Letters From A Tory

“The Government has been massively subsidising trade unions with taxpayers’ money for years, now it’s coming back to haunt them with Unite’s strike hitting ordinary British travellers.”

- Conservative MP Greg Hands, after it emerged that the trade union behind the British Airways strike has received almost £400,000 in taxpayers’ money in three years.  Unite is accused of having taken over the Labour party after donating £11 million and installing a former aide to Gordon Brown in a key role.  Britain’s biggest union, which has 2 million members, has also been the biggest beneficiary of a scheme set up by the Government to improve efficiency in the workers’ rights groups.  Unite, formed by a merger of Amicus and the Transport & General Workers Union in 2007, has received £334,934 from the Union Modernisation Fund over the past three financial years. When a separate payment to the TGWU is added, the total comes to £382,469.  (full story HERE)

First came ‘Change That Works For You. Building A Fairer Britain’ – without doubt one of the worst election slogans I have ever heard.  It means nothing, it tells me nothing, it will inspire no-one and it’s basically the same as the other two parties.

Now we have Nick Clegg calling for a 10% tax on bank profits.  In an interview with the Guardian, he said that ”bankers are Scargill in pin stripes. Scargill’s stated aim was to challenge who runs the country. The bankers have behaved in the same arrogant way … to benefit only themselves …”.  Obviously it is my mistake for thinking that a supposedly liberal party wouldn’t mind us occassionally doing things to benefit ourselves, and I think Cleggy seriously needs a history lesson or two if he thinks that bankers taking home a proportion of the money that they earn for their companies is comparable to the actions of the trade unions during the 1970s and 80s. *roll eyes*

1. Going Faster Getting Nowhere explains why the legacy of Tony Blair has not yet left us.

2. Events Dear Boy thinks Labour might be deceiving us.  I know, shocking.

3. Dick Puddlecote lets the weapons-grade cock-sockets in Parliament know how he feels.

4. The Red Rag mocks the Lib Dem’s attempt to portray themselves as ‘fair’.

5. Pub Philosopher has an excellent example of Labour’s inability to make decent legislation.

“Anna is liberal and open-minded but politically she supports The Labour Party, for all its sins.”

- a note on the website of Anna Arrowsmith, a porn film director and the new PPC for the Lib Dems in the constituency of Gravesham.  Her website also mentions that she is “into all sorts of things, mainly partying and drinking – and porn, porn, porn!!!”.  A spokesman for the Lib Dems was previously quoted as saying: “The Liberal Democrats are proud to have candidates throughout the country with a great diversity of backgrounds and life experiences.”

(H/T Iain Dale)

…then they came for the… errr… salt?

From the Guardian:

Over the past few years New York has gained a reputation for taking the health of its citizens seriously – or nannying them, depending on your point of view.  Now a member of the city’s legislative assembly has gone a step further by introducing a bill that would ban the use of salt in restaurant kitchens.  Bill A10129 would forbid the city’s chefs from using salt in any of their recipes. The ban’s proposer, Felix Ortiz, a Democratic member from Brooklyn, says it would give consumers the choice about whether to add salt to their meal.  Restaurants trying to sneak a bit of sodium chloride on to the plate would be fined $1,000 (£600) every time they were caught.

The idea of an outright ban, except for salt cellars on diners’ tables, has led to raised eyebrows across the city, which prides itself on its cuisine. “If state assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way,” quipped the Daily News, “the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef’s tears.”  Tom Colicchio, who owns the restaurant Craft, told the paper: “If they banned salt, nobody would come here anymore.”  Ortiz’s bill comes on the back of a high-profile attempt by the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to encourage New Yorkers to consume less sodium. The city estimates about 1.5 million residents already suffer from high blood pressure, which can be exacerbated by overconsumption of salt. In America as a whole, the average daily intake of 3.4mg is well above the recommended maximum of 2.3mg. Bloomberg’s campaign aims to cut the amount of salt in pre-packaged and restaurant food by a quarter, in five years. Unlike Bill A10129, however, it is purely voluntary.

