Bath Plugs and Mango Sorbets.

This morning the Times leading article seeks to legitimise MP's abuse of the Parliamentary expense system by blaming critics for being 'pious' and 'hypocritical'. It tries to achieve this using a very clumsy comparison. An MP claiming for a bath plug is no worse than you or I charging a mango sorbet to an employer. I suggest the Saturday Editorial has been left to be written by a very junior journalist whose only brief was to try and dampen the flames of public outrage engulfing this scandal at what ever expense. Whilst the cost benefits of using a GCSE student on a work placement to write its editorials are very significant, the resulting fudge of an attempt to sway public opinion is lamentable.

If only it were just a bathplug! As I type this, there are senior ministers who are claiming up to £24,000 a year for a second home that is minutes away from their main stated residence, on the grounds that they require the home to be able to commute to Westminister.


The second line of attack for our budding little hack is to suggest that the whole political process itself is at risk; this is disingenuous. Far from the country risking losing all these vital public servents and therefore facing anarchy, the writer should have turned to his own front page and read the story about increased recruitment in the military as a by-product of the recession. I am sure there would be thousands of highly motivated, intelligent and honest members of the public who would be queueing up in their droves to replace the current batch who seem unable to live on their paltry £64,766!