- or should that be:
"I'm all right" - Jack Straw
Last night, Channel 4's documentary series Dispatches investigated the shameful story of how our Parliamentarians not only award themselves vast and often unchecked expenses, but also waive the normal pension rules that apply to ordinary people to amass funds that we can only dream of, and also connive at preventing us - the taxpayers who fund them - from finding out what they are up to.
Peter Oborne, a political journalist, turned up lots of stones to find nasty slimy things lurking underneath. And there they will stay, since there seems to be little appetite for reform of the sleazy world of MPs' pensions, privileges, and expenses.
MPs of both left and right who complained about unethical, if not downright illegal, behaviour by their fellows were given the brush off or were reprimanded themselves by the Standards and Privileges Committee. (Low standards and undeserved privileges, one might think.)
Some of the chief architects of cover-up (including Leader of the House Jack Straw and Speaker George Martin) were not willing to account for their actions, and those that were, blustered and squirmed under Oborne's questioning, without actually answering the question.
The National Audit Office tones down its more damning reports, and its own high panjandrum has a snout in the taxpayer's trough; police investigations into cash for questions were hindered by parliamentary meddling; and Commons Standards Commissioner Elizabeth Filkin was bundled out of the door when she did her job too well.
And they wonder why most of the British public hold politicians in such contempt? A bouquet to Channel 4 for an incisive, but very enraging, programme. And brickbats to all those self-serving politicians and civil servants who spend our hard-earned money on their own comfortable lifestyles, as we struggle to pay our council and income tax.
You can read a bit about the attempt to amend the Freedom of Information bill to prevent MPs' expenses being published on this excellent page:
25/09/07 @ 15:34