You know that when the likes of Michael Bloomberg, who has a slightly chequered past when it comes to civil liberties, think you’ve gone too far, something is really amiss.  I would like to propose the following possible explanations for Felix Ortiz’s actions:

1. He currently receives large donations from a company that provides salt-free food ingredients

2. His family have been kidnapped and are being held to ransom by representatives of a company that provides salt-free food ingredients

3. He is a prick

4. He is too scared to tell the American public that they should eat fresh fruit and vegetables instead of Big Macs, and has therefore chosen to channel his efforts at a pointless target instead

Feel free to add your own theories or tell Mr Ortiz what you think about his plan in the Comments section, as ever.

1. Counting Cats brings news of the Great War on Daftsodism.

2. Patently finds it hard to distinguish between political satire and political reality.

3. Hatfield Girl thinks Europeans have got to sort out the Euro, not us.

4. Obselete says we should beware of those who lie for a living.

5. They Are Joking waves goodbye to basic freedoms abroad thanks to religious nutters.

“I find it quite unusual for people to criticise me for doing what I consider to be my duty. …This was nothing to do with partisan politics.”

- Gordon Brown, who said today that the criticism he received for visiting Afghanistan a day after giving evidence to the Iraq war inquiry was “incredibly unfair”. During his Chilcot inquiry appearance, Brown had mounted a robust defence of his record as chancellor, saying he had never refused a request from the armed forces for equipment or resources.  However, within hours, two former chiefs of the defence staff, Lord Guthrie and his successor Lord Boyce, had challenged that view.  (full story HERE)

Dear Nick Hogan,

Thanks largely to the efforts of a few bloggers, you are now back home following a stint in Forest Bank jail in Pendlebury.  A huge amount of credit for this must go to Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn, who rallied to your cause and did some seriously speedy fundraising in order to secure your release through delivering £8,664.50 to your prison’s doorstep.  No doubt you are flattered and delighted that complete strangers dipped into their pockets for you and your family due to their enormous sense of grievance at what happened to you.  Even so, my mood is far from jubilant this morning.

The backstory to your prison sentence is a sad tale.  You were jailed for non-payment of a fine that was originally imposed for a ‘mass smoke-in’ on the day the smoking ban came into force in 2007 in your pub, the ‘Swan and Barristers’ in Bolton, which you no longer own.  You were fined again when council inspectors walked into your present pub and discovered a group of customers smoking, even though you weren’t on the premises.  The fines bankrupted you, and you went to court intending to argue that you could not afford the £500 a month payments demanded by the council towards their £10,000 bill for prosecuting you (although you had managed to pay off £1,600).  In response to your non-payment, the court gave you a 6-month jail sentence instead.  This left your wife to manage the pub and left you unable to earn the money which would ensure your release.  Your poor wife was not able to speak to you after you were sentenced and was merely informed of where you would be jailed.  I can imagine that the whole experience was very frightening and disorienting for her.  In short, you objected to the smoking ban and hosted a small demonstration against it on the day the ban came into force, and you paid a heavy price.

As Anna Raccoon said, “Nick was jailed as an example to us all, that when the State barks ‘jump’ you only question ‘how high’. He didn’t. He said ‘Why’? …The fact that so many of you responded is a powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed.  The Blogosphere will not be controlled by politicians, bound up in regulations, throttled by impenetrable legislation. It is not a single target that a ‘D’ notice can be fired at. We are not beholden to advertisers. We are the authentic, unfiltered, voice of your electorate.”  I’m sure you would agree that your release from jail has shown how quickly a small group of supporters can be mobilised to help someone, which is encouraging in itself.  However, I still have a heavy heart as I write this letter because I fear that even though the blogosphere has won the battle, we have not and will not win the war.

