Expensive MPs

MPs, Kit Kats, manure, swimming pools and housekeepers. No, not the plot for a horror film (or a porn film, Mr Smith) but just some of the things that MPs have been spending our money on over the last year or so. That’s right – OUR MONEY! Isn’t it outrageous? Well, yes, it probably is and they should be punished in some way. Maybe that horror film isn't such a bad idea.

There’s a certain irony in the level of outrage being thrown around though, especially by people who collect expenses from their own work – I bet there’s the odd Kit Kat in there too, as well as lots of other things. OK, so it’s not public money they’re spending, directly, but you’ve got to in some way feel for the public nature in which the MPs expenses are being aired and scrutinised, haven’t you? No? All right, so you haven’t. Let’s look at Salford’s finest as an example, the Right Honourable Hazel Blears:

Charges against included claiming for three different houses in one year and spending £5000 of OUR MONEY on furniture in just three months. She also claimed the mortgage payments on a flat in London, the hotel costs incurred when she sold the flat and didn’t have anywhere to stay, and didn’t pay tax on the £45,000 profit she made on the flat when she sold it. Hang on a minute – she bought a flat with OUR MONEY, sold it and pocketed all the profit? How does that work? Are these expenses some sort of investment scheme for our elected representatives to use to dally on the property market and see what profit can be made? Here’s a thought – if the flat had lost value by the time she sold it, what’s the betting she would have used expenses to pay off the deficit?

Give us back our money, Blears!