'How do you solve a problem like Maria?'

Just when I though 'Expenses: the Musical' was distant history, along comes more inspiration in the form of the menacing Mrs Miller. Don't be fooled by the winning smile; she clearly knows where the bodies are buried.

Parliamentary commissioner Kathryn Hudson had found Mrs Miller over-claimed by £45,000 [half of the total amount she claimed] for expenses towards mortgage interest payments and council tax on a house which she shared with her parents. 

But the House of Commons Committee on Standards [in some cases, judgement by her peers indeed] decided she only needed to pay back £5,800 to cover over-claiming of mortgage expenses, resulting from her failure to cut her claims when interest rates fell.

As it happens, the media silence on the subject of MPs forgetting to alter their claims when mortgage interest rates went down was raised here in the Tavern back in May 2009, when Elliot Morley and David Chaytor - remember them? - admitted that they submitted their claims in annual bundles and had both overlooked the small matter of their mortgages having been paid off already.

Ms Miller's 'second home', on which she claimed almost right up to the maximum allowance of interest subsidy for several years, was mortgaged for £525,000, despite having been originally purchased for a mere £237,500. There is something very disturbing about a system that has allowed those whose decisions may profoundly influence the housing market to profit from price increases through effectively interest-free property loans.

The commissioner believed she should only have been able to claim expenses for interest payments on the original 1996 mortgage of £215,000. The committee, made up of MPs and lay members and which has the final say, disagreed. 

I feel this calls for a song...

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
Shouldn't this bring a cabinet minister down?
How should the voters view the way Maria
Borrowed against her residence in town?

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her;
You have to admit it looks quite underhand,
To make the public pay
When you've mortgaged all the way
Then added on at least 300 grand.

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
And MPs expenses getting out of hand?

Her answers were confused,
The committee was bemused
By her efforts to procrastinate and jam
The enquiries asking whether
She had fleeced us; altogether,
Its quite obvious she didn't give a damn.

She managed to invest
In a comfy London nest
And she moved her aged parents in as well,
While claiming all the while
Basingstoke was more her style;
The whole thing has a very nasty smell.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you stop her throwing her weight around?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
I can think of a few, but they all have an ugly sound!

Many a thing the voters want to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But Cameron says she can stay
And the MPs have got their way
A swift apology and all's in hand.

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you make her pay back forty grand?

What's next - an offer they can't refuse?

This week's 'Do you know who I am?' award goes, by proxy, to the Culture Secretary:

Maria Miller's advisers warned The Telegraph to consider the minister’s role in implementing the Leveson Report before this newspaper published details of her expenses.

Mrs Miller, it seems, claimed as her second home the Wimbledon house which she and her city lawyer husband shared with her parents. Not surprisingly, given the location and the size of residence this implies, the allowances she claimed for the house between 2005 and 2009 amount to some £90,000.

Despite her assertion that her parents live with the family as 'dependants', this case appears to be identical to that of Labour's Tony McNulty, who was required to pay back £13,000 after the Parliamentary Commissioner described the situation as 'unacceptable'.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has previously ruled that second homes must be “exclusively” for the use of MPs in fulfilling their parliamentary duties and that housing a politician’s parents was “specifically prohibited” by the rules.

It's interesting to note that, having previously claimed £90,718 out of a maximum allowable £90,833 in second home allowances, Mrs Miller stopped claiming for the property altogether when the expenses scandal came to light and has since designated it her main residence.

When a reporter from the Telegraph - which is understandably anxious to retain its crown as Britain's foremost expense-fraud-busting paper - contacted the Culture Secretary's office, Mrs Miller's aide was ready with a thinly-disguised warning worthy of Cosa Nostra:

“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about.”

It is probably fair to say that Telegraph staff won't be the only ones thinking long and hard about the implication of her words.

Shameless! (part 2)

I've said it before, but the expenses scandal really is the gift that keeps on giving.

