Thick as Thieves

It has been a revolutionary week with the public airing their views on news programmes and prime time shows like Question Time and Any Questions.

The phrase that kept falling of the lips of MP's was that it was "an error of judgement."

Miss Caroline Flint "At each stage I sought advice from the House of Commons and never sought to make personal gain from public funds" (The Daily Telegraph, May 08 2009).

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, says she "has not broken any rules" (The Sunday Telegraph, May 10th 2009).

However, if MP's cannot differentiate between morality and rules then they should not be doing the job. Most people know that plants, shrubs and flowers (Mr Miliband) are not "necessary for them to carry out their duties neither do they represent "value for money."

Obviously MP's Ministers and Civil Servants have been working together to feather their own nests and if one person gets away with it then it soon passes along the party gossip chain and everyone keeps quiet about it.

There is no virtue in pleading poverty due to the level of MP's salaries. You cannot claim you go into politics to help people and then complain about the salary. People go into nursing because they care, not because they want to work weekends and all night. Soldiers do their duty because they are soliders not because they want to be killed. Teachers teach because they want to help people learn not because they want to spend evenings and weekends marking or because they want to be rich form their knowledge.

MP's can no longer fool the electorate because the electorate are often more educated than they are. They new what they were doing and did it thinking they could get away with it, just as the directors of Banks did.

It is time for major reform. As one lady said on Any Answers - we need an interim government. There are too many MP's anyway so we can clear out the crooks and let the honest ones stay.

Today I am glad to be an Independent MP as I have not been singed by the fire and brimstone of my fellow MP's.

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