Culture

So said the BBC’s chief political commentator and Brown-noser Nick Robinson on the Today programme this morning about the publishing of leaked, unredacted receipts for cabinet MPs expenses by the Daily Telegraph, 2 months ahead of their official release with key details (ie the damning bits) redacted by the MPs themselves.

Robinson has got this one spectacularly wrong. I certainly don’t think it’s small beer and I doubt fellow voters will either.

But to describe it so is classic Robinson. If any one reporter in mainstream British political media is complicit in the normalisation of politicians’ licensed dishonesty it’s Robinson, whose modus operandi at the BBC has been to focus on internecine parliamentary gossip while fastidiously, and despite the rising stench, ignoring the festering corruption right underneath his nose.

Here the Telegraph describes some of the everyday, mundane corruption; it promises there’s much more to come.

Because MPs can claim up to £24,222 each year for their second home, some MPs appear to go on spending sprees at the end of the financial year to “use up” what they have not already claimed.

Some also appear to take advantage of rules which allowed them, until recently, to claim up to £250 in any category without submitting a receipt, resulting in a rash of claims for cleaners, gardeners and repair bills which came in at £249 per month. And because MPs can claim up to £400 per month for food, with no need for receipts, some put in claims for precisely that amount every month, even during the recess when they are not expected to live at their “second” home.

Other tricks of the MPs’ trade come into play when they decide to step down from Parliament, with some arranging expensive building work on their homes just prior to leaving the Commons before selling them on at a profit. Others are thought to avoid capital gains tax when they sell their “second” homes by telling HM Revenue and Customs that the property is, in fact, their main home and hence is exempt from tax.

Robinson says the the public have outrage fatigue, and that they’ll essentially just shrug at today’s revelations. I don’t know who of the public he asked; perhaps he could’ve asked someone who’s just been made redundant with the prospect of living on sixty pounds a week benefit what they think. I know what I’d think about the man in charge of setting those benefits claiming one and a half times my monthly income, from public money, just for food that they didn’t even need – or even necessarily buy:

James Purnell has come under fire today for claiming £400 a month on food expenses. It is believed that the information has come about as more receipts are leaked to the press. The Daily Star also claims the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Stalybridge and Hyde MP claims for his council tax and utility bills. The receipts are to be released to the public in June.

It really does smack of hypocrisy that it was James Purnell who recently admitted on the Sunday Politics Show that £60 a week Job Seekers Allowance wasn’t enough to live on, but those with families could earn up to £400 a week with tax credits (see video above) to pay for cost of living expenses such as food, rent and utility bills etc. Yet he claims £400 a month on food alone.

Under rules set out by the house of commons, MPs don’t have to submit receipts for groceries, but they are able to claim up to £400 a month under the second home allowance. According to the Daily Star, James Purnell tried to claim £475 a month on his groceries, but this was rejected.

That’s without even mentioning some of the smaller items for which MPs’ve claimed reimbursement. One female Lib Dem even had the gall to claim for a 2.50 eyeliner pencil from Boots . She probably bought it to gussy up for an interview with with Robinson. Boy wonder David Miliband, touted as PM, claimed almost £200 for a pram for his adopted child – it was rejected, but that illustrates better than any other claim the entitlement which MPs feel.

I’m going to spend my morning reading; much as I loathe the Telegraph as a newspaper, and leaving aside my outrage at the substantive issues, to the Westminster scandal junkie and blogger an unprecedented info dump like this is not small beer at all. It’s a gift, a gigantic box of succulent fresh cream truffles and license to eat every single one.