Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
Different in a number of other ways as well, namely a) It had been going on for decades and was openly unaddressed b) it wasn’t fiddling but blatantly flouting agreed rules c) pretty much everyone was doing it, despite what the revelations may have said and d) despite court cases, elections and various other measures of accountability it is STILL going on and will continue to do so.

Trust me, you do not even know the half of it. Of course, for your average backbench MP it is pretty much essential. The salary is seen as your basic wage and the expenses your ‘on target earnings’. They don’t get paid a hefty wage, they are forced to maintain two homes, they struggle to access many common financial products because by definition they don’t have a guaranteed long term salary and, as they do so little work, they have a lot of free time with a lot of people offering them money. There is need and temptation.

Still….. fraud is fraud.
Oh, I feel that our legislators are grossly, grossly underpaid and the expenses thing is a tacit acknowledgment of such. However, you can't have the büggers thinking they're immune from scrutiny and that's what the 'scandal' was really about - reminding them who they work for.
I don't think anyone was really outraged by most of it. I think it was more about the fun of watching MPs squirm as they tried to explain why they'd watched a dirty movie than it was about genuine outrage.