The fifth anniversary of the Daily Telegraph exposures about MPs’ expenses once again brings to mind that, like so many other cases involving the Establishment, it was the little people that got done over while the real culprits escaped free. No-one can condone the offences for which half a dozen lesser known MPs were sent to prison, but they were the small fry compared with the front-benchers of all the main parties who have never been booked. As indeed that paragon of virtue, Maria Miller, was the first to remind us.
As she slowly twisted in the wind as a result of enriching herself from taxpayers’ generosity over housing allowances, one of her ploys to try to hang on was digging up precedents of well-known MPs who maxed up mortgages on properties they had bought at much lower prices or even owned outright. It makes interesting reading. Continue reading
For many Labour supporters who woke up this morning, this is what ‘schadenfreude’ was introduced into the lexicon for. The smell of toast Lib Dem wafted through their windows up and down the country. In the year since Britain fell back under Tory domination, the most passionate vitriol has been reserved for the Lib Dems: it’s the sense many had that, after all, you expect to be screwed by the Tories, but the Lib Dems should really know better. 
