Expenses claim rant (brace yourselves!)

I've started flicking over the first half a dozen or so pages of the Daily Mail every day because I fear that if I read any more about the 'expenses' claims of British MPs I shall burst an important artery in my brain and end up having to be pushed around in a bath chair by Andy for the rest of my expenses free life. Today, I headed straight for the health pages to see what diseases I had instead.

What I don't understand, and forgive me if I'm being very simplistic about this, is how can a person who is paid a very good salary then go on to receive what amounts to an additional salary by claiming various and here I am going to add the word 'extravagant', living expenses? On Saturday, for example, I read that MPs are entitled to claim £400 a month for food. Even when they are in recess. £400?????? I don't even spend half of that a month for Andy and myself (and that's TWO of us, you MPs, TWO! Ask your accountant to verify this as you seem to have a complete inability to grasp basic economic maths). And believe me, we like food and we eat well. I can't get over it. £400???? (See? I am so appalled I keep repeating myself.) FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS!! A MONTH!!!!

And today, claims have been revealed for things like horse dung for a garden. Good grief, if you go to a riding stables, they'll give it to you for NOTHING!! And some Tory bloke charged us tax-payers for cleaning out his moat. His MOAT???? Actually, I'm glad I'm not in paid employment at the moment, because it means I'm not paying income tax and inadvertently funding this bunch of immoral opportunists for their multiple electric appliances and replacement toilet seats. (Our upstairs loo seat is coming to the end of its life. Can I claim for a new one? No. I'll have to buy it out of our earned household income like most normal people have to. It's called managing a budget. Sometimes, MPs and House of Lords, you have to forego these luxuries if you find you can't afford them. I know, shocking isn't it?)

And do you know who annoys me most? Hazel Blears, that's who (although Prescott comes a pretty close second, but he annoys me just by breathing). She was on telly over the weekend saying she understands how angry people are about this situation and something must be done about it, like getting a panel of 'ordinary' people together to decide how the system could be changed. Here's an idea, Hazel, you mad loon - how about getting yourself a moral compass??? They don't cost anything, so no claiming it on expenses, you naughty person. If anyone needs pushing off her motorcycle to wipe that smug little grin from her smug little ginger-topped faced, it's her.

I've been telling myself all week that I wasn't going to sully my blog by commenting on this current issue, but on Saturday a pile of leaflets from various political parties appeared through the letterbox canvassing for my vote for the June elections. I toyed with using them to line the bottom of Mrs Pumphrey's hospital ward facility, but she's making such good progress that I didn't want her to have a set-back so I chucked them straight in the recycle bin. You see, I've never had a politician call on me unless there is an election in the offing. They never come along to ask me how I'm doing. Are there any community issues that are affecting me at the moment? Would I like anything done about, say, all the morons coming out of the nightclubs at 2 in the morning and making a racket as they return home, drunk and swearing? Or about the yobs who park their often untaxed cars on the pavement or even across our driveway so people have to walk into the road to get past and Andy can't get into his own property at the end of a hard day's work.

No, I have come to the conclusion that politicians just don't care. The only time they do care is when their parliamentary position is likely to be affected by the outcome of an election. I suppose I can understand really. Just think of all the expenses and perks they'll miss out on if they lose their seat. I mean, when you've seen a darling pair of curtains in Laura Ashley that'll look super in the dining room of your second home it's obvious the taxpayer must foot the bill. And a second home is imperative when the trains are so awful and sometimes your chauffeur just doesn't want to hang about until after the vote for what colour shall we have the loos in the Commons painted this year, so I can't possible get home and have to stay in the City even though my main residence (for Inland Revenue purposes) is only 15 miles away from the Houses of Parliament (besides staying over will save on travelling back for that dinner at the Ritz tomorrow - got to find some way of shifting that £400 a month food allowance before the expense submission cut-off date.)

I think Andy should be on Ms Blears' panel of 'ordinary people' (even though he is, in fact, an extraordinary person.) He has 2 good ideas of how to solve this problem. Solution 1 is to build a cheap hotel next to Parliament. Each MP and Lord could have their own room (bed, wardrobe, loo, shower and okay, a tv I suppose) and they would stay there after late sessions. There would be a cafe downstairs supplying healthy, nutritiously balanced five-a-day food (no alcohol or cigarettes) and a gym so MPs could maintain a healthy BMI.

The second option is exactly the same only instead of a hotel, MPs and Lords would stay in a ship on the Thames.

Which could then be taken out to sea and sunk...