MPs are stealing your money (sort of...)
20/5/09
It has recently been revealed that some British Members of Parliament may have been somewhat unscrupulous in their utilisation of the financial advantages which their position affords them. Or they've been nicking stuff. Whichever phrase you prefer. Either way, I don't understand why a) anybody is surprised and b) anybody cares.
Let's face it, everybody nicks stuff from work. It doesn't matter if you work for an "evil" pharmaceutical company which conducts its research by beating children with other children or you work for Oxfam. I can guarantee you've nicked something from work. Even just a pen. Or a pad of Post-It notes. Whatever it was, you stole it.
Now this wouldn't stop if you worked for an institution paid for by taxpayers. Think I'm wrong? I know plenty of NHS employees who have nicked plasters, dressings and alcohol gel from hospitals and don't feel at all bad about it. I'm pretty certain the average Post Office worker wouldn't give a toss about stealing a couple of pens here and there from the local branch.
This becomes infinitely worse when you introduce an expenses system. People will make claims for all sorts of bizarre shit. Companies give employees cars and the employee generally sees this as a licence to drive the thing into the ground, have sex with trafficked Ukrainian prostitutes in the back and then do lines of coke of their tits. Anybody who can claim anything on expenses will do it, even hentai. Probably.
Politicians are a different kettle of fish; I get that. And moats are slightly different to stealing pens from office supplies; the principle however is still the same. People always take advantage of flawed systems and expecting politicians to be somehow different is patently ridiculous. Politicians are the same as everybody else - massive cunts.
What this is, is a chance for The Daily Telegraph to sell papers by saying that politicians are stealing your money (which given 95% of Britain is apparently unemployed, was actually probably government money to start with). They no worse than somebody coming into your house, raping your wife/husband/Dad/dog/goldfish/cleaner and then taking your money/jewellery/16" dildo you use to pleasure your wife/husband/Dad/dog/goldfish/cleaner.
I am aware that most politicians probably don't enjoy sexually assaulting your cleaner, nor has The Daiily Telegraph implied that. But they're not really doing any worse than you would if you had the chance to nick stuff from work or claim it back on expenses. The fact is that now you, the taxpayer, are getting a raw deal for something you quite happily accept you or your peers doing. To castigate politician for it is to practise hypocrisy.
It is also worth noting that the vast majority of politicans haven't made ridiculous claims and haven't taken money out of parliamentary coffers to which they weren't entitled . All MPs should not be tarred with the same brush. Just like any other profession, some people are shady motherfuckers who are only out for themselves and some do the job because they genuinely love it. Most of us fall somewhere in between those to extremes
I'm not saying that this story shouldn't have been in the news but we're hardly in Italy where the man with the most powerful media empire there, practically monopolising the industry, also happens to be Prime Minister. Go to the developing world and corruption becomes far worse. So let's put a little perspective on this, calm down and read some of the other news for a change. Britain's political system is fine and the idea that anybody ever trusted politicians is fallacious - we all think they're cunts, we've just got something more specific to whine about.