MPs Remain Out Of Touch

This week our wonderful MPs have returned after their 82 day break for rest and recuperation. I think they may have hoped that during their absence the expenses scandal would have gone away, but it has not. The expenses investigator, the grand inquisitor, Sir Thomas Legg, has made up his mind what is reasonable for MPs to have claimed for cleaning and gardening and anything beyond that he has told them they have to pay back. His investigations have revealed more horrors and yet more MPs will be standing down. So far he has not tackled the matter of mortgage fraud - claiming from the tax-payers for houses that they do not live in; flip-flopping between first and second homes to get maximum benefit and then selling at a profit without paying capital gains tax. This is an area where money numbers are large. Apologizing - as Jacquii Smith did - is not enough.

Another matter from the first week back in Westminster that I must comment on is Afghanistan. While MPs were sunning themselves on the beaches for those 82 days, another 37 soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, fighting an un-winnable war with inadequate numbers and inadequate equipment. It is worth remembering that the Russians with 250,000 troops could not control Afghanistan. Yesterday, Gordon Brown had to stand up in the House of Commons and read out the longest list of military deaths in many years and to express his regret at those deaths. And as he did so, the Commons emptied. Have they no shame? Can they not understand some things are unarguable. These men died fighting for their country in a war that has been supported by both Tories and Labour and yet our representatives did not have the decency to sit and listen to the roll call of death and at least give an impression of regret.

They don't get it even now. After the constant reminders that they are out of touch; that they have fiddled their expenses [not all of them]; that none of them has gone to Wootton Bassett to show some concern about the constant parade of coffins holding dead soldiers repatriated via RAF Lyneham, almost every other day of the week; that now they do not even have the decency to listen to the Prime Minister out of courtesy - at least - and out of respect.

On Wednesday, MPs of all parties got together in a meeting to discuss a matter of concern to all. What you may ask? The economy? The recession? The Postal strikes? Afghanistan? None of these. They got together to unite in an attack on Sir Thomas Legg, his review of their expenses and his demands that they do the decent thing and pay up.

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