A Tory MEP (Member of the European Parliament) has been caught “channelling” expenses into a company account owned by his family. Like the Speaker of the House of Commons he was supposed to be stopping corruption, not indulging in it himself (does corruption cease to be corruption if it is technically “within the rules”? - I don’t think so). On Newsnight Kirsty Wark interviewed a Liberal-Democrat MEP and exposed on air the fact that he was “channelling” his expenses (which are HUGE) into running the Liberal-Democrat Party (and so imposing on us, without any mandate, taxpayer funding of political parties).
The Tory MEP tried to claim it was all a mistake. A “whoops-a-daisy” accident whereby the money sort-of fell into a place is shouldn’t have. It reminded me of Father Ted, exiled to a remote island parish for financial misdemeanours, who claimed “that money was only resting in my account.”
More on Father Ted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Ted
Above: Victoria Coren writing about Margaret Beckett's pergola.
No comments:
Post a Comment