Entertainment For Lively Minds
Hell in a handcart
Given that the MPs expenses row is now set to provide entertainment for what seems like weeks (i'm considering sending in my water pipe repair bill actually...if it worked for Oliver Letwin, then why not me...)
...but I digress, it seems one Tory MP has resigned his post due to 'unacceptable' 2nd home claims (I'm guessing he and his wife - also an MP - have been claiming on two properties concurrently) However, my point is that Norman Tebiit has been quoted (on the BBC website, no less) thus:
"Former Tory chairman Lord Tebbit said Mr MacKay was a "good guy" but said he had done the "right thing" in stepping down given the nature of the situation.
"It ain't right," he said of the claims details. "I am glad he has recognised it is so."
Now, I'm not a fan or Normo Tebbs particularly but "it ain't right"??? - doesn't sound like the patois of the standard Tory grandee to me...
- More from Oscar Patterson.
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Tebbsie
was atypical of the traditional tory. I believe it was part of his charm and he made great play on his working class roots (father getting on his bike to find work etc.) He'll be using "it ain't right" in the hammer home my roots, I'm still in touch with the working classes sense I suspect.
CHARM!
That's the last thing he had!
no excuse
..for shoddy grammar though!!
And if you go further back...
...I think you'll find that old-style landed gentry were very fond of the expression "ain't" and even "hain't". Seems very William Makepeace Thackeray to me.
If you're going to go toff-hunting then I suggest you look all over the house.
Suggest one starts
with the 2nd Viscount Stansgate, although he's hardly old money.
Ain't was standard received at Greyfriars,
what!?
Ee's a good guy, but it ain't right, ah tell ya
Sounds more appropriate in Tebbit's Spitting Image gear:
Cripes
Are they related?
MPs' expenses?
Don't get me started ...
As a freelance self-employed type (I know, I know, my choice, go get a proper job) my income fluctuates and part of the horrible hassle of dealing with tax collecting bodies (HMRC, local council) is that they seem to presume regularity as the norm ... one good income year out of three or four? i'll still get a tax bill i can ill afford 12-18 months after the end of the period when i earned the money (try struggling to meet the mortgage on a gross income of a little over a grand a month while simultaneously not touching savings from "the good year" that are earmarked for the taxman "next year") ... (or thinking "hey if i save a bit in year one, i can save a bit more in year two and pay all due taxes in year three - yay" only to see the credit crunch wipe out 75% of your cashflow, meh, making the 'save a bit more in year two' plan utterly redundant)
meanwhile dealing with the local authority - as it bullies you into direct debits to pay the council tax - is like arguing with a raptor over carrion ... "but i don't have a regular salary cheque so direct debits could cause all kinds of problems" "we don't care cash cow boy, give us the money" ... (okay i may be in danger of sounding like a daily mail reader but summer before last i was subject to all kinds of grave legal threats not because i didn't pay my council tax, nor because i paid terribly late, but because i didn't always pay in the first two weeks of the month when it fell due ... so i was paying april's in april, may's in may etc but that *wasn't good enough* so heinous legal threats came down on my head)
that however is the deal - that's what you take on board by choosing to be a one man band self employed bloke ... the choice is to give it up and get that proper job mentioned above
but now, in a spang-my-head-with-a-le-creuset-casserole-dish revelation of "one rule for us and fuck the hoi polloi", it seems that MPs on a basic wage of over £60k are claiming for things like a £40 council tax non payment summons (Lembit 'Twatting' Opik), a £1200 rocking chair (Julia 'IKEA is so common' Goldwsorthy) or £847 a month in mortgage for their daughter's flat (Andrew 'I am simply a cunt' George)
am i angry? i am FUCKING APOPLECTIC ... the gathering clouds of civil liberty infringements, ID cards, massive computer databases that don't work, going to war in Iraq on the back of a bare faced lie, the fact that Space Alien Blair is now a superannuated international bureaucrat millionaire etc etc (rant, rave) was all bad enough, but now? People like Cheryl Gillan thought they could claim dog food on expenses? despite earning more money from a five year parliament than a bog standard call centre monkey could earn in 25 years or more? because unlike the poor schmuck voters she was somehow *special*?
aaaaaaargggggghhhhhh
cut their salaries in half - simple
make the buggers live on a "mere" £30-31k a year basic wage .. which still puts them appreciably above median income and into a comfort zone bracket that millions of their fellow citizens can only dream of ... would it create a "flight of talent" from the Commons? Can they seriously argue that we would *notice*?
right, i'm off to the pub then i'm planning on having a stroke later
........................ meep .................. bleuch
Er...
I take it you don't have a moat?
Don't you just miss the good old days of MP legover scandals and research trips to somewhere hot & sunny at our expense.
Good to see Golden Brown is going to sort it all out. But why did he not do that 12 years ago? Ah...somebody mentioned there is an election next year.
No mote in my eye
But a hitherto unsuspected fish supper on each shoulder
When you've recovered
from the stroke/hangover, come round for toast and coffee and we can start planning the coup.
If you have Marmite...
... I'm *there*
Brown or white toast? Sugar? Milk?
You have my vote
Yes - that's about the sum of it
Welcome to Britain!
I'm in agreement with most of the above, um slight rant, altho I do think ID cards are a good thing, and that we should have had them years ago. But they should be free of charge, and must be administered properly. Wherein lies the rub.
Methinks the mo(a)te
is in their eyes.
(R.E. Grade 6 O level 1972)