quote from the Sub-Prime Minister:-

“We’ve got to consign the old discredited system to the dustbin of history, this is part of the process of doing so.

“Sir Thomas Legg will make recommendations, people have the chance to look at what he says.

“And then my advice to people is after the process has gone through in the next few weeks he says you’ve got to repay, let’s get it done, let’s get it sorted out and let’s get it back to a system that people have confidence in.”

It’s the Labour Government that we need to consign to the dustbin of history, and (whatever the recommendations) the British people will in another 9 months have an opportunity to do just that. At least we can sort out poverty, our economy and social breakdown – the socio-economic issues that really matter, that can be resolved by radical conservative policy – rather than listen to more and more sleaze about crooked MPs. It’s time for change, and not more of the same of the discredited third way that amounted to a pocket-lining exercise for career politicians.

BREAKING NEWS – Jacqui Smith to apologise. Why will she not just resign her seat, rather than embarrass the Government and Brown any further ? Good question. But then she is trying to avoid paying back the £116,000. And not to forget that Gordon Brown himself will have to pay back a staggering £12,000.

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