The relentless attacks on our civil liberties over the past 13 years will not be forgotten quickly by many bloggers, but it has gone largely unnoticed by many voters.  To most people, DNA databases are nothing but an abstract headline, 42-day detention was supported by many, ’stop and search’ is unlikely to affect them, wheelie bin computer chips are little more than an irritation and ‘benefit snoopers’ from the local council will never need to call at their house.  You don’t have to tell me about ‘first they came for the communists etc etc’ because I get it, but bloggers should never forget that we are all here because we care – many other people do not.  I am always amazed and even amused by the way that mainstream journalists talk about events in Westminster politics as if anyone other than a handful of voters actually give a crap.  The vast, vast majority of people in this country simply don’t have the time or energy or inclination to care about what the government does, and tragically that extends to civil liberties too.  Some of them even support draconian measures like ID cards because the government have such a powerful voice and can deceive and lie to their heart’s content about why they are doing things and what effect their plans will have.

I would love to think that your release from jail would be a turning point regarding the influence of the blogosphere on the world outside and on policymakers, but I know deep down that it isn’t.  Anna Raccoon felt that the help you received sent a “powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed”, but they won’t.  Politics has concentrated power into the hands of literally 10-15 people at the very top of the political tree, regardless of which party is in charge, and they have no reason to fear the electorate or bloggers as we have so little genuine power over them.  Yes, we can protest and yes, we can kick up an almighty fuss, but I wonder how much more we have to offer besides being a right royal pain in the arse.   I can only hope that a Conservative Party, which still contains the likes of David Davis and a few other staunch defenders of liberty, will start to roll back the tide of destruction that Labour have overseen on our liberties and freedom.  Sadly, I fear that ‘hope’ is all we can do.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory 

1. Ambush Predator gives Mary Dejevsky from the Independent a lesson in geography.

2. Constantly Furious has found an excellent way to get rich quick.

3. 13th Spitfire thinks Britain should tell the EU to Foxtrot Oscar.

4. Daniel1979 produces some helpful graphs to explain why the Conservatives are a bit rubbish.

5. Heresy Corner discovers that some Lib Dems have interesting *ahem* tastes in films.

“It’s the gossip of the moment that could become the story of the year.”

- a comment by the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, as rumours that Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are both having affairs gain momentum in France.  The rumour first emerged on Twitter, and was followed by a report in the Sunday edition of Le Journal du Dimanche.  The first ‘tweet’ claimed that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had become romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a musician and a winner at France’s recent Victoires de la Musique awards.  It then claimed that Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno.  French web magazine suchablog.com alleged that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had been a close friend of Biolay for many years and was now unofficially living with him at his flat in Paris. The same story has also been reported by other established news sites including Yahoo News France, Le Post and Agoravoxtv, as well as TV news channel i-Tele. (full story HERE)

Dear David Cameron,

It’s been a rocky few weeks to say the least, although you seem to be just about keeping your head above water in the national and marginals polls.  Today Gordon Brown will make a speech about the economy at the same time as more bad news pours in.  I’m not a fan of negative campaigning at the best of times, but I wonder whether stoking (fully justified) fear amongst the public is the best tactic that you have available.

In a major speech in London today, Brown is expected to outline the action that he thinks is necessary to secure the recovery, focusing on job creation in the UK and further reforms to global economic governance.  ”We are at a turning point, a crossroads, for our domestic economic recovery,” he is expected to say.  “We face crucial decisions. The stakes are high. We dare not risk the recovery. We are weathering the storm and now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course and will complete our mission.”  He is likely to warn of further “bumps in the road” and say equally tough decisions will be needed as were taken by Labour at the height of the financial crisis.  “There are substantial risks ahead. I believe the only way to overcome them is by displaying the same strength and resolve as we did during the crisis.”   The Treasury is also expected to confirm, in a written statement to Parliament, that Chancellor Alistair Darling will deliver his much-awaited pre-election Budget on Wednesday 24 March.

