If anyone’s looking for tips on how to move ahead investigating our MPs and their expenses, this old post of mine from 2008 has some good ideas:
I now want the Action Squad to co-ordinate a new drive against the hard core of ‘hard nut’ cases.
That car of theirs? is the tax up to date? Is it insured? Let’s find out.
And have they a TV licence for their plasma screen? As the advert says, ‘it’s all on the database.’
As for their council tax, it shouldn’t be difficult to see if that’s been paid
And what about benefit fraud? Can we run a check?
How could any MP object to such investigation? Those aren’t my words, those are Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s in a speech by to the 2008 ‘Anti-Social Behaviour: We’re not Having It‘ conference.
Of course she was admitting to using the power of the state to harass individuals because they behave in ways the government disapproves of or finds politically inconvenient, not because they’re committing any crime.
But we’re told that if you have nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear, so I’m sure Honourable Members, especially Labour Members , won’t mind such close scrutiny at all.