Let the MPs take a break - it might prove less costly

Maurice O'Brien • Published 23 Jul 2009 08:00 0 Comments

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SOME people are saying it wasn't just the holiday MPs were taking when they bunked off for their record 82-day break this week.

Not me guv. Let them go, I say. Give the little devils their freedom. They'll certainly do far less harm wherever they're headed and, once they've worked out exactly which address the family's living at, they might even try the therapy of paying an occasional bill. Now wouldn't that be novel?

The summer will naturally be pretty tough for some of the poor souls. This year there won't be too many Disneyland fact-finding tours, missions to study the qualities of the sand in Cannes, or probes of the relative merits of inner-city local government in Tahiti and Hackney.

Not that they waste much time loafing around Westminster anyway; all that arcane Eurobabble legislation, taking ever larger bites out of our sovereignty without honourable House of Commons members giving it anything more than a cursory nod while it's being whisked through by the sackload.

Fair play to the MPs who've finally broken the cross-party 'omerta' by speaking out over the appalling standard of equipment and resources which leaves our armed forces fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.

But they've known about this scandalous situation for years, so why have they sat on their hands until now when British deaths are tragically becoming a daily occurrence?

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with next year's general election could it? All those towns up and down the country where the population mirrors the emotions of Wootton Bassett but won't get a chance to demonstrate its feelings until polling day. But even when it came to discussing the shambolic legislation on their new disciplinary procedures there were barely two dozen MPs in the Commons arguing the toss over whether they should be banged up for not coming clean about their dosh.

Admittedly the mumbling, stumbling debating skills of Jack 'They call me Justice' Straw aren't exactly box office, but that didn't excuse the fact that more than 500 MPs only materialised on the benches, as if by cinematic special effects, when it was time to shuffle off sheeplike to cast their votes. One thing's for sure, few of them had been swayed by the arguments.

But apparently, bless them, many MPs haven't been looking forward to their summer hols because they feel persecuted by a nation which has had the wool pulled from its eyes and can see that a sizeable number of them are spiv shysters capable of cheating their own grannies out of a second mortgage.

Either way, having to buy your own breakfast cereal for 82 mornings is enough to depress anyone.

This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 23 Jul 09

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