.
That this parliament has been a rotten one is unquestionable and most right-thinking people will be glad to see the back of it.
With the exception of the Iraq war and the collapse of our banking system and the national debt that arose from it, this rotten parliament will stick in most people’s minds as being the one when many MPs were demonstrated to have had their snouts in the trough. It is the parliament that showed only too clearly that some MPs were more concerned with lining their own pockets than actually serving the people they had been elected to represent.
Four MPs, including three former cabinet ministers, have now been suspended from the Labour Party after the Channel 4 and Times ‘sting’ aired last night showed just how eager they were to accept fees varying from £1,000 to £5,000 per day to influence government policy.
The newspapers this morning have dug deep into the rich mine of information on both these four MPs as well as a few others.
Who’d have thought, for example, that Patricia Hewitt in addition to her parliamentary salary of £60,000 (plus expenses, remember!) earns an additional £280,000 a year in fees from companies she advises. Is she worth it I wonder, and will some of these companies want to retain her in future? Ms Hewitt is not the only one benefiting from external work and there is a list of MPs earning additional sums varying from £30,000 to £245,000.
We learn also this morning that a number of MPs have enjoyed expenses-paid junkets in various places abroad and failed to declare their interest by lobbying on behalf of those countries. Over 400 times! One MP is alleged to have breached the rules ninety times after making annual trips to Cyprus.
The expenses scandal trundles on unremittingly and most of us are getting thoroughly fed-up with hearing about it for it only reinforces just how out of touch some MPs are with the feelings of ordinary people.
The sooner Gordon Brown calls for a General Election the better. Then, hopefully, we can see the back of some of the grubby snouts that were in this very grubby parliamentary trough.
The question is though, will the next lot be any better?
.
That this parliament has been a rotten one is unquestionable and most right-thinking people will be glad to see the back of it.
With the exception of the Iraq war and the collapse of our banking system and the national debt that arose from it, this rotten parliament will stick in most people’s minds as being the one when many MPs were demonstrated to have had their snouts in the trough. It is the parliament that showed only too clearly that some MPs were more concerned with lining their own pockets than actually serving the people they had been elected to represent.
Four MPs, including three former cabinet ministers, have now been suspended from the Labour Party after the Channel 4 and Times ‘sting’ aired last night showed just how eager they were to accept fees varying from £1,000 to £5,000 per day to influence government policy.
The newspapers this morning have dug deep into the rich mine of information on both these four MPs as well as a few others.
Who’d have thought, for example, that Patricia Hewitt in addition to her parliamentary salary of £60,000 (plus expenses, remember!) earns an additional £280,000 a year in fees from companies she advises. Is she worth it I wonder, and will some of these companies want to retain her in future? Ms Hewitt is not the only one benefiting from external work and there is a list of MPs earning additional sums varying from £30,000 to £245,000.
We learn also this morning that a number of MPs have enjoyed expenses-paid junkets in various places abroad and failed to declare their interest by lobbying on behalf of those countries. Over 400 times! One MP is alleged to have breached the rules ninety times after making annual trips to Cyprus.
The expenses scandal trundles on unremittingly and most of us are getting thoroughly fed-up with hearing about it for it only reinforces just how out of touch some MPs are with the feelings of ordinary people.
The sooner Gordon Brown calls for a General Election the better. Then, hopefully, we can see the back of some of the grubby snouts that were in this very grubby parliamentary trough.
The question is though, will the next lot be any better?
.
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