Joanna Lumley, her eyes still dancing after her stunning victory over Gordon Brown, Phil Woolas and Jacqui Smith, was asked by a Sky reporter why she pursued the Gurkha cause so trenchantly. She said, “Well, I’m a daughter of the regiment.”
Rather sad that you don’ hear it more often really. Loyalty to, quite literally, one of the little platoons that Edmund Burke said make up society.
The man who released the information says:
“We’ve reached a stage in society where they want to know everything about us – I think we’re entitled to know about them.”
That’s an argument I find it very difficult to disagree with.
And they’re making a habit of being treated differently than the rest of us too. The 2003 Income Tax Act exempts MPs specifically (but not local councillors) from the Inland Revenue rules that expenses must be solely to do with the pursuit of one’s job. And the Childrens’ Database will be so secure that the children of MPs will not be on it.
I don’t know about you but I regard it as one of the basics, that if a law is good enough that we must obey it then so must it be good enough that those who made the law should obey it.
I listened to this going out live and simply could not believe my ears.
But his attack embarrassed Conservative officials when he claimed that public outrage over MPs’ expenses was unfair and misplaced. “I think I have behaved impeccably. I have done nothing criminal. And you know what it’s about? Jealousy. I have got a very, very large house. Some people say it looks like Balmoral, but it’s a merchant’s house from the 19th century,” he said. “We have a wretched Government here that has completely mucked up the system and caused the resignation of me and many others, because it was this Government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act and it is this Government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot.”
Comparing the daily stream of revelations in The Daily Telegraph to a soap opera, he said: “What right does the public have to interfere in my private life? None. Do you know what this reminds me of? An episode of Coronation Street. This is a kangaroo court.”
They really don’t get it, do they? That’s our money they’re spending, not theirs.
From Camilla Cavendish in The Times:
The readiness of politicians to relinquish power amazes me. Take the European constitution, now rebranded as the Lisbon treaty. I read all the drafts of that document, spoke to lawyers and became convinced that its calculated opacity was a charter for the creeping takeover of national policy by bureaucrats and judges. There were brilliant MPs who could debate every inch of the detail - David Miliband, Gisela Stuart, David Heathcoat-Amory, Chris Huhne. But I met others who hadn’t even read the document and looked incredulous that I had.
I once ran a construction company. I didn’t sign contracts that I didn’t understand, especially when they involved other people’s money. So I could not believe that on an issue of such consequence - for their own role as well as for the nation - MPs had not done their homework. When the annual EU membership fee is £6.5 billion, when EU directives have driven almost half of the regulations passed here since 1998, and when implementing those regulations has cost £106 billion (according to a recent study by Open Europe), it is not surprising that people ask what MPs are doing.
About time we took back those powers and ruled ourselves, isn’t it?
Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, confirmed the policy reversal for those with four years’service in a Commons statement following an intense three year campaign, led by Joanna Lumley, the actress.
The victory brings to an end more than 20 years of demands to give Gurkha veterans equal rights and has left Gordon Brown and his ministers embarrassed after misjudging the public mood.
That’s all that anyone was ever asking. That those who serve in the British Army in the Gurkha regiments get treated the same as other foreigners who serve in other regiments in the British Army.
The question is, why was the Government so blitheringly incompetent in realising that this was the right thing to do?
This is interesting for two reasons:
The deal will mean they can draw full salaries and allowances at an annual cost of over £6 million without any legislative duties to carry out.
The 18 MEPs, from 12 EU countries, including Britain’s West Midlands region, will be paid more than £76,000 a year, with staff and office allowances worth £210,000.
Firstlythat such an amount of money is going to be spent on people who, by law, are not allowed to do anything.
The second is, well, have a look at what an MEP gets to pay their staff (the staff needed to cover a constituency which is 100 times the size of a Westminster one in some cases) and an office.
£ 210,000 a year. So when people shout about Nigel “getting” £2 million over 10 years in “expenses” this is what they mean. That he’s paid the staff he needs to do his job. There is no second home allowance, there is no furniture allowance. This is rather different from moat cleaning, I think we all agree?
BRUSSELS — The Belgian bodybuilding championship has been canceled after doping officials showed up and all 20 competitors fled.
The Cabinet minister saved thousands of pounds after informing the parliamentary authorities that Manchester was his “main” home while the tax authorities considered London to be his “primary” residence. Mr Purnell claimed for a £395 accountant’s bill that included “tax advice provided in October 2004 regarding sale of flat” on parliamentary expenses which are intended to cover the costs of running an MP’s office.
This is one of those facepalm moments.
Seriously? A Cabinet Minister thinks that the taxpayers should pay his bill to avoid the taxes that all other taxpayers have to pay?
Visions of howling mobs and burning brands float in front of my eyes…..
We don’t normally get much coverage in the Financial Times but they have picked up this comment made by Nigel.
Cameron called us nutters again:
Nigel Farage, Ukip leader, hit back by calling the “nutters” epithet a bad start for a prospective prime minister: “Fifty-five per cent of the country think we ought to leave the EU and a seasoned politician would probably hesitate before insinuating that over half of the country he hopes to lead is insane.”
Quite
You think that you’ve heard it all, that he bottom of the barrel has been reached. And then you find out that it keeps getting worse.
Another investigation has been launched in the wake of the expenses scandal after allegations that House of Commons officials allowed an MP to reclaim mortgage interest payments he was no longer paying.
It’s not just the MPs, it’s even the officials conspiring with them!