The new Parliamentary expenses control body is now in action, and the reaction to it by MPs is a perfect reminder of the true nature of these people. They believe that nothing that applies to you applies to them. They believe that they are the superclass of this country, above the law and all regulations; what rights you have are nothing more than conditional privileges given to you by them, and everything you own, including your children, belongs to them to do with as they please.

This is why they are raising capital gains tax to 50% for people who own, in their opinion ‘too much property’; your house does not belong to you, it belongs to them. The value in it belongs to them, and they can seize it at any time by merely saying that they want it. They borrowed money from foreigners to bail out their friends and are sticking you with the bill, which you and your children will have to pay.

but I am getting carried away…

Today may mark a historic moment as David Cameron and Nick Clegg unveil their programme for the first British coalition government since the war.

But most MPs are not poring over the Lib-Con document which is open for consultation on the Cabinet Office website. Instead Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are seething with anger after their first encounter with the new independent body responsible for handling their expenses and salaries.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) was established last year after a collective loss of confidence at the height of the expenses scandal. In an attempt to end the clubby atmosphere, in which MPs would often bully the Commons Fees Office, an outside body was given statutory powers to approve the payment of expenses.

Here are some of the complaints I’ve heard from an array of MPs, whose language about Ipsa would be out of place on this happy-family blog:

• In their initial encounter with staff from the new body, MPs are greeted with a written message which says Ipsa will not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour. One former minister says:

We are being treated like benefit claimants. Why don’t they just put up a metal grille?

• The requirements for payment of expenses are too stringent. If an MP wants to claim for the travel expenses from the constituency to Westminster of their spouse or civil partner, they must produce their marriage or civil partnership certificate. If they want to claim travel expenses for a child (under the age of 16 and in full time education) they must produce the original birth certificate. This is what the rules say:

Prior to any reimbursements of this nature taking place, MPs wishing to claim for this will need to submit a completed application form via the online expenses system.

To support this pre-approval, they will need to provide the original certificate of marriage, civil partnership, or utility bill to prove co-habitation.

Evidence for travel for will be the same as for MPs, based on the mode of transport.

One minister is furious:

For Christ’s sake, what has happened if this bloody authority doesn’t believe me when I say my wife is my wife? A utility bill to prove co-habitation? Good God.

• MPs in London are already having to lay off staff because the amount they can claim for office costs has been cut. They are also not allowed to transfer sums for their Westminster office to their constituency offices. Labour MPs feel particularly aggrieved because they say that, as representatives of less affluent urban areas, they have more casework than Tory MPs.
• MPs are not allowed to ask Ipsa staff any questions over the phone. They can only send emails which then form part of a formal audit trail.
• Taxis home can only be claimed after 11pm. One woman MP says:

What happens on a January night in London? I suppose I will have to take the tube, then a bus and then a long walk home. That is not safe.

MPs are resigned to the fact that there is nothing they can do. They have completely lost the trust of the public which is no mood to tolerate any easing of the rules.

One MP said:

We just have to accept this because the public is not with us. It will take something really horrendous, such as a woman MP being stabbed on the streets of London because she is not entitled to take a taxi home late at night, before people wake up and realise how unfair this is.

MPs admit that they have to tread with care:

There were some bad apples who did terrible things with their expenses. The system had to change. But decent people in all parties are being treated in an infantile way.

Ipsa says it is fulfilling a mandate handed to it by parliament. This is what it says in a foreword on its website:

We have been required by the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009, as a body entirely independent of Parliament, Government or political parties, to provide a scheme for the reimbursement of expenses incurred by MPs in doing their work. We have no axe to grind. We have set about our task against a background of great public anger at the present discredited system that has been exposed over the last year. We have consulted widely, not only those whom we are required by the Act to consult, but also the public at large.

[…]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/wintour-and-watt/2010/may/20/mps-expenses

Extraordinary isn’t it? Or is it?

That monster who thinks she is too good to use public transport and the streets, “because they are not safe” believes that she is better than you, and so therefore should be afforded special protection. Its the same vile argument that they used to exempt themselves from ContactPoint.

As for the human animal that thinks they are being treated in an infantile way, this harks back to the battle over Home Education. They tried to treat every parent as unsuitable and under suspicion by default, to be monitored and catalogued, invaded and examined because there were some ‘bad apples’ (that in the case of Home Education did not even exist, unlike the MPs who stole money who were very real and guilty), but when this illogic is applied to them, with just cause, this is characterised as being treated in an ‘infantile way’.

People living in the universe where reason is king couldn’t make this sort of thing up, sadly because we live in a universe where these MPs are very real, it is not only possible to imagine it, but they say it reflexively.

They have not learned their lesson; they never will and never can learn it. The power they have corrupts them all, and they are all beyond salvation. The whole lot of them need to be thrown out, along with their inherently corrupt, immoral and bankrupt system.

While we are at it, Teressa May, the new Home Secretary, is ‘reviewing the 24 hour drinking laws’. They will try and roll the clock back to the time when it was illegal to drink outside of hours that they deemed fit, because there are some bad apples. Of course, the House of Commons bar will continue to allow MPs and their guests to drink 24 hours a day, and smoke in that bar, as they always have done during the entire time that the original provisions of the licensing act mandating opening times was in force.

This is yet another example of ‘one rule for them, another for us’. Any talk of a ‘new politics’ is a complete lie; its the same old politics of, coercion, theft, mass murder and counterfeiting, just with different faces. Anyone tho thinks otherwise, and who cheers on these people is completely delusional.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2010 at 10:09 am and is filed under Idiocracy, Politricks, Told You So.