Monday 30 March 2009

Put It On My Tab

There seems to be three types of political scandals. There is the run of the mill type where a politician has been abusing his position in the style of Peter Mandelson. Then there are those immorally receiving payment or fiddling the expenses sheet to feather there own nest such as in the case of Neil Hamilton and then there are scandals involving sex.
Sometimes the perfect storm comes along and all three collide with a such force that it is hard to work out what to get outraged about first which is where we find Jacqui Smith today.
The Home Secretary lurched from being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for her decision to designate her sister's house as her main home and therefore claiming the £23,000 expenses for her family house to the much more embarrassing subject of her husband claiming Parliament expenses for buying pornographic movies.
Even David Cameron has admitted that the whole thing is "deeply embarrassing' and he is the leader of the Conservative Party so he knows a thing or two about being embarrassed.
Gordon Brown, as expected, has defended her and the red faced husband hilariously came out to face the media and admit that it was all a misunderstanding and they shouldn't have tried to claim for the couple of adult movies which he watched alone while Mrs Smith was staying at her sisters.
This scandal follows the not quite so funny case of Employment Minister Tony McNulty who claimed the £24,000 allowance towards his parents home which was actually further away from Parliament than his actual home.
With the annual list of MP expenses claim being published today we can expect even more scandals over the next few days or until the G20 riots knock it from the front pages.
Reports, as yet unconfirmed, are that the films were actually Jean Claude Van Damme movies but it was decided that admitting to watching porn was less embarrassing.

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