and, when it finally releases a tiny part of them for just a couple of months, it turns out they have been absolutely tearing the arse out of it. Who'd have guessed, eh?
Needless to say, they don't want to reveal any more because of the 'unnecessary administrative burden' telling people how their taxes are being spent would cause.
Písstakers.
Well there are some differences, of course. a/ the figures for our MPs were tiny in comparison b/ they were forced into the open relatively easily c/ some MPs were actually prosecuted as a result and d/ the taxpayer actually had redress against the worst MPs in the form of being able to vote them out if they so chose.
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.
We've established that you have no meaningful principles and that anything's a small price to pay for access to the common market as far as you're concerned, WES. That's fine, but it does rather disqualify you from meaningful contributions on the subjects of probity, ethics and democratic accountability.
Yes, the genuine outrage (mostly from the left) would come from really finding out how these guys make money and what they do with it. Its nothing to do with expenses but would give you a good indication of who they actually ‘work for’ and who they really represent.
Still, that is democracy, innit. An oil company is just as entitled to be represented in parliament as you or me- even more entitled given how much they pay for it