A VERY necessary rant...

Like a fat, bloated, greedy pig with its snout in the trough, British MPs make their own rules - so can claim whatever expenses they want, quite legally. Legal it may be, but corrupt is is definitely.

Well, the big news today is that details of MPs' expense claims have ben leaked to The Daily Telegraph, which has duly published them. The reaction across the country has been acidic - with open hostility aimed at politicians who have been overty exposed as greedy, duplicitous and corrupt in the extreme.

To set the context, MPs write the rules for us all to follow, yet these rules do not apply to MPs, who write their own rules to suit themselves. So, I go to work - and I'm paid a salary. I'm lucky - I get paid a lot.

Like you, I use my salary to live & to enjoy life. I use it to buy food, to pay the bills - and quite a lot of it on cars, diesel, bridge & border toll fees - which are totally necessary to get to work. I live in Cardiff, yet because of job shortages here, I work in England, near to Bristol. It costs me about £150 / week in all to do the journey, if you include car servicing & depreciation. I have to pay that - and no one else ever will!

Like most other people, I can't claim expenses. I pay for everything myself out of my wages, cuz that's what wages are for. Normal people, i.e. you & I don't get expenses. Period.

Yet an MP claims almost unlimited expenses for EVERYTHING: On top of his / her salary, the average MP claims £250,000 (a quarter of a million pounds) EVERY YEAR. He doesn't have to prove what he's spent it on, and receipts are never needed.

We've heard of top MPs & Government Ministers claiming massive expenses for 'second homes' - supposedly meant to allow an MP to live near to Parliament, yet many of these 'second homes' are fictional. Jacqui Smith - our weasly & dangerous Home Secretary claimed £24,000 for her 'second home' - even though it was actually her sister's home. She also claimed thousands of pounds to decorate, furnish & refurbish this home too.

Other MPs claimed for 'second homes' in London, even though they actually live in London, just a metro stop away from Parliament. Many actually rent their second homes out - and then make vast profits when they sell them on.

Gordon Brown, out glorious leader, claimed £6,500 to have HIS BROTHER'S HOUSE cleaned... and said that this was a 'legitimate parliamentary expense'..( I ask myself, how?) Whilst Peter Mandelson has earned a fortune buying and selling 'second homes' paid from expenses, which came out of our pockets as tax..

Oh, forgot to add.. MPS, of course don't pay tax on expenses, or on any profits made from them.
Nice, eh?

Other MPs have claimed thoudsands of pound on new cars, clothing, food, first class train & plane fares, expensive family holidays & holidays for their friends, bed linen, laundry services, cigars & alcohol, 'entertaining friends', horse riding lessons, Sky TV, luxury fitted kitchens, home cinemas, gym & golf club membership, football season tickets, porn movies... the list goes on & on & ....

Now, if I so much as took a pound from the tea fund at The Hub, I'd be out thru the door with the boss's foot up my ass as quick as I could say 'Cash'. I'd probably never work again. like you, I'd be stuffed and would be seen as a disgrace.

So, how come MPs can blatantly abuse the expenses system year in, year out, and how come practices which are clearly & so obviously wrong, moraly indefensible and overtly fraudulent are tolerated without repurcusion, and why, when challenged, do even the most 'caught' MPs smile, and insist the've done nothing wrong?

Simple! THEY WRITE THEIR OWN RULES... and their rules are for them, and are unchallengeable. They blatantly let them get away with murder, or whatever the hell they want.

Is your MP an honest man / woman, or a fat, greedy trough-in-the-snout pig like Gordon here?

Why not email them and let them know your views!

So, the people running the country & ruining our lives, even at a time of recession, unemployment and uncertainty are caught like thieves with their fingers in the till and their greedy, pig-like snouts stuffed in the trough. The country is seen as a disgrace & our politicians run around like foxes in a chicken coup trying to avoid blame, and looking for someone else to use as scapegoats.

These greedy, nasty, corrupt, money-grabbing bastards deserve everything they get, and I don't mean more of my taxes as expenses stuffed into their bloated tax-free bank accounts. For some, it must mean trial & jail, for abusing the very system they set up to exploit.

If you're in the UK, why not email your MP with your thoughts on this? Their addresses are easily searchable on google!