It's not been a good week for Lord Hanningfield; details of his corporate credit card spending have revealed not only a taste for the high life distinctly at odds with his courtroom claim to be a man of simple tastes but also that he was claiming for overnight hotel accommodation in London on the same night that taxpayers were funding his stay in 'the best luxury hotel in India'.

But if you thought last year's prison sentence might have shamed him into paying his own way these days as a form of recompense, think again! House of Lords figures released on Wednesday show that he pocketed the maximum tax-free attendance allowance for the 12 days he turned up in June - a total of £3,600.

You may remember that he and Baroness Uddin (another inspiration for 'Expenses-the Musical!'), despite initial claims of penury, both had a rummage down the back of the sofa and conveniently managed come up with sufficient cash to repay their dodgy claims - £30,000 and £125,000 respectively - and hop back on the gravy train along with Lord Warwick (a mere £24,000).

In fact, the Baroness went one better, initially asking to be re-admitted to the House of Lords straight away so that she could use her expenses allowance to pay back the money she owed, a gesture brazen enough to give Lord Hanningfield's 'two-continents-at-once' accommodation claims a run for their money.

And why are these paragons of virtue back in the Corridors of Power at our expense? According to the Independent's diarist, there was an attempt to reform the system on the part of David Steel, who proposed legislation to expel from the Lords those found guilty of dishonest practice.

A sensible idea, you might have thought, especially given the details that have emerged of expenses claims from the Upper House, but it met with opposition:

The idea has support in every political party, but Nick Clegg has blocked it because he fears that small reforms will weaken the case for abolishing the Lords and creating an elected chamber.

Which is, if you ask me, a bit like refusing to deal with a nasty rat problem because that would prevent a big enough outbreak of plague to justify burning the city.

Shameless! (Part 1)

“I am relieved that this chapter has closed and that the police and Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed I did nothing wrong."

Those were the words of Lord Hanningfield (remember him?) on learning that the City of London Police have confirmed he has no case to answer over expenses incurred during his leadership of Essex County Council.

This, of course has nothing to do with the nine weeks he spent in prison last year for Parliamentary expenses fraud, but it's an interesting conflation of 'nothing illegal' and 'nothing wrong', given figures released by the council from his taxpayer-funded council credit card:

The peer's card use from 2005 to 2010 lists thousands of transactions, including spending on flights, train journeys, meals and hotel stays which amount to £286,000 in total.

He may have been cleared of fraud this time, but all that presumably means is that he did spent the money on what he declared and that it was legally authorised spending on council business - conveniently signed off by Hanningfield himself.

Fair enough, I suppose - but the items suggest he wasn't exactly roughing it when he travelled the world at public expense:

£42.94 spent on a single breakfast at the Little Chef in Wisley South, £5,266 on flights to India for a "business event" and £6,652 spent on flights to the Bahamas for a conference. 

Other expenses include £150-a-head dinners chez Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein, a day at the races (£230), a £1,180 spa break in Hampshire and '£107 on drinks for four in Hot Springs, USA' - His Lordship was obviously feeling generous that night.

Legal, maybe, but not necessarily what you would call fair dealing with the hard-pressed taxpayers footing the bill; can this really be the same man who told a jury last year,“I do not lead an extravagant lifestyle. [...] I enjoy the occasional glass of wine but that’s about it"?

Meanwhile, his successor as Council Leader has taken advantage of the end of the investigation to publish five years' worth of corporate credit card charges in detail:

"We are committed to being open and transparent and I am pleased that we are now able to make this information available for the public to view."

Which I think roughly translates as "Take that, scumbag!"

Quis custodiet custodes IPSAe?

Well, if Bercow gets his way, prospective members of the board of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority - including those currently sitting - must be vetted and approved by his own pet panel.

Four members of the watchdog which polices MPs' expenses are to stand down after a row with Commons speaker John Bercow.

Mr Bercow decided not to back the automatic re-appointment of the four IPSA board members when their contracts end in January.

