JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT MPs, THIS IS EARTH

You couldn’t make this up. The poor wee MPs think that they shouldn’t have to be bothered by a complicated and chaotic expenses system where they have to provide receipts for the things they want us to pay for.

And so they demanded, and were granted, a debate on the subject. The Telegraph reports: The packed session lasted five times longer than the most recent debate on the conflict in Afghanistan, with MPs abandoning their usual custom of quitting Westminster early on Thursday afternoons to attend to constituency duties.

(Or whatever else they like to do on Thursdays and Fridays....)

Obviously this was a matter far closer to their hearts than the fate of the troops out in Afghanistan, who strangely seemed to be so much closer to their hearts at election time. Isn’t it odd how one’s sympathies can change so dramatically.

By all accounts it was an extremely heated debate with MPs losing their tempers and laying down the law. They would not, said Tom Harris, be treated like that.

Treated like what Tom? Oh yes, like ordinary people, having to prove every last halfpenny, being sent back after waiting in a queue that seemed to last forever, because one tiny scrap of evidence was wrong... Like a post office maybe, or the tax office, or the passport office, or the benefits office Tom? Is that what you people will NOT be treated like?

You were all running around 6-8 months ago pretending to be whiter than white. Oh yes, we need new system, new rules, tighten up, oh yes voters we are definitely going to do that. But then the votes were counted and ...well, there you are. Your expenses are 5 times more important than the war you sent people to fight in.

Ann Clwyd the little soldier, was angry than MPs reputations had been smeared by the expense scandal. Surely not! Isn’t that awful?

She complained that someone had come up to her while she was campaigning (this is the time that MPs actually meet the public) and shouted “thief”. She said, in a very un-feminist way, that if she had been a man she would have run after him and punched him on the nose.

A Tory, Roger Gale complained that there was mistrust in IPSA... Hello! What planet are these people on?

Let’s see. More than half of them fiddled their expenses. There had to be a grass roots change including sacking the Speaker!!! Mistrust Roger, you nob? I wouldn't trust any of you with a pound coin.

The new people authority was appointed because MPs and Lords were stealing... what did they expect from the new staff? Blank cheques.

Here’s the deal MPs: We pay the IPSA to check up that you people aren’t stealing any more, and god knows some already are, with their first class train fares, and renting out the houses that we bought for them, and living in the cheaper rented accommodation sorted by parliament.

Labour MP Clive Efford said: “I have spoken to MPs who have been in tears about the financial situation that they have been put in by Ipsa, who are not here speaking today."

Well why are they not there, or did you just make that up? But if they were in tears matey...welcome to our world. Nothing works and nobody cares. That’s the world you created for us. Have some.

I don’t think these people have the foggiest idea just how angry the public is with them. There is a new air of defiance about us though. Maybe one day soon they will find out just how angry we are.

Pics: (1) The House of Commons; (2) Tom Harris’s plea to members of his own party to elect him to the shadow cabinet. They didn’t. He has categorically denied that he has stopped writing his extremely successful blog because he was told to by Ed, whom he doesn’t like and didn't vote for, but from whom he wants a job. (3) Ann Clwyd, training to be a poodle if only she weren’t just a weak and feeble woman! (4) Roger Gale, bless him, so out of touch after 27 years as an MP that he thinks any of us give a toss what he thinks about mistrust in the IPSA. Time he got another job and saw what life is actually like. Tescos are looking for people.