Perhaps you will remember that a few weeks ago I related the story of a certain Mr Wilshire, MP for Spelthorne in England who had, contrary to Commons’ regulations, paid his expenses into a company which he and his partner owned. You may also remember that, busy man that he is, he forgot to register the company for tax purposes, or National Insurance purposes, and, I suppose in the way that these things go, the silly old sausage completely forgot to pay any of these taxes that the rest of us are burdened with. I’m sure I won’t have to remind you that his partner had some sort of animal nesting in her hair, which may account for some of their forgetfulness.
You may also remember that according to his version of the tale, he decided that he had let people down and so he decided to stand down as the MP. Not right away, you understand (thereby losing a fat parcel of goodies), but, he was so ashamed he decided to stay on till next May.
Of course the official version was somewhat different. It went like this: the Tory Chief Whip had him in and told him he was a bit of an old disgrace and just the sort of chap that gave the Conservatives a bad name, so Dave the leader had decided that he would have to go. Oh well, it was close and it’s easy to mix these things up.
So now Mr Wilshire has, on Commons stationery, and using Commons prepaid envelopes (so as not to dig into any of that profit he was making), written a 2-page letter to every single Spelthorne constituent explaining his side of the debacle. Wasn’t that kind of him?
I won’t bother you with all the trivial details of the letter, in fact I don’t even know them all, but the Daily Telegraph thought this was a particularly interesting part of the narrative, and I agree.
Mr Wilshire wrote: “The witch hunt against MPs in general will undermine democracy. It will weaken parliament - handing yet more power to governments. Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers.”
I think that in the first part of that statement he’s kinda mixed things up a little. It’s the fact that so many MPs turned out to be nothing better than cheap little benefit cheats that has undermined parliament and thus democracy. Indeed the so-called witch-hunt has probably strengthened what little democracy we have left. The second half of the statement is beneath contempt. To compare what is happening to MPs with the holocaust death camps is below the level that we expect even from the likes of Wilshire.
It is a travesty that this odious little man is allowed to continue in his post as MP, on his salary of around £63,000 and make insulting statements on our stationery and deliver them at our expense.
There is a certain supreme audacity in a politician's claim that outrage against MP misconduct may lead to a sort of Parliamentary holocaust.
ReplyDeleteIn New York politics this would be called chutzpah. (All successful New York politicians have it in abundance.)
(Chutzpah is illustrated in law by the child who murdered his parents and then pleaded for mercy due to the fact that he is an orphan.)
Danny
ReplyDeleteThat seems mild compared to some of the unbelievable things that these MPs and Peers get up to.
“Repulsive” is a word that springs to mind when thinking about this “person”. What more can you say????
ReplyDeleteOutside of his own constituency, Munguin, there are few who have or had heard of this wee weasel (with profound apologies to all weasels). He was one of these MPs in a rock solid seat who never had to do anything at all for his living. He is now famous for being a cheat, but on top of that he has, since he was caught out, screamed like a stuck pig (with profound apologies to all pigs) and made wild accusations about treating people of a particular group in a particular way leads to gas chambers. For that he will be remembered.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, a glance at his Wikipedia page reveals that he was less worried about this kind of thing when he was busily promoting Section 28 and various other bills denying rights to homosexuals. Maybe he doesn't care if they go to the gas chambers.
He sounds rather like the kind of low life that doesn't care who goes to the gas chambers as long as it's not him.
Some good has come out of all this for him. He is now well known for his views on how people like him should be treated, for dodgy business dealing and for having a "girlfriend" with a plantpot for a head. Fame at last Mr Wilshire.