Flipping hell! Will they ever get it?
TO coin what is now a hackneyed old phrase - They STILL Don't Get It!
In a week when one of their own has made them look like even bigger thieves and sleazeballs than we already believed them to be, their response hasn't been humility.
It hasn't been: "Let's put this right". It hasn't been: "We've taken money we shouldn't have and so let's prove to the public we DO have integrity and pay it back".
No, our MPs' reaction to Sir Thomas Legg's audit and his demand that they repay the money they stole from the taxpayers, has been to squeal like stuck pigs about how they're being hounded and persecuted.
It's clear the boys and girls in the Westminster village can't quite believe that Sir Thomas - who was ordered by Gordon Brown to carry out an independent audit - actually has.
Squealing
They were certain the man they believed to be a government patsy would preside over a whitewash and insist our honourable (Hah!) parliamentarians hadn't broken any rules. Only he didn't.
And now, because he chose NOT to gloss over their greed and is insisting they repay what they pilfered from the public purse, they're reeling with self-righteous indignation.
But when I say they've been squealing, I obviously don't mean publicly.
Because they don't actually have the guts for that, knowing precisely what the public reaction would be to their whingeing.
No, they're doing their "woe is me" bit in the corridors of Westminster, having seemingly forgotten it was only two months ago that scores of them were exposed as thieves and chancers bereft of morals or integrity.
None of them has the wit to realise that if Sir Thomas had concentrated on the REALLY important things - the phantom mortgages, the capital gains tax avoidance and the flipping of houses - all furnished at OUR expense - many of them would now be up on theft and fraud charges instead of just having to repay a few hundred quid. But what's really tragic here is that even after everything that's happened they STILL haven't grasped that what's REALLY unfair is the fact they used taxpayers' money to pay for their their helipads, their housekeepers, their horse manure and their porno movies.
And instead of being grateful they aren't being prosecuted THEY are now idiotically threatening to take legal action and leaking information they hope will discredit Sir Thomas. Which shows they've learned nothing!
It also shows all that public hand-wringing, all the talk about "openness and honesty", about how contrite they were and how the system HAD to change in order to win back public trust was just a cynical PR exercise to help save their sorry backsides.
And instead of trying to claw back some respect, instead of doing the right thing (ie paying back what they stole), instead of trying to change for the better, they're STILL trying to justify what they've done as well as hindering Sir Thomas at every turn - refusing to supply him with the information he needed (receipts, documentation, mortgage interest statements) for his investigation.
Immoral
Call me an old cynic, but I never bought all their protestations about how they only did what the rules allowed.
Their parliamentary code states clearly that expenses should only be paid if they were incurred "wholly and exclusively in pursuit of their duty as an MP".
Which makes nonsense of claims for duck houses, gardeners, barbecues, etc.
More importantly, I never bought their contrition or their mock horror at suggestions they'd done something wrong.
They KNEW what they were doing was immoral. They knew it wasn't right or fair to fund their extravagant lifestyles from the public purse - but they did it anyway.
And while it was a newspaper that first exposed them, they've now been exposed by one of their own who appears to see them in much the same way as the rest of us do - as a bunch of immoral shysters.
Please note: All comments are moderated.
Tick this box to accept our
TERMS & CONDITIONS
This article has 9 comments
Simon & Garfunkel come to mind
A case of Legg over troubled water
By Mind Healer.. Posted November 1 2009 at 3:43 PM.
A disgrace, they took tax payers money spent it on anything they fancied porn videos, gardening, furniture, fancy hotels, ect,ect and now the game is up and they have been asked to repay it back they refuse or quibble.
the tax credit wanted me to pay back a few hundred it killed me but i did it- and i never wrongfully claimed it in the first place.
How can the government insist on me paying back 200 ??? but not both insist on some xministers no names mentioned paying back 116000 pounds??? of wrongfully claimed public dosh!
Time to standardize the law.
By millie.. Posted October 18 2009 at 7:30 PM.
Why are MPs treated any different to the rest of our society?
I know for a fact that if I EVER lied about my work expenses and was found out I would be SACKED and probably find myself in court on a fraud charge. So, what makes MPs different to the rest of us? Their crimes are not simply immoral ... they are FRAUD. Worse than that, they have stolen from US, the ordinary tax payers.
It is time they put their hands up and cried "OK GUV, IT'S A FAIR COP!" But by now the whole of the British public KNOW that most of them are simply in politics to ride the great parliamentary gravy train and will continue to winge and whine with self-righteous indignation and get away with whatever they can.
We have all seen stories of sleaze in politics for years. Ten years ago and more it was the Tories who were constantly accused. Since the inception of the current government it has been the "NEW Labourites" ... a party that I once had respect for but who have shown that their motives are utterly bereft of morals.
So, who do we vote for? Can any of us mere mortals know whether our local candidates are amongst the criminals who pretend to represent us? I, for one, will not be voting next year because I have lost all faith in our politicians criminal behavior.
By Mal.. Posted October 18 2009 at 5:45 PM.
It seems as has been said they still dont get it..
Why should i pay for their food as well as feeding my family?
Why has there not been a close look at what Brown and Cameron have been claiming.. after all Cameron not short of a few bob..
No wonder our lads and lasses in the wars are short of equipment
By mike.. Posted October 18 2009 at 4:42 PM.
Carole
This is beyond belief. These people make the laws and rule us and they are committing fraud and stealing. Gordon Brown and David Cameron don't need to pontificate because they are as guilty as the next.
I cannot believe MPs can claim £400 a month for food !
That they are allowed to continue to the General Election therefore being eligible for a pay off and a pension or going to the House of Lords is scandalous. Can nothing be done?
By ms.. Posted October 18 2009 at 3:14 PM.
hiya Carole, just read your article in the News of The World about M.P.s.. nothing suprises me anymore about the shower that represent us in Westminster, unlike most of the M.P,s .ive worked all my life in heavy industry in Sheffield , never been out of work till the last 9months, paid into the so called system of national insurance, never had holidays that were longer than a week, because the hol pay was next to nothing, then through no fault of my own i became first unemployed ,then ill, guess what i get of the state,,ZILTCH and why/ because i had the audacity to work for myself for the last 2 yrs,, so as i am not entitled to anything .because i didn,t pay the correct stamp for the 2 yrs the previous 30 yrs i paid in counts for nothing,,so just when i needed it the most,,my country let me down, i wonder how many M.P,s . would get nothing if they became unemployed????
By mick drabble.. Posted October 18 2009 at 2:13 PM.
i once got on a bus,and did not pay my fare,for that, i would like to apologise to the house,if only crime was that easy,oh,hang on a mo'
By alan.. Posted October 18 2009 at 10:59 AM.
It will be very unwise to preach sermons about corruption in third-world countries and disciplined culture .
You wonder why Chinese are now the darling of developing world.
By Joker .. Posted October 18 2009 at 6:03 AM.
Carole, I agree totally, they are everything that is so wrong with this country. They should hang their heads in shame and enjoy the comfort of HM Prisons because if that was you or me that's where we would be right now! They have absolutely no standards but think they are much better than us.
By Melanie.. Posted October 17 2009 at 10:34 PM.