Unfortunately your early election campaign has been typified by firefighting rather than trailblazing but there is still time to change all that, and yesterday provided plenty of ammunition.  There were warnings Britain’s credit rating is under threat as Brian Coulton, head of global economics at ratings agency Fitch, condemned Labour’s pledge to halve the deficit in four years as ‘too slow’.  To make matters worse for Labour, the head of Marks & Spencer added his voice to demands for a clear plan to cut the deficit.  Sir Stuart Rose said people were ‘not stupid’, adding: “They know effectively we are over-borrowed and there is medicine to be taken.”  Furthermore, the pound has fallen over the past three months against the dollar, plus the ONS reported a 6.9% fall in sales of British goods abroad in January, the largest monthly drop for more than three years.  The slide came despite a steep plunge in sterling, which was trading as low as $1.4936 yesterday but rallied later in the day.

I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that the international financial markets are extremely nervous and that the economic recovery has not got off to a flying start (assuming that it has started at all).  Gordon Brown has also now made the crucial decision to hold a Budget this side of the election, which poses two major risks.  First, Alistair Darling is insisting on trying to cut the deficit whereas Brown is looking for a ‘giveaway’ budget.  Ironically, both of these scenarios could be turned against Labour.  Second, the next set of GDP figures (including the miserable January) will be announced just before a May 6th election, and a bad set of figures could potentially show the UK slipping back into recession – which would be the end of Brown.  To be honest, I’d let the PM talk himself up as much as he wants.  Just sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that you have some time to get your own ship in order before launching a blistering attack on Brown’s economic record to finish him off for good.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

1. Grumpy Optimist suggests a new secret weapon for David Cameron.

2. Laban Tall thinks Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a self-centred hysteric.

3. Real Street is annoyed at the bastardisation of the word ‘equality’.

4. John Ward cannot believe the degree of self-interest shown by the trade unions.

5. The Last Ditch discusses the political exploitation of the Jon Venables case.

“Many workers – particularly in the public sector – are facing pay freezes, compulsory redundancies and even, in the case of Unite members at British Airways, the prospect of pay cuts.  We feel that the proposed deal for our Royal Mail members compares extremely well.”

- a spokesman from the Communication Workers Union, after it was announced that Royal Mail staff will receive a 6.9% pay rise over three years and will work shorter hours – down from 40 to 39 hours a week.  In addition, Royal Mail has agreed to keep 75% of the workforce as full-time rather than part-time staff, and full-time workers will get extra payments worth up to £1,400 when all the agreed changes to working practices have been made. (full story HERE)

Dear Lindsey German and Nina Power,

I hope you enjoyed your International Women’s Day.  Now that the likes of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman have been put back in their box, temporarily at least, following their crass remarks yesterday, I thought it was only fair to give your manifesto for “21st-century feminism” a bit of blog airtime.  Mind you, as soon as I read that it aimed to ”begin to organise for real equality”, I knew I was in for a fun ride.  Here is your manifesto in full, along with my *ahem* observations:

