The Pen Really Is Mightier Than The sword

The man who, in effect brought one of the world’s oldest parliamentary systems to its knees by arranging for leaked MPs' expenses details to be given to the Daily Telegraph has been named.

John Wick, a former SAS man, acted as a broker, passing the details from an anonymous source to the newspaper, a working demonstration of the pen being mightier than the sword.

On paper, most of these MPs have done nothing wrong, it’s the system that is wrong.

My local MP in Essex, for example, is as far as I know, squeaky clean compared to most of the others, his claims are within the spirit of what the expenses were intended for, but what he is allowed still appears to be wrong.

He lives in Surrey, around a 45 minute train journey from London or a 45 minute drive by car to his constituency.
He claims for a flat in his constituency, which is a 25 minute train journey from London and he also claims for a flat near Westminster.

It would appear to me that the average working man would find these travelling times to and from work every day a bit of a doddle, so why can’t MPs who live within striking distance of London commute like everyone else has to?

Hopefully, when the dust has cleared and the expenses have been overhauled, we will get right honourable ladies and gentlemen sitting in Parliament who are there because they want to represent us and not what they can get out of it.

Mr Wick, we salute you!

R.I.P.

Since my post yesterday, a soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, another from 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment, Royal Military Police and one from 2nd Battalion The Rifles have been killed in Afghanistan.

This brings the total of operational fatalities to 157.
May they rest in peace.

Isn’t there one MP that is brave enough to force a vote on the withdrawal of British troops from this conflict? There must be one man, or woman in the House, with as much guts as these soldiers!

All I can say is, if you see Mr Brown, tell him I want a word with him!

Too Expensive

It looks like Home Secretary, Jaqui Smith, amongst others has been caught out fiddling her parliamentary expenses sheet.

I’ve singled Ms Smith out because she holds one of the highest offices in the land. She’s the lady entrusted with sorting out the wrongdoers in our society.

I’m the chairman of a Local Access Forum, and the government say that the local authority has to pay me any travelling expenses that I incur doing the job.

This works out to a few measly quid a year for which I have to supply an almost yard by yard, (or for younger readers, metre by metre), account of my journeys before I get begrudgingly paid months later.

This is not a gripe, just a statement of fact. Most of the members of the forum don’t even bother to claim, we all do the job for free because we feel privileged to represent the public.

It seems to me that a lot of MPs seek election, not to represent the people but to see how much cash they can extract from the job. Why are these people not singled out and expelled?

As JFK once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

A very apt motto for our times!