Naturally this isn't going down at all well in some circles, but an interesting defence of Bercow has appeared at Conservative Home, where Paul Goodman has been mulling things over thanks to a personal interest in the story:

'I was approached recently to apply for a place on the IPSA Board, and saw on reading the conditions that the Speaker would play a part in the selection process.

I thought that it was unlikely that I would be successful if I applied, and decided that since I've no confidence in the Speaker it would be wrong to do so in any event.'

Come on, Paul - surely a lack of confidence in the Speaker is exactly why you should apply!

Someone's got to keep an eye on him; if he's on the level, you have nothing to fear and, if he really is after placemen, it won't be exposed unless someone objective gets involved in the process.

And, more importantly, if a lack of confidence in Bercow acts as a complete deterrent to would-be applicants, what sort of people will we be left with?

Meanwhile,  remember this from Dizzy Thinks?

'Frankly, even a very shiny arse with neon lights on it saying "I'm a shiny arse" would find it hard to make more of an arse of itself on Twitter than Sally Bercow has in recent months.'

More than two years on and she's still at it,  not to mention that photo, and those TV appearances. Now, I wouldn't normally be so insensitive as to bring up the indiscretions of a man's wife in relation to his professional career, but John Bercow has chosen to share bed and board with this woman of his own free will (at least I assume so).

And if that's any indication of his judgement of character, perhaps we should look very carefully indeed at his choice of appointees.

Denis MacShane - the musical

Well, it's been a while since we had one of these...

I think I did it again.
Asked you to believe
My tale of expense,
Oh baby;
The BBC's in a rush,
To make it seem that it's serious,
But to fall through my expenses,
Can you really do this to me?

Oops! ... I did it again.
I filed the receipts
And put in two claims
For the same laptop, baby.
Oops!... You think I'm a fraud
But it’s all above board...
I'm mostly innocent.

You see my problem is this:
I've claimed, in a way,
Things I suppose technically didn’t exist
But was it too much to pay?
Can't you see I oppose fascism every day?
And this trawl through my expenses;
That was done for the BNP!

Oops! ... I did it again.
And right from the start
Got lost in the game.
Oh, baby, baby.
Oops!... I'm not really a fraud,
Ed, please keep me on board!
I'm mostly innocent.


(In case anyone thinks I was amazingly quick off the mark with this mirth-inducing story, I should admit that it's an updating of a previous piece which just happened to suit rather well...)

The dog returneth to his vomit

Talk about recidivism! No sooner do we drag Westminster's finest away from one trough than they have their noses buried in another.

This time it's the rent scandal; they're all renting from each other while we foot the bill.

Something about it seemed uncannily familiar, until I realised that it's similar scam to one that was rife, albeit in rather different social circles, when I briefly worked in a housing benefit department many years ago (it involved home-owners swapping unemployed offspring rather than expense-funded flats but the aim was broadly the same).

This ought to call for a new installment of 'Expenses: the Musical', but the muse is elusive and, in any case, the quick-witted Oxfordshire Geek has a sharply-written song parody posted already, while Caedmon's Cat presents the story in his own inimitable style (and provides the title of this post).

So I shall turn my attention instead to George Osborne, who had the bad luck to be spotted in a first class railway carriage with a standard class ticket. Rather than travel with the plebs - oops, sorry; voters - he had his aide pay £189.50 for an upgrade.

Such an occurrence might have escaped public notice but for the wonders of modern technology; a television journalist in the train, who presumably couldn't believe her luck, tweeted the ensuing conversation to a waiting world:

“Very interesting train journey to Euston Chancellor George Osborne just got on at Wilmslow with a STANDARD ticket and he has sat in FIRST CLASS.”

  “His aide tells ticket collector he cannot possibly move and sit with the likes of us in standard class and requests he is allowed to remain in First Class.

“Ticket collector refuses.”

“George Osborne pays £160 to stay in first class!”

Cue an enigmatic silence on the part of Osborne's spokesman while, one assumes, frantic behind-the-scenes damage-limitation talks are being held. For the news to break on the same day as Mitchell's resignation leaves the Conservatives uncomfortably vulnerable to criticism.

