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Cheers - AE

Thursday 1 July 2010

See? Leopards and spots.

Has there really ever been such an egregious bunch of venal, self serving, nest-feathering, greedy, troughing little fecal specimens as the current lot of MPs? Well, other than the last lot, obviously.
Disgruntled MPs are threatening to bring down the new independent allowances watchdog in protest at the tough regime imposed following the expenses scandal.
Members of a Commons committee refused to sign off on the budget for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) and demanded officials provide new information before they would agreed to fund the body, raising the prospect that it will not be able to continue.
You cunts. You utter, utter cunts. All these years you fed us the drivel that you had to be rewarded handsomely with lots of perks because you'd all do so much better in the private sector and without the lavish packages politics wouldn't attract what is laughingly referred to as 'talent', and only a couple of months ago all of you had the opportunity of fucking off and doing precisely that (or for the new intake, going and finding something else instead). It was no secret that the expense scandal shit hit the fan in a very big way. It was no secret that the public were largely outraged and all the little tricks that you claimed were within the rules - many of which would never in a million years have existed in the private sector - but which were clear piss takes would have to stop. It was no secret that the country had been on the receiving end of the most gigantic lubeless economic arse-fucking and that everyone would be expected to tighten their belts anyway. It was no secret that politicians would be expected to lead by example and that parliamentarians, having gotten away with so much, would have to put up with some major fucking changes. It was no secret that IPSA was taking over and while it was far from an ideal solution would hopefully be better than the previous system.

You knew all this. You knew, and if you didn't like any aspect of it there was a simple answer: do not let your name go forward as a parliamentary candidate. Having taken the job on you have no fucking right to whinge about it, but if it's really that unbearable just form an orderly queue for the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead and we'll say no more about it.

And what are they so upset about? IPSA want them to submit receipts.
Members of the committee, chaired by John Bercow, the Speaker, were also highly critical of Sir Ian Kennedy and Andrew McDonald, the chairman and chief executive of IPSA, demanding that MPs be issued with credit cards to use for their expenses rather than being forced to submit receipts.
Oh, how very fucking dare they! Listen, you pox ridden grabocrats, I've worked at places that gave me company credit cards and I still needed to supply receipts to prove that what I was expensing on the card was fucking legit. The idea here is very simple, even for a brain being gently pickled in the contents of one of the best wine cellars in the country: you may expense what you need to buy or pay for as part of your job, and in order to show that you aren't claiming for anything beyond that you keep and submit receipts. This still applies if you're hoping that your hotel bill for that weekend you were on a fact finding trip will just say 'Total £xxx.xx, and won't show that you got cunted in the bar every night before attacking the miniatures in your room, finding the mucky cable channels to get the mood going and slipping one up your secretary. If you want a more factual example you could have looked around the room you were in.
Among those making clear their anger at the tougher rules was Labour’s Phil Woolas, who made expenses claims for his wife’s cosmetics.
See? That is why you need to submit receipts. Whether Commons credit card or your own cash to be reimbursed doesn't actually matter, although with the expenses scandal in mind I for one would prefer you all to use your money and have to claim it back - it might make you think a little harder about whether or not you really need what you're about to buy to carry out your job as an MP (though that certainly didn't stop you trying up till Easter last year).

Incidentally, I'm not surprised to see that, as with the expense scandal itself, operating with minimal oversight appears to enjoy broad cross-party support..
Bob Russell, a Liberal Democrat MP, told Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of IPSA: “I would like to say nice words about IPSA but you head the most inefficient organisation I have known in nearly 40 years of public office.”
Nick Brown, Labour’s chief whip, added: “If you can find a satisfied Labour MP could you please point them in my direction and get them to express their satisfaction.”
Charles Walker, a backbench Conservative accused IPSA of wasting money on a “witch-finder general” after a compliance officer was appointed to investigate questionable claims.
He added: “We are not convinced on this committee that at £6.5 million you are delivering value for money, because the House of Commons has presented a paper saying they delivered the functions you are delivering for £2 million.
"Everyone else uses credit cards. You have created something you didn't have to create."
Oh, boo-hoo, you fucking prick. Ask yourself why you lot should get cards? As I said above, having to use your own money and then justify why you should be reimbursed would hopefully make at least some of you think harder about what you spunk away other people's money on, but even leaving that aside using credit cards should in no way let you off submitting receipts. That goes double for those of you who have filled a room up to whine about having to do it, because it looks like you're rather hoping you won't have to and I'm sure I won't be the only one who wonders why you're so keen to avoid it.

IPSA might not be that efficient, and frankly I'm not impressed that it's going to cost that much a year to run, but if it makes you fuckers run your expenses the way everyone else in the real world has to then I'm all for it.
Sir Ian said that it would be impossible to check whether claims were legitimate without proper receipts.
Quite, but why is this simple premise so fucking difficult for these parasitic twats to grasp? It's not a fucking gentlemen's agreement, okay? You simply buy what you need, and nothing more, at the best price you can get, and not a penny more, and retain the paperwork to prove it. Got it now? Sinking in at all? The concept is the same as what millions of people have to do for their work expenses and not very different from what many more have to do in order to complete their tax returns. If you think that you're in any way above doing the same I've got some news for you, and it's all bad.

3 comments:

banned said...

Good rant, it is unbelievable that MPs still don't think that they should have a similar expenses regime as the rest of us.

JuliaM said...

"Members of the committee, chaired by John Bercow, the Speaker..."

Oh, I'd pay good money for an audio clip of Simon Burns calling him a 'stupid, sanctimonious dwarf' *

I'd have it as my ringtone...

* for which he's since apologised. To dwarves. :)

Angry Exile said...

banned, yeah, and and I don't hear much in the way of protest from the new intake. They're the ones who've just come from the real world the rest of us live in so you'd expect them to be reminding the long time residents how it's done. Maybe, hopefully, it's just not being reported, but I worry that having found themselves on the gravy train many new MPs will fall into the same ways as their predecessors.

Julia, I was so hoping that was going to be one of those apologies that is really just taking the chance to repeat the insult, but it sounds like the usual kind of pro forma apology trotted out to appease the professionally offended. Oh dear.

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