BLOG: posted 2009-05-29

We can't let them get away with saying it's just a few bad apples.

How can Cameron's Oxfordshire pile (by way of example, and not wanting to single him out of course!) be considered "wholly and exclusively" for Commons business?

It is clear to most ordinary people that an MP's second home needs only 1 bedroom and the basics for subsistence while away from the "family home".  Allowing MPs to elect which is the 2nd home has resulted in many electing the "most expensive" to be claimed.  And not just the few.

It is the House of Commons as a whole who devised this rediculously generous system of expenses, it is the House that polices it, and it is individual MPs who benefit from it.

If Cameron had any real conviction he would stop scapegoating his colleagues, stop calling for a general election and force by-elections in each and every Conservative-held seat so that they could be re- elected with a renewed mandate.  But not before he takes a reality check on the meaning of "wholly and exclusively" for House of Commons business.

top

Blog