Here in the Tavern, however, it has prompted a nostalgic singalong from the days when Sir Nicholas Winterton, too, found second class travel a democratic gesture too far.

Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me,
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea;
If you can’t enjoy the benefits then why be an MP?
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh

The people there in second class will always make me frown,
Their noisy children anger me, they never settle down
But I am on expenses so ta-ta and toodle-oo
As I board first class and never have to sit with any of you.

Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me,
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea;
And all the other passengers are people just like me,
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, posh

In first class I am sure to find an atmosphere to suit me
If there was any justice then the public would salute me;
They’d understand why I avoid all peasants great and small;
When crowded in with hoi polloi one just can’t think at all!

Oh the posh, posh travelling life, the travelling life for me, 
Comfy seats and lots of tables, complimentary tea; 
When I'm travelling at your expense I do it stylishly 
Proles Out, Stewards at Hand, posh with a capital P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H, P-O-S-H... 

"appropriate" payments

We all know that house guests involve some inconvenience - clean sheets, all that hoovering, an extra pint of milk - but I have to admit I'm struggling to see exactly what an overnight guest in your home could do to warrant over £100 changing hands.

"In the early part of 2008, for a short period, Baroness Warsi stayed with me," said Mr Khan, who later became her special adviser.

"I confirm she made a financial payment on each occasion, which compensated for the inconvenience caused and additional costs incurred by me as a result of her being there."

Everyone concerned has gone to some trouble to point out this was not rent - since Mr Khan was himself living in the property rent-free, sub-letting would have been an entrepreneurial step too far - so it must indeed be compensation for the expense and inconvenience of having her to stay.

So what on earth did she do? Gorge on the contents of his fridge? Spill coffee on the goose-down duvet? Throw the television out of the window? Or perhaps she insisted on being served a lavish breakfast of larks' tongues and truffles washed down with Fijian spring water.

In any case, since it appears that the owner was also living in the property at the time (he claims to have given Lady Warsi regular lifts to and from work and taken her out for meals) why was it his top floor house guest Mr Khan who experienced the 'inconvenience' - so much so that he was compensated with 'appropriate' payments comparable to hotel rates?

Though I doubt she would appreciate the comparison, is this any different from claiming housing benefit when staying rent-free in someone else's council flat? According to the owner, Wafik Moustafa, neither the baroness nor Mr Khan offered any contribution to household bills or expenses.

If Dr Moustafa is a Muslim, he has demonstrated admirably the hospitality that many of that faith regard as a moral obligation - though his choice of beneficiaries may not have been entirely unconnected to a desire to advance his political career. Certainly Mr Khan and the baroness seem to have been happy to take advantage of the situation.

While the squeezed middle struggle on, funding their own expenses in an increasingly difficult climate, there appears to be a galloping sense of entitlement among those in a position to reap rather than sow; a supreme irony has placed them at both the very bottom and the very top of society.

If only there were some way to teach them the lesson once and for all: Just because you can claim, it doesn't mean you should!

Nice work if you can get it!

Should you feel like brightening a rainy Sunday with a spot of music, what could be better than revisiting 'Expenses - the Musical' in honour of this week's news? Just follow the links below and get ready to sing along...

Baroness Uddin and Lord Hanningfield, despite strident claims of penury, have both had a rummage down the back of the sofa and conveniently managed come up with the lump sums they needed to repay their dodgy claims - £125,000 and £30,000 respectively.

Lord Hanningfield is already back in the House of Lords, while the allegedly boracic* Wapping-based  Baroness will return after the Queen's Speech in May; both of them can look forward to claiming the tax-free allowance of £300 a day, which may go some way towards softening the pain of rejection by their respective political parties.

Whether it endears the Baroness to her fellow-tenants of a housing association scheme for low-income Londoners is, of course, quite another matter.


*boracic lint = skint; the Tavern's always ready for an anachronistic bit of rhyming slang.

