Steve's simple 10 point plan to clean up Parliament.

Steve Ahearne 13th October 2009

Steve's simple 10 point plan to clean up Parliament.

The MP's expenses row continues to boil over as many of our grabbing, rotund friends in Westminister seem hurt by the notion of paying anything back. They just can't see how upset and angry the public are can they?
In this world of recession where councils, banks and tax offices continue to hound the broke for money they don't have, the MP's want to keep money for second homes, gardening and cleaning. For God's sake they are acting as hard done by as the third of Dolly Parton's triplets over this!

Here are my proposals; not just for the previous expenses claims but for all future claims too, aimed directly at MP's past and present:

1)Cleaning and gardening aren't in the public interest!; getting a total of £3000 per annum allowance for these activities which the rest of the world have to do themselves or pay for themselves is just 'appropriating the micturation'.
2)Second home allowance should be a purely rental based figure up to a maximum of £1000 a month, which is more than adequate. You only need the second home during your tenure as an MP serving the people, thus forcing MP's to rent prevents said MP's from using their career in parliament as the stepping stone to becoming a property tycoon.
3)You must live more than fifty miles from parliament as the crow flies to qualify for ANY second home allowance. That's about as far as Swansea is to Cardiff or Brighton is to London. Thousands of people manage to make this distance their daily commute, just try getting up earlier in the morning! Lord knows you get paid enough to warrant doing it. I would.
4)Any MP worth more than a million pounds in property and/or wages from their second job as company director should not be eligible for ANY expenses. The rest of us don't get anything for free, why should you? To make it easy enough for MP's to understand, if you earn and/or own property worth £1m in any given tax year you are clearly much more wealthy than the humble folk you pretend to represent, thus you don't have a genuine need to bleed the public purse dry.
5)No income tax breaks, council tax breaks or help with your bills is needed; you earn enough as it is. Give us all a break or take a permanent career break. Please.
6)Employing your relatives is not acceptable, they can apply through the same channels as the rest of us for work.
7)'Flipping' second homes was always wrong, regardless of whether the Telegraph caught you out or not. Death by being 'flipped' around in a huge hot frying pan would be an appropriate punishment for this.
8)'Blacking out' the bits of your expenses forms you don't like makes you look guiltier than even the rest of your peers have managed. You must forever wear a black dunces hat at public functions and in Parliament by means of a punitive measure.
9)Being an MP is supposed to be a purely altruistic endeavour; not a cash cow or fiscal piñata. And finally;
10)Cheer up! At least you aren't a banker! Your dour expressions and 'bulldog chewing on a particularly lemon-y wasp' faces make us feel depressed, also it makes the great British public sick in our mouths a little.

Here's hoping that the speaker of the house gets hold of my proposals, and that the party leaders find the balls to see past the OTT death by frying pan part in point 7 and see these proposals as the very least they could do to win back even a modicum of public trust.
I'm off now to 'flip' my sofa looking for that £1 coin I didn't tell the tax man about...