The basic expense data they tried to suppress can now be downloaded here. If you have a blog, please add your own link to the download and blog about it. Please check your own MP's claims and write to him/her about them, politely requesting further details if necessary. Let's make sure the whole country knows, pace their defender-in-chief Mr Dale, just what sort of people have infiltrated a once-honourable calling. Several comments on Iain's "now, now" piece on the subject today are delightful, but the best is the simplest, calmest and most reasonable;
Quite. Not to mention the antiques, electronics and other goodies we have paid for. As they seem so comfortable living in their sisters' bedrooms, caravans or whatever else allows them to charge the mortgage on their more valuable personal home to the taxpayer, I would provide them with a dormitory instead. I would model it on the worst ward in the NHS and upgrade it every five years as that standard is raised. How long would those Nightingale Wards last then? About five years, is my guess.
If Iain Dale is adopted again as a parliamentary candidate, I hope he first gives a pledge on the issue of expenses, in particular second homes. His defence of the system (thought not, to be fair to him, any particular fraudulent claims) has put him on the "them" side of the "us and them" divide that this issue is opening up in Britain. Particularly as he has been defending them on points as to which he openly blogs that "he hopes" (i.e. he doesn't know) that he's right. I defer to no-one in my respect for his communication skills, but I am damned if I know why the taxpayers should buy him (or any other politician) a house. Whether or not they pay CGT on a subsequent sale.
h/t Guido
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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