At the top of the shit heap

In amongst all the time spent shouting about the fuckers in the Commons who rinse our wallets dry in return for sitting in a position of power and privilege in the our government, it is worth praising any member of that now utterly compromised legislature who does not indulge in expenses excess and/or fraud:

But at the bottom of the allowances league table - on £44,551 - was Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering in Northamptonshire.

Good ol’ Phil. He’s not ripping us off. He’s one of the good ones…

Except… is he? His base salary is above £60k. With his expenses, he costs the taxpayer over £100k. His job is a backbench MP – effectively a spokesperson for his constituency. In return for his work as a constituency MP, he claims over one hundred thousand pounds for a taxpayer. Not being funny, but that does strike me as slightly overpaid for a spokesman for Kettering.

And I would love to know exactly what you could spend £44k on in terms of expenses, I really would. There is a fair bit of travel and international travel involved in my job, yet last year my expenses were less than £1k. £44k sounds like a fuck load of expenditure to me, even given the no doubt arduous job of spokesperson for Kettering. Lord alone knows how some MPs manage to spend more… except, we know that they do find a way. Legally or otherwise.

It is also worth considering the issue of value for money. I for one would not mind MPs being paid a lot for what they do; if what they did actually was worth the money they were being paid. Sadly, there is not just a gulf but rather an ocean between what we pay MPs and what they actually offer. This Hollobone character is probably the cheapest MP we have, yet he still costs a small fucking fortune.

Just because he’s the best of a bad bunch doesn’t actually make him any good.