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Snout like bad timing
Posted Colin Byrne on July 4th, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Politics
No one doubts that public servants – including MPs – should be paid a decent wage for doing an important job.
Being an MP should not involve having to supplement your income with outside paid work which either diverts your time from doing the job well or gives rise to a conflict of interest. Nor should it be the preserve of those who can afford to take it up, like a hobby.
But for God’s sake, being in politics means you should be aware of the importance of timing, public perception and the need for transparency.
So when British consumers are reeling from escalating fuel and food prices, declining property values and a daily dose of dismal economic headlines, it is perhaps not the best time to inspire a clutch of “snouts in the trough” headlines.
It’s not just the sight of MPs preserving the right to sofas and toast racks on the taxpayer that will p*** people off, but resisting the sort of scrutiny that the rest of us face filling in our tax returns.
How can politicians with any credibility lecture us to pull together in the face of tough economic times and then appear to stick two fingers up at their electorate like this??? Do they not get the bad joke?
The reputation of Parliament and British politics just took another nose dive, and frankly the stupid sods deserve it.
Opinion polls may oscillate, but more and more the whole body politic looks insular, isolated, out of touch and in it for themselves and their own petty squabbles while the rest of society worries about everything from gang culture and street crime to affording a place to live, the weekly shop and filling the car up.
Voting is increasingly becoming something to kick a party or politician you don’t like rather than a positive democratic act.
Brilliant timing guys.
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