Wednesday 13 May 2009

MPs housing crisis solved

I've been ranting a bit recently about the more egregious abuses of MPs - and they deserve it. However, someone on Radio 4 this morning pointed out that this distracts us from the major ripoffs. David Cameron is immensely wealthy. Membership of the Bullingdon Club (pictured below) was £10,000 for each student. Yet he claimed £100,000 to cover his mortgage expenses. It seems to work like this: if you're a Tory, you want a bloody big house. So you buy one and charge us for a mansion.

I have a solution. We should only pay for the London house. But here's the cunning bit. We buy them a council house on a sink estate. Not to punish them, but to remind them how millions of people live. After a couple of months, I bet you'd find pressure on local services to improve absolutely everything!

This is the same reason why I suggested that the Supreme Court be based in Stoke, Birmingham or somewhere equally prosaic, rather than cossetted by gentlemen's clubs, fine dining, the old boys' network and corridors of power.


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