• Globalisation and neo liberalism have had a profound effect on the lives of millions of women. Capitalism itself has created new forms and manifestations of women’s oppression. – globalisation has indeed had a profound effect on the lives of millions of women.  Better wages, better healthcare, better education systems, better life expectancy, better access to medicine… need I go on?
• Women’s oppression is a product of class society which has existed for thousands of years. It was only with the development of capitalism that large numbers of women developed a consciousness of their position and the ability to do something about it. – Wait a minute, I thought you just said that capitalism was the problem, not the solution?! And what evidence do you have about women’s “oppression” being a direct result of class?  I would say that religion could be just as relevant, as could a few biological inconveniences, like having children, which has inevitably had a huge impact on human civilisation throughout the ages.
• Women have been drawn into the workforce in millions but working in factories, offices and shops has not led to an improvement in women’s lives far less to liberation. Women suffer exploitation at work as well as still shouldering the double burden of family and childcare as well as paid work. – Not led to an improvement in women’s lives?!  Tell me, have you spent anytime in a Third World or developing nation recently?  How unbelievably stupid of you to suggest that women going into the workforce has been a bad thing, and since when were women confined to “factories, offices and shops”?  What century are you living in?  I’m fairly confident you’ll also find women in schools, hospitals and goodness knows how many other places.  Where is your evidence of exploitation at work?  Since when did men not contribute to childcare costs and bringing up their family? 
• Women’s traditional role as wives and mothers has not disappeared but has been reinvented to fit in with the needs of exploitation. They are now expected to juggle all aspects of their lives and are blamed as individuals for any failings in family or work life. – What the hell does “the needs of exploitation” mean?  Everyone has to juggle different parts of their lives, but I’m sorry to say that men can’t (yet) have children so there are some things that men can’t help with.  To suggest that women are blamed for problems in the family or at work is unbelievably warped.
• The talk of glass ceilings and unfairly low bonuses for women bankers miss the point about liberation, which is that liberation has to be for all working women and not just a tiny number of privileged women. – I never said women got paid unfairly low bonuses.  I think you’ll find that most bonuses are paid on the basis of performance, so maybe men justified their higher bonuses by performing better?  Is that really so far beyond the realms of possibility?
• Although all women suffer oppression and face discrimination, their life experiences are radically different. Women are not united as a sex but are divided on the basis of class. Middle and upper class women share in the profits from the exploitative system in which we live and use this benefit to alleviate their own oppression. Working class women are usually the people who cook, clean and provide personal services for these women, receiving low wages and often neglecting their own families to do so. – Since when is cooking, cleaning and providing services restricted to working class women?  I think you’ll find that men perform these tasks in huge numbers, certainly in London.  Your suggestion that middle and upper class women share in the profits of exploitation is just bizarre, as it’s more than likely that some of these women have successfully juggled bringing up a family and having a job, which is precisely what you were suggesting led to exploitation of the women in question.  This is just confused nonsense.  Presumably using profits to “alleviate their own oppression” can be translated as ‘women spending the money that they have earned’?
• Women are more than ever regarded as objects defined by their sexuality. The commercialisation of sexuality with its lad and ladette culture, its pole dancing clubs and its post-modern Miss World contests keeps women being judged as sex objects as if nothing has changed since the 1950s. – yes, because women would never ever ever objectify men or stare at them in magazines or go and watch a show where men take their clothes off….
• This objectification, alongside women’s role as supposedly the property of men, leads to domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse. This abuse is under recognised and under reported. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that these issues began to be viewed as political. – I think you’ll find that domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse have existed since the dawn of mankind.  Where is your evidence that there is a causal link between objectification and these acts?  If you want to talk about under recognised and under reported abuse, shouldn’t you be discussing domestic violence against men as well?
• To control their own lives, women must control their own bodies and sexuality. – women already do have control, it’s just that some women choose to flaunt their bodies on a Saturday night down the local high street rather than stand up for your faltering cause.
• Capitalist ideology prioritises the family and the subordinate role of women and children within it, while at the same time forcing individual members of the family to sacrifice ‘family life’ because of the pressures of work and migration. – ah yes, the classic ‘women are forced to stay at home and look after the children’ argument.  With all due respect, every survey that I have seen in the last few years shows beyond any doubt that many women want to stay at home rather than return to work after having children.  Capitalism has nothing to do with it. 
• The priorities of the profit system and the existence of the privatised family means that women’s oppression is structured into capitalism. Any genuine liberation has to be connected to a wider movement for human emancipation and for working people to control the wealth that they produce. That’s why women and men have to fight for liberation. Socialism and women’s liberation are inextricably connected. – I love that, a “privatised family”.  You mean a family who don’t want you telling them how to live their lives, right?  Working people controlling the wealth they produce also has hints of Marxism about it, which is not exactly encouraging.
• We will not win without a fight. Every great social movement raises the question of women. In the 19th century the movement for women’s emancipation took its name from the movement to abolish slavery. In the 20th century women’s liberation took its name from the movements against colonialism around the world. 21st century women’s liberation has to fight to change the world and to end the class society which created oppression and exploitation in the first place. – *roll eyes* so even though capitalism and freedom has presented women with more opportunities than ever before in the history of women’s rights, you want to destroy it?  Oppression and exploitation are such wonderfully loaded words, as if women are forced into work, forced into having children, forced into sacrificing everything for men, forced into jobs they don’t want etc etc.  Maybe you come and chat to the women that I work with and tell them that they are exploited?

