MP's Expenses

I just watched Margaret Beckett on Newsnight. When asked about the £600 she had claimed for garden plants and a new pergola on her expenses, she refused to discuss the matter, only saying that the rules were followed. (It sounded a little like a child caught doing wrong and denying any wrong doing regardless of the circumstances or evidence.) While Foreign Secretary, she had access to a taxpayer-funded apartment in London, but like other ministers with similar privileges, she registered that as her primary residence. Sorry, Ms Beckett, but you were a member of the labour party and the government in the 1970’s. You and the party at that time purported to be socialist. There were many honourable socialists in that government. But for you to be at the trough with the rest of the rest of the pigs just because it didn’t break the rules betrays the foundation, the principles and the aims if the labour and socialist movement. If I were you, I’d hang my head in shame. I wait for the day that the labour party returns to its roots and once again becomes the party of the people, the disenfranchised and the ordinary working man and woman. I will be interested to see whether you resign from the labour party or if you change colours again and profess your socialist beliefs to keep your snout in the seemingly bottomless pit of benefits that the current administration denies ordinary people.

I have never voted for an individual. I vote according to the party they belong to and that party’s political, economic and social allegiance. These last 11 years have not given me that option, so I have voted according to my conscience, often meaning I have voted according to the beliefs of an individual. Often an independent. Often the lesser of several evils. If the labour party returned to its roots and I believed it to be genuine in its return, I would once again vote for them. However, if by some twist of fate Margaret Becket was our candidate, no matter what she professed to be her allegiance or belief, I certainly would use my vote elsewhere.

More Revelations HERE and HERE.