Cecil Troughson, Labour MP for Lower Grifting South and Much Moaning, guest blogs today on the expenses furore engulfing the Westminster village.
Back in the eighties, when the Trades Unions were able to afford much more worthwhile expenses accounts, it was a point of honour that all Labour MPs took from the Fees Office was headed notepaper and certifying ink. We looked after our constituents’ interests and we got on with our foreign trips.
Frankly, I don’t get what the big fuss is about. MPs work on a different intellectual plain than the man in the street: as benevolent philosopher kings, we must contemplate our next overseas junket, how to keep the mistress separated from the wife and how to cling on to our seats. If we need a bathplug, a freshened up moat or a bathrobe from Ikea to help us contemplate the affairs of state (and if our spouses need some adult refreshment to get their creative juices flowing) then the people should be only too pleased to supply them. Our intellectual capacity has too many demands put on it to trifle with the mundane trivialities of our fleeting physical beings.
Imagine a world where we didn’t have expenses accounts. Roses would never reach their potential in gardens devoid of horse manure. Chandeliers would go unhung, hot water would be wastefully lost in drains, contributing to global warming, and, most troubling of all, Andy Burnham would loll around naked fresh from the shower and someone would have to have sex with Jacqui Smith. Is that the sort of Britain we want to live in?
Of course, Lord Foulkes is a dickhead and James Gray should be shot, but why let a few bad apples spoil the trough?
