There'll be more tears before second-home time

Maurice O'Brien • Published 12 Feb 2010 13:00 0 Comments

GOOD to see the aristocracy, either real or manufactured, can hold their own when it comes to dipping into the public purse.

There might not be any serfs to persecute or tithes to collect, but once the more idle habitues of the House of Lords exchange all that old rope they apparently can't be expected to get home to the main ancestral pile more than once a month.

Proving it's difficult to keep an eye on our money, you may have missed MEPs, already trousering £360,000 annually in salary, expenses and allowances, voting themselves another £1,700 a month (totalling an extra £15m a year) to hire additional assistants. And why? I kid you not, it's all the extra work generated by new powers given them under the Lisbon Constitreaty. The Constitreaty only the Irish ever got to vote on. Twice.

Back in Westminster the reptiles still wriggling furiously haven't twigged that had they been any of their hard-working constituents or, heaven forbid, part of the benefits system, they'd by now be occupying double-bunk accommodation with en suite toilet.

But of all the craven, snivelling, self-serving excuses for their 'mistakes', the real eye-catcher came from scarlet-lipped crone Barbara Follett, wife of a millionaire author, who's repaying more than £42,000. Looking suitably tragic, Follett told a TV interviewer: "I did try to act as honestly as possible, but where I failed I'm sorry."

What's that about? Either you're honest or you're not.

* A PERFECT antidote to this sea of cynicism and sleaze is an hour in the company of Year 5 at Ridgeway Primary School in Whitley. It was a privilege and pleasure to do that last Thursday when asked to provide tips on producing a class newspaper for a line-up of bright-eyed, inquisitive faces who quizzed me with wit and perception on anything from careers to ethics, and certainly didn't require my help to improve some pretty sparky headlines. Maybe it was tempting fate to confide that a most important attribute for reporters is being nosy, so I shouldn't have been surprised when the last question was: "How old are you?" Having answered truthfully, I didn't have the heart to inform the inquisitor that his sharp intake of breath and low volume "phwoar" was slightly unnecessary.

* THE latest political craze for blubbing on telly puts me in mind of my mum when confronted with attention-seeking childhood tears.

"Stop that," she'd admonish us, "or I'll give you something to really cry about."

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This blog appeared in Reading Chronicle 11 Feb 10

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