First Labour are lambasted by the Telegraph, then the paper realises it really needs to be balanced, and publishes Tory expense details. The great British public and media are then duly expected to join a mass public hatred campaign against all MPs in the land. People who don’t know the full details of what’s been going on in Parliament think the shenanigans are a disgrace, etc.
Some of the claims are over the top, and will be sorted once someone else is looking after the expenses of MPs. I can’t help wondering though, what the cost will be to us, the taxpayers, to set up and administer a new expenses policy for MPs. Probably more than they claim already.
Then there’s the fairness in it all. If I go more than 40 miles from my base of work, all expenses can be reimbursed. Where an MP is based outside the M25, they deserve to have their travel to Parliament and accommodation costs reimbursed.
We had a very fair system, until some Labour and Tory MPs bent the rules to their liking (and lets face it when the rules can be broken, we do – how many of you drive with your mobiles still…) and the Torygraph decided we should have a public outcry and lambasting over it.
What it has shown is that newspapers will break the law, steal documents, pay for stolen documents or otherwise, because it’s in the public interest. What we see this weekend is the Telegraph using the public interest excuse unfairly – the receipts would be published in two months anyway – this is a publicity drive for the newspaper.
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