"Is it 'cos I is a lay-dee?"

Bless her, just when you thought all was done and dusted and the fat lady was taking a deep breath, Baroness Uddin surfaces again - it's like Fatal Attraction but with ermine.

Despite the best efforts of the Lords to shake her off, at least until she paid back the £125,000 she pocketed in dodgy expense claims, legal advice had it that a permanent exclusion would 'infringe her right as a peer to be called to the house by the Queen at the start of a new parliament'.

Worming her way back in thanks to this technicality would enable her to claim the full attendance allowance and - oh, the irony! - use it to pay back the money she owes. As an illustration of the difference between the law and justice, that would take some beating.

Thwarted on that front, their Lordships are now, according to the Sunday Times, proposing to suspend peers who fail to repay until the end of the current parliament and repeat the vote at the start of each subsequent parliament until the sum is repaid in full.

This raises the prospect of a vote specifically to exclude the Baroness, thereby opening a whole new can of worms. It is hardly to be expected that a professional Asian woman - in the sense of one who has made gainful employment out of the description - will sit back and allow that one to go ahead.

I suspect that left-leaning discrimination lawyers are even now beating a path to the door of her subsidised London flat, pleading to be allowed to take up a case in which a charge of institutional racism and/or sexism could be argued to trump the mere bagatelle of a missing £125,000.

We have, of course, celebrated the Baroness in song elsewhere, but this seems as good a time as any for a nostalgic and appropriate reprise of another expenses ditty:

The People's flag was deepest red,
But now its guiding lights are dead;
Their principles and lofty aims
Demolished by expenses claims.
New Labour came to rule the roost
And give their private funds a boost
And with a supercilious sneer,
To plant their skull and crossbones here.

While we worked hard to pay our tax,
These parasites upon our backs
Indulged themselves in luxury
At the expense of you and me.
They've tried to water down the rules,
And play us for a bunch of fools;
It's time to shout it loud and clear,
No more expenses scroungers here!

A Song for Baroness Uddin - Reprise

I love the expenses scandal - it's the story that just keeps on giving!

The latest twist in the tale is the ruling that Baroness Uddin cannot be prevented from taking her seat in the Lords when her suspension expires in April, even though she has not yet paid back any of the £125,000 to which she helped herself in dodgy expense claims, saying she cannot afford to do so.

Her intention, it seems, is to trot back to Westminster next Spring, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and claim £300 a day in tax-free allowances, out of which she could repay the lot in three years without touching her own substantial assets.

Since one assumes the allowances are meant solely to reimburse the Lords for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in attendance at the House, this would surely imply recidivism on a monumental scale.

It's been a while since we first immortalised her in song; I think another verse is called for...


She keeps a home down in Wapping,
Where subsidies help pay the rent,
A mansion in Bangladesh,
And don’t forget the flat in Kent,
Pressed for a remedy, she says she’s in penury,
But once she’s back in Westminster then all will be fine;
Three hundred quid a day she’ll get,
She’ll use your cash to pay her debt
Extraordinarily nice!
She's Manzila Uddin,
Baroness of Bethnal Green,
House of Lords expenses queen;
Her arrant greed will blow your mind.

L'Etat, c'est moi!

JuliaM has a fine piece on Jacqui Smith's use of day-release prisoners to paint her house - or, as the Mail inevitably has it, her £450,000 house - in exchange for a donation and some plants.

It's an interesting little coda to the expenses scandal - from which, come to think about it, Smith didn't exactly emerge smelling of roses - and the reasons for which senior politicians helped themelves to public funds.

I suspect there is a particular form of hubris here - become a political animal and eventually you can no longer distinguish your public and private personae. Thus our MPs trotted merrily off to buy top-of-the-range furnishings at our expense, believing it was part of their inalienable right to life, Liberty prints and the pursuit of valances.

Perhaps it's seeing the grace-and-favour accommodation given to those in high office - look at the Bercows, after all - but the expenses affair served to illustrate the way many MPs felt entitled to have their homes improved at public expense without performing the public functions that explain our funding of Chequers and its ilk.

