Finally Some Common Sense in The Commons

As the first outlines of Sir Christopher Kelly’s plans for the future of MP’s expenses emerge, there seems at least someone in Westminster with some modicum of common sense left, and that’s the author of the plans. He plans to step hard on the toes of the mandarins by cutting mortgage allowances on second homes and wages paid to family members.

Paying for family members who don’t do any work is a long standing tradition with MPs and is usually used to push their own incomes through the wages of their wife and to pay university fees and costs for their sons and daughters. For decades, these wages have been paid on the tax payers back to subsidise the overblown lifestyles of mandarins and their ill begotten brood.

Mortgages, real and imagined ones, have loomed large in the headlines this year. What surprised me, as a democrat, was the complete lack of outrage that MPs were buying houses at all. They are elected for a term of a few years, why on earth should they buy houses for that short term? They could rent a one bedroom flat like anybody else for the few days they are in London, or better still live in a cheap hotel.

Sir Christopher has addressed these two problems, and decided that all family members must be sacked. The work they did for this country will be adequately taken care of by the vacancies they leave behind. It is to be hoped that he made quite clear to the densest Neanderthal, i.e. politician, that this includes employing family members of other MPs. Otherwise we will find in future that MPs will swap favours.

Second homes are allowable only to MPs living more than 90 minutes distance from Westminster and are refundable on a rental basis only. That sounds quite promising. Again for the very stupid, he should clarify that a second home may only be in London, as the family will be staying in the constituency the MP represents. It should also be clear that it is a one bedroom flat, as nothing more is needed for a working MP. And obviously, whoever has access to a grace and favour mansion or flat is excluded completely from the second home allowance, as nobody is talking about third homes.

There are fears that these measures will result in carnage with 200 MPs resigning. There seem to be private companies stupid enough to hire that many and more in well paid jobs in the city. If there are that many companies who can splash out money to people who have never done a single day of work in their life, and won’t in the future, plus the added security they have to put in place to keep the fraudulent habits of these selfsame persons under control, who is talking about a recession?

I would take these resignations as a good indicator of how well Sir Christopher has done his work. If only 200 will resign, dear Sir, please go over your plans again, as your work is really only done when you get at least 400 of these clowns to resign. In a perfect world where you would be able to make the perfect plan, you would get 649 of the 650 MPs to resign. The one Labour MP not touched by either measure, as she didn’t claim expenses on either account, would be the lone exception. Alas, we do not live in this perfect world.

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