MPs expenses

[Patrick Bateman]

This is rather interesting. A Labour peer turns the tables on a defensive BBC journalist and demands to know how much she earns. Quite a bit more than an MP, it would seem:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045414.stm

Only before expenses though.

Paxman's cheap at a million - Newsnight was just one long sneer last night.

[Flaffer]

This is rather interesting. A Labour peer turns the tables on a defensive BBC journalist and demands to know how much she earns. Quite a bit more than an MP, it would seem:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045414.stm

Only before expenses though.

Paxman's cheap at a million - Newsnight was just one long sneer last night.

journalists aren't elected as well, with the aim of serving the public good though, or am I missing the point?

[Flaffer]

MP's are glorified social workers. Give them £30.000 a year and subsidised housing if they live outside London, nay the south east.

Most of them think they're doing the world a favour by deigning to run the country for us. If you think you can get more in the private sector, then f*ck off there.

you can say that about most of the civil service as well though

[Flaffer]

the money being stolen by the banksters and private equity is well in excess of that which is being 'stolen' by the poor. People would do well to remember this.

doesn't make those people who claim every benefit under the sun whilst being able to work any better or worse. The amounts may vary, the principle remains the same. I've got mates who feel ashamed and worthless having been made redundant and signing on, whilst there are arseholes who feel no need to ever work and play the system, whilst ironically being the most vocal about foreigners coming over here and getting jobs and free housing

[raggatwin]

agreed however I feel that a disproportianate amount of coverage is given to 'dole fiddlers' by the right wing press the owners of whom are amongst the biggest thieves in the country...

[Dipso]

This is rather interesting. A Labour peer turns the tables on a defensive BBC journalist and demands to know how much she earns. Quite a bit more than an MP, it would seem:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045414.stm

Only before expenses though.

Paxman's cheap at a million - Newsnight was just one long sneer last night.

journalists aren't elected as well, with the aim of serving the public good though, or am I missing the point?

I think the politician was making the point that the BBC is also funded by the taxpayer.

[Patrick Bateman]

This story has given me more enjoyment in the past few days than any in a long while. I crack up anytime I hear the moat mentioned, and the sight of them all waving their chequebooks around now that they've been caught with their hands in the sweetjar is hilarious.

And Steven Fry's wrong. It does matter precisely because it shows what a bunch of meretricious tossers most of them are. The reason why they voted for the Iraq war is the same reason that they're fiddling their expenses: they're on the gravy-train, the majority of them have no ethics, and democracy in this country is a joke. It's the Blairite Dream.

[Drico One]

That's all very true, but what's really telling is that Joe Chav is only upset about things now that he's lost his minimum wage job and has to choose between his subscriptions to Heat magazine and Setanta Sports.

These political criminals took Britain into an illegal war, fabricated evidence about why Britain should enter that war, flew the Union Jack while handing the Vaseline over to the Americans, killed thousands of innocents in the name of freedom, created a surveillance state where policemen aren't accountable for their killings of civilians, systematically eroded civil liberties, wantonly partook in the ideologically-driven elimination of effective financial regulation, prostrated themselves in front of corrupt big business, created the conditions for and then presided over the biggest economic meltdown in 80 years, and people are getting excited because they're claiming too much for their potted plants?

For those poor deluded souls naive enough to imagine the Tories will be any better, kiss goodbye to your minimum wage job - if not necessarily the job itself. If you're lucky, you might grimly cling on to your job, but you can forget about the minimum wage bit. If you're unlucky, you can always console yourself in the knowledge that demand for pool boys who double as moat cleaners will rocket exponentially.

Drico.

[No Muscle Mary]

I didn't realise how much of a police state Britain had become until I went there for holiday a few weeks ago. We hired a car and had a sat nav that gave a warning bell every time there was a speed camera near. The warning bell never stopped! It was ridicolous! And these were country roads! And if it wasn't speed cameras watching us, it was CCTV cameras. I felt like we had no freedom there and couldn't scratch without being watched.
I used to live in England 10 years ago and absolutely loved it, but I wouldn't fancy it now.
I used to think Neil moaned about it too much but now I can see where he's coming from.

[StevePSB]

At the risk of going OT, I've no real issue with either speed cameras or street cameras. If you don't break the law then there's nothing to worry about. I for one have never had anyone knock on my door as a result of something a camera saw me do, chiefly because I obey the law.

Anyway, at the risk of going OnT, I am sickened by all this expenses business. There's no doubt that most of them have broken no rules, but when the rules are written by them in the first place then there's no surprise that they were designed to have their very greedy interests at their heart. What really sickens me is that they're nearly all at it, laughing loudly, but privately at the British tax payer all these years.

It has really destroyed my entire image of politics in this country, so much so that I don't feel I should vote again. The only problem there is that a protest no vote is probably less sensible, and dangerous, than a begrudged vote - I for one certainly wouldn't want more of the 18 years of punishment this country took under the Tories and not voting at all can only help that nightmare vision come true, if the shallow masses haven't already made their mind up to make it come true next year.


StevePSB

[Drico One]

At the risk of going OT, I've no real issue with either speed cameras or street cameras. If you don't break the law then there's nothing to worry about.

You'll have little issue, in principle, then with a camera being installed in your bathroom.

Drico

PS Nice to see you back on your, er, feet again, as it were...

[Undertaker]

Isn't that what people started doing last election? Refusing to vote Labour but not voting Tory and giving their vote to the Boom Boom Brummie off Alan Partridge etc?

[StevePSB]

At the risk of going OT, I've no real issue with either speed cameras or street cameras. If you don't break the law then there's nothing to worry about.

You'll have little issue, in principle, then with a camera being installed in your bathroom.

Drico

PS Nice to see you back on your, er, feet again, as it were...

I won't comment on your first point Drico, I shall treat it with the contempt it deserves (please notice the here), but thanks on the second point. It is indeed 'as it were'.


StevePSB

[No Muscle Mary]

At the risk of going OT, I've no real issue with either speed cameras or street cameras. If you don't break the law then there's nothing to worry about. I for one have never had anyone knock on my door as a result of something a camera saw me do, chiefly because I obey the law.

That's good then. Cause if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear

[Patrick Bateman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... enses.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... enses.html

I love how the Telegraph keeps the sleaze coming, laying crook upon crook through the week. Fantastic journalism.