Leaving aside the interesting image of the Obamas or the Portugese Ambassador popping round for an evening chez Smith and Timney - probably best not to ask what's on the television - this story somehow sums up the arrogance that confuses the office with the person doing it.

Judging by Jacqui Smith's choice of painters and decorators, it's a hard habit to break.

Expenses - it's déjà-vu all over again

Once upon a time we had the feudal system. The king and court spent vast sums on elaborate clothing, castles and patronage, secure in the knowledge that the taxes and rents paid by their underlings would fund it all.

And the petty lords and officials aped their superiors, knowing that the labour of the peasantry would keep them in tapestries and wine.

A thousand years later, the same situation exists, though political upheaval has in part replaced hereditary overlords with MPs, and, as the expenses scandal shows, their taste for luxury at our expense is no different.

We still have the petty officials too. Encouraged by its success at breaking the Westminster expenses scandal, the Telegraph now has in its sights the councils of Britain and their taxpayer-funded credit cards, like that wielded by Lord Hanningfield.

Councils up and down the land have been hitching a ride on the gravy train – and the gravy in question is rich, meaty and laced with truffle-oil. Luxury hotels, lavish meals and gifts from high-end retailers abound, along with tables at award ceremonies and champagne receptions.

Meanwhile details are coming out of similar expenditure on the part of civil servants on taxpayer-funded credit cards, most recently, with a certain irony, at the Department for Communities and Local Government. After all, if their masters were enjoying their perks to the full, why should civil servants not emulate them?

There’s a crucial difference here, though; this time, the culprits are effectively faceless – not high-profile Westminster MPs but local politicians and officials barely recognized in their own home territory. It's a fair bet that no colour supplements will be issued, no redacted documents circulated around the internet.

The Westminster expenses scandal provided a rich vein for satirists to mine – your humble host among them – but this fresh scandal, far more wide-reaching and worrying in its implications of a culture of entitlement – may be far harder to pin down because of its sheer extent.

The Sunday songbook - Lord Hanningfield edition

Yet another number for Expenses - the musical. It's not the best song for a parody but sometimes, as with Elliot Morley and Baroness Uddin, there is really only one possibility:

Will they take him down, are they going to, Lord Hanningfield?
Planning to steal the money,not to do without;
Lord Hanningfield’s not so clever.

Living is easy with credit cards; taxpayers fund it all, you see.
You claim allowances all round and it all works out
Travel and dinners all for free.

Will they take him down, are they going to, Lord Hanningfield?
Planning to steal the money, not to do without;
Lord Hanningfield’s not so clever.

Other peers, I think, did just like me; if sleeping in my bungalow
While claiming hotel bills is not a given right,
Surely, I think, it’s not too bad.

Will they take him down, are they going to, Lord Hanningfield?
Planning to steal the money, not to do without;
Lord Hanningfield’s not so clever.

With Essex council funding me, you know I had a clever scheme,
I netted fourteen grand but I’ve done nothing wrong,
Though the jury disagree.

Will they take him down, are they going to, Lord Hanningfield?
Planning to steal the money, not to do without;
Lord Hanningfield’s not so clever.

The Ballad of Elliot Morley - revisited

With apologies to the Beatles

Elliot Morley
Pays off his mortgage and pockets a cool sixteen grand
All cash in hand;
‘Sloppy accounting’,
All a mistake and there’s nobody else he can blame,
Oh, what a shame!

All the crooked people,
Where do they all come from?
All the crooked people,
Where do they all belong?

Abuse of the system
Siphoning money into his investments for years
Ended in tears;
In mitigation,
Downing Street battles and strife with an enemy there,
A good friend of Blair.

All the crooked people
Where do they all come from?
All the crooked people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the crooked people,
Ah, look at all the crooked people.

Elliot Morley,
said Justice Saunders, had quite thrown away his good name,
Covered in shame.
Sixteen month sentence,
Convicted for making deliberately excessive claims;
The end of his games.

