Popcorn VI

Some interesting quotes from some more MPs who don't get it and a rare one who does.

Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change Secretary: "[It] is a challenge and a wake-up call to politicians about the systems that we have in place... I take my responsibility as an MP that we didn’t reform it earlier."

Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary: “The trouble is that politicians have tended to say ’we were only acting within the rules’ but the public think the rules themselves are wrong and go way beyond the legitimate needs of people who have to be in London to represent their constituents in Parliament.”

Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary who had an eight month battle with the fees office after making a claim for more than £16,500 to buy and renovate a new flat saying he might be in for a divorce if it were not paid: “We are talking about claims that were made, in my view, under a flawed system. Our big collective failing - and I completely acknowledge my part in this - is not throwing it out much more quickly than this.

“The great tragedy of it is that because of this flawed system it has given the impression that lots of people in the Commons are personally flawed. I do not believe that to be the case.”

Look you twats, the system may well be flawed but that in itself isn't the fucking problem. The problem is that MPs seem institutionally incapable of resisting the temptation to line their fucking pockets with every penny they can squeeze out of it. To put it another way, if the UK stored its gold reserves in the House of Commons would you lot have to be told that it's not yours to fucking walk off with or would you have helped yourselves to the lot? The system can be as flawed as you like, and I suspect many MPs do in fact like it to be flawed, but no matter how bad it is it wouldn't actually matter if MPs were being fucking honest. Why can't these cunts, and all the others using the same pathetic excuse, grasp this simple point? At least some of them seem to have understood.

Kate Hoey, former Labour minister, referring to Tourism Minister Barbara Follett’s reported £25,000 expenditure on security: “I just cannot understand that one at all. I would need to have someone really convince me that an MP can claim that amount of money for personal security, when I know that in my constituency I have women who walk home late at night who would love to have somebody paying for them to have personal security."

Well done Ms Hoey. I don't have to agree with her politics to have some respect for being that rare creature, an MP who shows signs of sticking to principles. I'm not really surprised that she's one of the very few so far to have slammed her colleagues instead of excusing them because of the system. I very much hope that this isn't going to be spoiled by any bombshells in her own expenses but according to this she's consistently one of the least costly MPs for expenses, which suggests she probably isn't a piss taker.


UPDATE: Meanwhile it's Imodium Plus all round for the Tories as The Telegraph prepares to show what they've been up to, and according to Guido the tax man is starting to take an interest.

UPDATE 2: The Devil has seen another apparently honest MP.

UPDATE 3: True to their word about the Tories, The Telegraph has looked at Alan Duncan's and John Gummer's spending. Not quite the multiple second homes scene popular on the other side of the House (though who knows what's still to come) but not really any different in principle, especially when the same fucking excuse of being within the rules is used. Guido is firing the first shots at three more.