[very huffy tone]Appropriate?! Poppycock! The gentleman wrote in £10 for a load of horse manure, which he could have gotten for free at work! [/very huffy tone]
That doesn’t help, but the primary reason is that they don’t recognise the right of the British Parliament to have jurisdiction over any part of Ireland.
Frankly, I’d be very surprised if this sort of thing wasn’t going in.
My personal view is that there’s always going to be some sort of rort, graft, or dodgy book-keeping going on with politicians, and thus it’s not really worth getting worked up over unless it’s really noteworthy.
I’d be more concerned about cronyism and nepotism (awarding major construction contracts to companies owned by an MP’s nephew or mate from their Uni days or that sort of thing) than pollies claiming the petrol on their weekend Jaguar, but that’s just me and I realise I’m probably in the minority there.
And Gorbals Mick is toast.
Spanish MPs have enormous discrepancies between how much they use. They all get the same upper limit, but some use it rationally, some use it to buy favors, and some throw it away.
Today’s update: Speaker of the House of Commons is resigning over this, first forced resignation in 300 years from this post.
My favorite reimbused expense: “moat clearing”.
It reminds me of the Wizard of Id and the monsters in the moat. I started a thread somewhere else about not allowing moat cleaning expenses.
Spoken like a true Daily Mail reader Quartz.
It’s scapegoating of the first order, but probably a justified one. The sight of Nick Clegg, that study in mediocrity, grandstanding in parliament about how the speaker must go if we are to maintain democracy in the UK was disgraceful opportunism from a political nobody. Like Michael Martin is personally responsible for 600 MPs fiddling the expenses.
Nonetheless, the public demand that heads must roll and Martin’s response has not been convincing. He’s also been sharp with his own expense claims in the past, so was always going to be vulnerable.
Does this count as a defenestration? Or has he avoided that richly evocative fate by resigning?
The righteous indignation various Parliamentarians expressed over the Speaker the day before yesterday was indeed rather blatant scapegoating - “Yes, I may have charged the taxpayers for that Monet in my living room…but what about THAT GUY?!?” Martin should have stuck it out to the next election.
Here’s hoping the Torygraph (or someone) continues to hold MPs feet and/or genitals to the fire for some time to come - I doubt we’ve heard all the gory details yet. And I’m still waiting for an accounting [sic] by the Fees Office, who seem to have blithely approved all these claims.
My favourite careful use of words is the sincerely expressed desire by many politicans to do something to deal with the anger and resentment this affair has caused.
Where oh where is Oliver Cromwell when you need him?
Politicians?
I’ve shit 'em, the money grabbing bunch of fartspunglers, not worth a wank, any of them
I’m in Ireland, and frankly, I’m kind of jealous. Everyone I know takes it absolutely for granted that this kind of thing is going on all the time (along with various darker foms of cronyism and nepotism and bribe-taking and you name it) and that there’s no point in even thinking about it, never mind trying to make it stop. At least in the UK you guys got in a snot about it and demanded that they knock it off.
Listening to the highly-punchable Cameron on the BBC refusing to commit to punishing any Tories beyond forcing some of them to may some of it back and then, in the next breath, announcing that the only way to fix things was to have a general election NOW and how Brown is the antichrist just made me want to hurt things.
Indeed, but I fear he may yet get his way. Part of me feels that last week will later be identified as the one which won Cameron the General Election. Odious little toad though he his, I think his instincts have been comparitively keen over this.
Of course another thing that is likely to happen in the coming local and European elections is that people will shun the main parties and opt for the lunatic ones, like the BNP and UKIP (the BNP in suits).
It may be a hijack, but can you back that up? The BNP are vile racists, but I’ve yet to hear anything similar about UKIP.
To qualify my statement. In my opinion I think that the UKIP are mildly racist and xenophobic.
IME, any political party that says, “we’re not racists, but…” … well, you know. 
Please differentiate between pro-British, xenophobic, and racist with regards to UKIP. With cites.
For the record, I have yet to form an opinion of UKIP, save that their website is www.ukip.org, not www.ukip.org.uk.
And I’m not a member of any party; are you?
Yeah, really I think you could go with “xenophobic” but not racist. At least, not as a widespread thing.
I suppose what worries me most about this is the people who’re going to vote Tory (or otherwise) because of this. It’s a failure of politicians in general, not simply of the party who happened to be in power, as shown by a rather massive failure in government not immediately jumped upon and harped about by those same parties. Anytime one party commit a considerable offense and the other sides say “Well, it’s a failure of the system, the setup is the problem” you can guess whether they’ve been dipping their finger into the pie.