The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Who’ll get the blame for the expenses blackout?.

If our politicians truly understood what they have done, in an ethical or even a political sense, they would never have made such a hash of yesterday.  Of course, many of the worse offenders have nothing to lose now (unless by some miracle, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service do their jobs as no-one, tellingly, expects). The massed ranks of doomed Labour backbenchers might as well loot the Palace of Westminster before they leave it. Their careers are over and they will command no more respect in the ethically-barren society their benefits culture has engendered if they don't. As Political Betting points out:

I have some small sympathy with honest Labour MPs. Some Conservative and LibDem members (not to mention the Sinn Fein ones) behaved just as badly as Labour's worst. But Labour was ostentatiously in control throughout, claiming the right to intrude into the minutiae of our lives and to wag the finger of righteousness in our faces. The fact is that the Parliamentary Labour Party's (and the iconically Labour Speaker's) response to this issue was to intimidate and smear honest people seeking the truth and then to cover up. This alone contradicts the tedious daily lie that "I thought it was within the rules/acceptable/approved by the Fees Office." If they did not know they were behaving badly, they would never have tried to conceal it.

For many voters today, Labour's attitude is symbolised by one trivial receipt submitted (and "redacted") by Dr Phyllis Starkey MP (h/t Dizzy);

As a rule of thumb, I never trust anyone in the English-speaking world who mentions their (non-medical) doctorate outside an academic context. They are usually on the make and/or trying to command a respect they know they don't deserve. Dr Starkey has demonstrated that she has neither ethics, political judgement nor a sense of humour. Yes, it's funny, but she can't have known that or she would have realised it would be picked up on for that reason.

This latest fiasco will inflame voters further, given today's headlines. As the scandal happened on its watch, Labour will get the blame. After all, did Labour in Opposition hesitate to trash honest John Major for comparitively minor "sleaze" of which he knew (and could have been expected to know) nothing? Of course not. Blair, Brown and Prescott gleefully made political hay. Those who live by the sword shall perish by it.