It is people like you who do far more harm to women’s rights than men ever could.  Your obsession with grossly unfair stereotypes, your failure to provide any concrete evidence to support your assertions (otherwise known as ‘Harmanism’), your appalling vindictive view of men, your disgraceful attempts to ‘play the victim’ at every opportunity and your shocking lack of understanding of freedom and liberty all combines into this confused, naive and generally dreadful manifesto.  The sad truth is that, as always, you have taken an issue that does need discussing and morphed it into a man-hating freedom-hating spiel that totally undermines your own credibility and ultimately undermines the very cause that you are fighting for.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

1. Diary of a Geek discovers that Afghan war reporting is to be banned.

2. The Appalling Strangeness discusses (the lack of) neutrality at the Guardian.

3. Quiet Man finds that some people just cannot let go of the past.

4. Moments of Clarity thinks he has a rare example of a Government minister being correct.

5. Adam Collyer finds Labour in disarray over education spending cuts.

“A belief need not include faith or worship of a god or gods, but must affect how a person lives their life or perceives the world.”

- guidance on Harriet Harman’s new Equality Bill, explaining why vegans and teetotallers amongst others are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups.  The Bill makes it a legal requirement for public authorities, including schools, to consider the impact of all their policies on minority groups, but these groups include Scientologists and pacifists as well as vegans, teetotallers and many others.  The guidance has already caused controversy after warning that schools which force girls to wear skirts may be breaking the law because the policy apparently discriminates against transsexuals by breaching the rights of girls who feel compelled to live as boys.  Religious leaders have also condemned Harman’s equality laws for sideling religion to promote a false idea of ‘tolerance’.  (full story HERE)

*yawn*

Yes, it’s still going.  Last night, Mandelson said that David Cameron’s failure to confront his billionaire deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft over his tax status exposes the “fundamental weakness” of the Conservative leader and undermines his claim to be a moderniser.  In an interview with the Guardian, he said that Ashcroft had Cameron “by the balls”, the affair showed Cameron was “too weak to pick a fight with his own party” and the Tories were “fundamentally unchanged”.

Ok, let’s run through that attack again but this time remove any reference to a particular party:

‘The leader of a party has failed to confront their wealthy donors, which exposes the “fundamental weakness” of the party leader and undermines their claim to be a moderniser.  Critics claim that the wealthy donors have the leader “by the balls”, the incident showed that the leader was “too weak to pick a fight with his own party” and that the party remains “fundamentally unchanged”.’

Pray, Mandelson, tell us lesser beings, how exactly did your old mate Tony manage the finances when he was in charge?  Hmmm?  From what I remember, he jumped into bed with any rich donor he could find and handed out peerages for fun when someone passed him a sizeable cheque.  Blair never picked a fight with his own party because he always knew he would lose – reforming public sector pensions and reforming public services being classic examples.  The Left of the Labour Party always hated his love of big business and rich donors, but the party itself never really changed its spots and has ended up back in bed with the unions now that most of the wealthy donors have fled.  The Labour Party has never truly modernised, Tony just put on a different mask for a little while, but it’s all gone full circle now.  Add to that Harriet Harman’s epic fail on TV yesterday when she said did not know whether Labour donors Lord Paul, Sir Ronald Cohen and William Bollinger were non-doms, and Labour have themselves one fine attempt at deception.  Pickles said: “For a week, she and other cabinet ministers have been bleating about accepting donations from them. Yet when confronted with Labour’s £10m -plus of non dom donations, she could only obfuscate. When will she learn that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?”

