The political sense of a bucket of lightly-drowned weasels

[fivemack]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7420848.stm

"MPs could seek to avoid future expenses criticism by awarding themselves an automatic lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes, a newspaper says"

"If a lump sum payment were made to each MP, the need for these documents to be produced would disappear and there could be a considerable cash boost for those MPs who spend less than the £23,000 permitted."

Handing out lump sums in cash to MPs is the kind of behaviour for which we tut and deduct at least three points when rating the governmental virtue of random countries in South America; what's next, black Mercedes? Is there any merit at all to the idea that important people do not need to provide receipts when spending public money?

If the issue is that MPs need second homes in London, would it make more sense to get Parliament to buy a random seven-hundred-room hotel, a class of building which London hardly lacks, and have them live there?

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

You probably *don't* want to be dragging kids around with you though - they'll need to go to school wherever it is they actually live; and your spouse/partner/other adult family members might well want to work, and thus need to live in one place pretty much full time; I don't know how much time MPs usually spend in their constituency verses in London, but I'd expect it would be possible for most of them to make it a weekly commute (and that's something that other people who work in London but want to raise their kids in a 'nice' place do, MPs however at least have a real reason to do so).