X-pense claims

Firstly, I'm going to admit that this post is ill-researched and a) could be completely wrong and/or b) could be an argument so old-hat it's being used by the 'Summer Wine' costume department. Nevertheless, it was my gut reaction to a recent news story, and if blogs are useful for one thing, it's disseminating ill thought-out knee-jerk reactions. Perhaps it's just my tendency to be contrary, but my first reaction to the MPs expenses scandal was: 'it's all our fault'.  Allow me to explain:

Let's say, for instance, you regularly vote for Party X. You think it's the party that best serves your interests and you trust it to assemble the best possible team of advisors and representatives, in order that they can win elections and, ultimately, represent you. With me so far?

So, somewhere along the line, it's someone's job to recruit the brightest and best to join the party. By the 'brightest and best', I mean Chief Executives of companies, powerful figures in the world of the media and PR (I believe David Cameron had an executive role at Carlton Television, before joining the Conservatives, for example) and the so-called 'Captains' of industry.

All very well. So Party X spots a Chief Executive they'd love to have on board, and said Chief Exec is quite keen on the chance to enter politics: it appeals to his/her ego and they relish a new challenge. There's only one problem. They're earning 300k a year in their current job, and even if their fledgling political career went extremely well, they still only stand to make around 60k at best.

As far as I can tell, Party X has two options at this point: 1) They reach lower down the food chain of expertise and recruit a sweaty middle-management type in a cheap suit, to whom 60k represents a significant increase in wages, or 2) Point out to the Chief Executive that there's an incredibly generous expenses and privileges package waiting for him/her at Westminster, that no one need ever know about.

So you see my point. If the political parties asked the general public 'should we pay MPs more?' the answer will always be a resounding and obvious 'no'. So, as always seems to be the case in modern politics, they've had to find a third way. If politicians salaries were increased to reflect those of other powerful, influential positions of responsibility, we could scrap the expenses system all together.  'Here's a load of money...' we'd say, 'do what you like with it, so long as you do the best job you possibly can. If you fail, we'll vote you out.' 

Fair enough? Maybe. I'm not entirely convinced of this idea myself, yet. However, I do think it would quickly put an end to the current abuses. It might even attract a better calibre of person to politics, rather than the slimy, robotic Blears-esque twatsalads we've got at the moment.

Of course, I was as outraged by the behaviour of the politicians as anyone else. But I can't help but think that one of the root causes of this type of scandal lies in the general publics churlish, willfully ignorant view of the real world. Take me, for example: my wage is ridiculously low and I have hardly any privileges. Yet the other day when I wanted to send something in the post to my friend Andy,  I didn't think twice about 'abusing' my position and sticking it in the outgoing post tray, even though the letter wasn't college business. The chance to abuse the system was there, so I took it. Perhaps this expenses debacle actually serves to prove that politicians are real people after all.