Labour’s desperation to continue flogging the non-dom horse signifies two things: first, their desperation to make the public think that the Conservatives are less than savoury; and second, their desperation not to talk about their own policies because they don’t have any.  Even if the public have given up on this story (which I’m fairly sure they have), Labour need to keep it going as long as possible to fill the gaping policy void that their failure over the last 13 years has left behind.  Make no mistake – this non-dom flogging is about as deliberate and calculated as you can get.

“The sort of people you see in TV advertisements for deodorants”

- Tory peer Norman Tebbit on the new breed of Conservative parliamentary candidates

From the Telegraph:

MPs have demanded the right to first class train travel in a move that threatens to reignite the expenses row. They say they need the perk in order to be able to work during journeys to and from Parliament. One MP even said he needed a first class seat because of his height.  Their pleas are included in nearly 50 submissions made by MPs to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body charged with drawing up a new system of allowances to replace the discredited expenses system. Documents published by the organisation show that many MPs also resent proposals by its chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy to ban them from employing relatives, scrap the payment of a ‘Golden Goodbye’ when they lose their seat and limit the amount they spend on running their office.

The attempt by some MPs to retain some of the most controversial aspects of the expenses system is likely to provoke further anger among voters and accusations that politicians are engaging in special pleading.  Sir Ian’s proposal that MPs should only be allowed to travel first class in “exceptional circumstances” – such as a journey of more than two and a half hours – met with particularly strong opposition by parliamentarians.  Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP for Maidstone and the Weald, accused him of being guided by media “spite” rather than value to the taxpayer, and pointed out she had written two books while travelling first class.  She said: “If I travel first class, I can plug in my computer, not a facility that is universally available in second class. I can therefore work throughout the journey. The ‘at seat’ service means that I do not have to interrupt the work to go and queue in the train’s buffet bar. Second class being more of a thoroughfare, interruption and engagement in conversation is a great deal more frequent.”  Tom Levitt, the Labour backbencher for High Peak, said: “I invariably work on the train, something I can only do in a first class carriage for three reasons: that I have a table, space and privacy to work there; that I have a seat (as the standard class carriages between Manchester and London are often standing room only); and that (as I am over six feet tall) I have the leg room for comfort.”  Sandra Gidley, Lib Dem MP for Romsey, said: “I find I can usually do some useful work which is not always possible in standard class. Also, as a woman travelling alone late at night I feel safer in first, particularly on the later trains when there are often a number of people who have been drinking.” 

Anyone else have a sense of deja vu about this and those awful ’second class’ citizens on our trains?  MPs want first-class travel because it is more comfortable (I’m sure it is), they want first-class travel because it’s nice and quiet (how very rude of people to have conversations in second class), they want first-class travel so that they don’t have to go to the buffet car and can instead sit on their arse and get served (unbelievably lazy), they want first-class travel to let them write books (is that really relevant for carrying out their duties as an MP?), they want first-class travel because it gives them a table (even though this is clearly available in the vast majority of second class trains as well) and they want first-class travel because, apparently, it is too dangerous to sit in second-class carriages (I have survived thus far).

Hello, this is The Real World calling MPs – is there anybody there?

1. Subrosa discusses Gordon Brown’s ‘planned’ visit to Afghanistan.

2. Laban Tall thinks Labour are finally giving up on Britishness and Englishness.

3. Tim Worstall finds something that probably won’t be appearing in the Guardian.

4. Prodicus reminds us that Gordon Brown’s public debt is our debt.

5. Counting Cats says Labour are doing Osama Bin Laden a huge favour.