All the crooked people,
Where do they all come from?
All the crooked people,
Where do they all belong?

TANSTAAFL

Westminster’s gravy train may have slowed to an ignominious crawl but it hasn't stopped yet – at least some honourable members have made sure their pockets are well-lined, with directorships and outside legal work bringing in up to £18,000 a month.

Now, on the face of it, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t seek extra employment elsewhere – though their constituents might beg to differ. The problem is that they are earning extra income in time that could, perhaps be better spent on constituency and parliamentary matters. I, for one, would like to think my elected representative is concentrating fully on the job I pay him to do.

There is much to be said, however, for doing as one Tory MP has done and declaring £100 for ten hours of agricultural work. In fact, if MPs have so much time on their hands that they can afford to do outside work, why not make them do it in their constituency, among the people they represent?

It’s not a bad idea – make each MP do a few weeks of ‘work experience’ every year in local industries – really getting their hands dirty; not just a morning’s photo-shoot in white wellies and a hairnet - to get an idea of how the other 90% live.

Or instead of dishing out legal advice for hundreds of pounds an hour, why shouldn’t they put in a few shifts in the Citizens’ Advice Bureau or a Jobcentre? It might make them more appreciative of the issues facing local employers and workers in the areas they represent.

That, at least, would be some improvement on having a vested interest in the dealings of big business – if you’ve got a seat on the board, it’s a fair bet you’ll be working for the success of the corporation. And that brings us to another question.

These multi-nationals aren’t paying out vast amounts just for the decorative value of having an MP on board – they must feel they will benefit – now or later – from the deal. What exactly do they expect to gain that’s worth that sort of outlay?

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Game On!

The media may be muzzled today but comment is still rife in the blogosphere. This has been, without doubt, the most interesting and entertaining election campaign I've seen, mainly because of the numerous informative, perceptive and sometimes downright hilarious posts out there.

The downside is that, with a new-found interest in constituencies all over the country, I am probably in for a sleepless night - who could settle down for a relaxed kip when there's the potential Morley and Outwood Castration in the offing, or John Walsh's valiant struggle in Middlesborough?

Here at the Tavern, we usually try to preserve at least a modicum of political neutrality*, but the prospect of massive humiliation for the Rogues' Gallery whose machinations have intruded into every aspect of our lives while they lined their pockets at our expense is too much for our impartial stance - the Tavern will resound to loud cheers tonight if any of Labour's High Command are ousted.

Eschewing the BBC's 'Election Night Party pack', we have ample supplies of drink, we're armed with the Telegraph's handy expenses supplement to read during lulls in results and we plan to drop in occasionally on SUBROSA's live blog. See you there!


*ie we're happy to have a go at anyone who deserves it. To quote one of my favourite fictional characters, 'Honey, I have insults for every race, creed, colour and sexual orientation - I don't discriminate'.

Julie's on to a nice little earner

She's back! Julie Kirkbride, former MP and occasional muse of this column, is looking for a tenant for her Worcestershire mansion flat at £925pcm - yep, that's right; the one where we subsidised the £50,000 extension and the £500 bedroom curtains.

By coincidence, the Times today reports on the EU decree that 'tourism is a human right' and that the taxpayer should subsidise foreign holidays for those too poor to afford it.

'The scheme, which could cost hundreds of millions of pounds a year, is intended to promote a sense of pride in European culture, bridge the north-south divide in the continent and prop up resorts in their off-season.

Officials have envisaged sending south Europeans to Manchester and Liverpool on a tour of “archeological and industrial sites” such as closed factories and power plants. The idea is based on a project in Spain in which holidays in the winter off-season are subsidised by the government.'

Well, if they fancy Bromsgrove instead, there's a flat already available, substantially extended with taxpayers' money; surely the state should be entitled to use it for free every now and then. In fact, there are houses in constituencies all over the country paid for, at least in part, by us.

