Ms Laing and Ms Starkey, two of the women concerned for their safetyOn Friday of last week I mentioned that a junior minister at the Department of Work and Pensions had pointed out that, without the right to claim on expenses for a cleaner, women would not be able to take up jobs as MPs. I mentioned the patently obvious fact that there was no difference between an MP and any other worker, and I drew the conclusion that what, in effect, this woman was saying was that NO WOMAN would be able to take ANY job, unless their employer paid for a cleaner: a rather strange and somewhat impracticable notion for a minister in the Department of WORK and Pensions to come up with.
Today, according to The Daily Telegraph, a group of female MPs have said that reforms proposed by Christopher Kelly will put female MPs at risk of sexual assault. This particular claim is based on the proposal that second homes allowance should only be available to MPs who live a certain distance from the Commons, meaning that some MPs may have a little farther to travel after work. It is only fair to Kelly to mention at this point that he said that taxi fares could be claimed when the House sat late, in place of the allowance, as that would be much cheaper.
Several of the group are, apparently, people whose expenses have come in from criticism in the past and they come from both Tory and Labour benches. Isn’t it strange how these people can work together in perfect harmony when it involves them getting their grasping little trotters on some more of our cash?
Once again, I cannot for a minute assume that these women think that MPs should be different from anyone else, and if they feel that the streets of Britain are so full of sexual perverts that none of them is safe out alone after dark (even in a taxi cab paid for by the tax payer), they must be proposing that ALL women who work should be provided by their employers with a second home allowance so that they can live right next to their place of employment. I’d suggest that this is another rather impracticable proposal given the current financial meltdown situation.
These women who seem to feel that they are being treated unfairly might like to remember that attacks (albeit rarely sexual ones) are perpetrated on men as well as women, and they might want to speak to the Home Secretary about doing something about the Law and Order issues that they have such problems with.
OK, so that was all a bit of a joke. Let’s get down to the truth. These women have a car park that they can use for free under the House of Commons. Additionally, to suit different life choices, they are being offered taxis at our expense, door to door. (I’m sure we could arrange to vet the taxi company to ensure that there are no perverts on its staff, although that company might respond by asking for a similar check on the MPs.) The truth is that they are not in the least worried about being attacked. What they are worried about is no longer being allowed to buy a second home cheap, have it done up at our expense as a second home, and then sell it on at a massive profit, having carefully flipped it to make sure that it no longer attracts any Capital Gains Tax.
I don’t know how many of you feel as angry as I do about these people who just won’t give it up, while the rest of us cope with the results of the recession that they have overseen. They need to remember that we sent them to parliament to look after OUR interests. They seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time looking after their own!!
