Trouble in Bromsgrove II

Oh well, it seems Mr Cameron didn't stand by her after all. The curse of the Blog strikes again -- she could only last an hour after my devasting criticism! I wonder how Cameron decides which ones to stand by and which not...here's one theory anyway.

Trouble in Bromsgrove

Why is David Cameron trying to hold onto Julie Kirkbride? The drip, drip of allegations has been fairly constant and it's said that 5,000 of her constituents have signed a petition asking her to go. But for me the simple and killer fact is that she is married to Andrew McKay and must surely take joint responsibility for the misdemeanours he has been punished for. They played the system together so if he was in the wrong so is she, morally at least. How does the marriage vow go again...?

Faith in Politicians Restored...?

Yesterday at 7.30 I got off the tube a few stops early and walked into Westminster. Cast in the misty gold of an early summer morning it was difficult to believe this village – and political Westminster really is a village – was home to the skulduggery and shameless greed we have been watching unfold over the past fortnight.

The 45 minutes with Hilary Benn further lightened my spirits. Here was a humorous, honest, committed man untainted by the expenses scandals. We were able to have a good banter about the troubles but there was also no doubt about his senses of serious purpose. It is probably the family heritage but here was someone who still embodies the old fashioned idea of real public service. No doubt there is an ego there, there has to be, but it is subservient to the real task of getting things done. Not getting things “done” for self-promotion, ghastly KPIs or to win a dodgy bonus. Just getting things done because it’s the right thing to do. How refreshing.

My rosy glow lasted about as long as the May sunshine on Westminster. By the time rain was lashing Big Ben I was listening to Hazel Blears and just beginning to understand the complicated world of floating duck houses.

The Fees Office Excuse

The guilty ones are trying to divert the tide of blame towards officials at the Fees Office. "I acted within the rules" is no longer acceptable as an excuse. The public won't buy it. But they are still whining on about having agreed their misdemeanours with the Fees Office.

I wonder. The officials they discuss these things with are relatively low-ranking civil servants. The one thing you can say with certainty is that MPs are expert in arguing. They have all spent years, decades even, getting their point of view across. They have fought in debating societies, smoke-filled rooms, on doorsteps and many, as lawyers, in the courts. It seems to me a rather unequal battle pitting these professional arguers against expenses clerks. To then blame the clerks for losing aforesaid argument really is low.

Let us hope their tide-turning is as effective as one King Canute's.

BNP

I received my BNP election leaflet this weekend. Full of happy smiling white British people -- except as it turns out the wholesome British subjects were actually posed by American and Italian models.

In a darker fantasy I imagined there actually were some BNP MPs and they got caught up (as no doubt they would) in the expenses scandal. So far the bogus claims have been, most reassuringly, running along party lines -- Tories clean their moats and stay in their Pall Mall clubs; New Labour MPs are obsessed with very expensive flat screen TVs; old Labour buy bookshelves; and the Lib Dems go for trouser presses and scatter cushions.

So what would we see from our BNP representatives? Swastika bedspreads, skin-whitening cream, extra tight lederhosen or perhaps entertaining evenings with Max Moseley...?