This is what they're really thinking

From dizzy's blog:

This was Bill Etherington MP in an interview with David Grossman on BBC Newsnight.

Etherington: "We were told we were going to be judged on what the claim was under the regulations at the time. Now, Sir Thomas Legg has decided to change that retrospectively. Retrospective legislation has a very poor record and has caused us a lot of trouble. That denudes the whole process of its legitimacy.

Grossman: "You yourself have signed Commons EDMs calling for
retrospective taxes on City bonuses.."

Etherington: "I don't think I have actually. Can you be sure of this?

Grossman: "Yes, we checked before we came out.."

Etherington: "Retrospective taxes?"

Grossman: "On City bonuses and on Centrica profits and on energy company profits.."

Etherington: "Yes, but that was me putting pressure on the Government. You know what Early Day Motions are about. None of them are ever acted upon. They are declarations of intent."

Good grief!

Although dizzy points out the ineffectiveness of the EDM (which I believe was used to try and address the controversial tax IR35), I am more concerned about the complete lack of concern of saying the much accused, and denied by them, statement of "rules only apply to the little people, not to me".

This is exactly the type of outrageous entitlement and disconnect they have with the world outside the ivory tower. They are so ingrained in this type of thinking that they don’t even bother to lie or obfuscate their words in public now.

Rather like the BBC no longer bothering to pretend to be impartial.

They simply don't get it (still)

From the BBC (on an announcement that MPs, including Gordon, will have to pay back their ill-gotten expenses):

However one Labour MP, Sir Stuart Bell, expressed concerns about the process and whether MPs will be treated fairly.

Sir Stuart said MPs must be judged by the rules that applied at the time, despite the fact that they are now seen as widely discredited.

Look, Sir Stuart of Trough and Entitlement, what you and the other 645 troughers don't understand is that we put you in government to represent us, our best interests and the best interests for our country.

Nowhere in this remit does this give you permission to put your greed first before our country. If you had an ounce of integrity, you would have pointed out the expenses system was totally corrupt, unaccountable and amounted to systemic stealing from the public's hard earned cash.

An honourable man would have exposed this travesty without fail.

As a result of this cabal of secrecy and official deniability, we can only conclude that the 646 of you are simply, without honour.

There comes a time when every person working looks at the looters that are automatically by law and a sense of entitlement, given wealth and are allowed to circumvent the law for their own gain, and decides enough is enough. You may have tried to close down as many avenues of protest and action over the years with your totalitarian outlook on restricting our freedoms using the excuses of terrorism, but the one avenue you cannot close down is the growing swell of public resentment, that is divorced from party tribalism.

History has constantly shown us in times such as these, the results are unpleasant.

And bloody.

You have been warned.

"Eject Eject Eject!"

I get the feeling that the Labour party are going through the same emotions as this trainee pilot!

You know, keep your nose up and clean, keep burning the taxpayers money, and hope no Guido Falcon spoils your despicable troughfest by headbutting your titanium fan blades causing a flameout!

The only difference with this brave scenario of decent military aviators versus the scumbag politicos, I hope due to their fiscal incompetence, MPs have found that they couldn't afford the parachutes.

Just had a thought...

A few weeks ago, swine flu ridden MPs were collectively snorting a sigh of relief as their expenses were going to be doctored to remove the incriminating evidence before being open to public viewing in July, conveniently after the June elections.

Now that the Telegraph have access to the uncensored itemised receipts, will parliament now reveal the receipts uncensored?

A bit of a tricky one this...

Uncensored expenses revelation is Labour spin operation?

Blogs everywhere are going bananas about the Telegraph's revelations of MP's uncensored expenses claims. Although we were due to see these in July, MPs ordered certain "private" (read incriminating) details be removed.

At the moment, these are all about the current Labour government and so far Harperson has been flitting from Sky to the BBC (Pravda) in a vain attempt to repeat the mantra:

"It was within the rules, the old system was wrong, we have recognised this and we will be reviewing this"

Which I and everyone else reads as:

"Shit! We've been caught out, it's bad, very bad, and now we've got to pretend to change the system"

However, once again my spider senses are tingling:

Could this simply be an opportunistic way of dumping out bad Labour news now, and then revealing the Tory expenses closer to the elections in a few weeks time, especially considering the Labour biased behaviour of the Telegraph over the last few years?