So why not fill them with southern Europeans in search of culture? I'm sure we could develop a pro-rata system - we paid for your guest room so we're putting a couple of Greeks in there for a week next Thursday, OK?

This Little Piggy...

It was one of those ‘you-could-have-knocked-me-down-with-a-feather’ moments. The Urchin, whose greatest ambition to date has been to get to level 5 of Assassin’s Creed, wants to join the local Youth Parliament.

A Damascene conversion? The beginnings of a social conscience? Well no. Turns out that the Urchin was reading Guido Fawkes’ blog for politics homework (wonders will never cease!) and found an account of the jolly young folk of Surrey’s Youth Parliament.

According to a whistle-blower quoted in the Sun, these enterprising budding politicians blew £15,000 of taxpayers' money on a bash at Epsom racecourse besides awarding themselves expenses-funded meals, new Blackberries and chauffeur-driven car travel.

True, they may need ferrying about, what with not having cars or driving licences, and as they are all aged between 13 and 18, the meals consisted mainly of pizza and chicken wings, but it’s an impressive performance none the less. And nobody seems to know where the buck stops.

‘The £45,000 grant, supposed to be spent on projects to improve life for youngsters in Surrey, with special emphasis on deprived areas, is allocated by Surrey County Council out of central government funds. Surrey County Council initially claimed it was not responsible for checking the cash was properly used. The Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "We expect local authorities to have safeguards in place".'

The story prompted local MP Peter Ainsworth to submit a written question which received a less-than-informative answer; Ed Balls, it seems, has nothing to say on the matter and his stand-in, Dawn Primarolo, produced a singularly meaningless piece of waffle beginning, predictably enough, ‘We are committed to putting youth voice at the heart of our policies and programmes for young people...’

Meanwhile, the cynical Urchin is convinced that this is a golden opportunity to start a career in politics: “Not only do I get on the gravy train early, it’ll also look good on my CV!*”

(I should add two caveats; firstly this story appeared on 2nd April, leaving open the possibility that a gullible Sun reporter was given the story the day before, and secondly the Surrey Youth Parliament is not the same as the UK Youth Parliament, members of which are up in arms at the general slur implied.)

*Which would be no bad thing really, since in Balls’ brave new world, the only way the Urchin will get into a decent university is by time-travelling back to 2004 and enrolling in an underachieving comprehensive.

A Song for Baroness Uddin

The song parodies that feature here from time to time owe much to the influence of Pa Peachum, a master of the art. I was working on this before events intervened so it's not as topical as it should be, but it seems fitting to publish it anyway.
Regular posting will be resumed in a week or so, but in the meantime...



She keeps hoping and wondering,
Will she be in the cabinet?
'Maybe one day,' she says,
‘Just as soon as they forget
My claims on a property
They say weren’t what they ought to be;
If Gordon sends an invitation I shan’t decline.’

Privilege, the inside set,
Parliamentary etiquette,
Extraordinarily nice;
She's Manzila Uddin,
Baroness of Bethnal Green,
House of Lords expenses queen;
Her arrant greed will blow your mind,
Anytime.
Even peers have a price,
Insatiable in appetite
Worth a try.

To avoid ‘complications’
She said she had her main address
In central Maidstone,
But it looks just like the Baroness
Took the Central Line up
To Spitalfields, to wind up
Every evening in a rental flat our tax subsidised.

But she is naturally unembarrassed
Because she couldn't care less;
Everybody has their price,
She's Manzila Uddin,
Baroness of Bethnal Green,
House of Lords expenses queen;
Her arrant greed will blow your mind,
Anytime.

Drop of a hat she's a Kentish lass,
Safely in the Maidstone flat,
Proving to your satisfaction,
She's definitely out of Town;
Marvel at the woman’s guile, guile -
She's out to get you!
She's Manzila Uddin,
Baroness of Bethnal Green,
House of Lords expenses queen;
Her arrant greed will blow your mind,
Anytime.
Even peers have a price,
Insatiable in appetite
Worth a try.