Tony McNulty has rather more in common with our Home Secretary than a passing acquaintance with the hash pipe. A rare facility with money (so badly needed right now) and a sufficient lack of shame when claiming Parliamentary expenses. Let's face it, Tony could cycle in from Harrow, let alone commute.
It doesn't matter whether these spurious claims for expenses are within the rules or not. It wouldn't matter if they were signed off by the Pope or even God himself. They stink, and the same goes for the rotten politicians who claim them.
Mr McNulty has made the point that he was claiming against the cheaper of his two 'homes', and moreover that he recently stopped claiming the allowance at all. With interest rates being so low he can now cover his mortgage payments from his Parliamentary salary, he reassures us by way of explanation. I suppose the gullible might buy that, even if they harbour the faint suspicion that he was primarily motivated by the fear of exposure. The cynical however would rather suspect the opposite. He hadn't realised that Jacqui Smith's success in claiming on her family home (because it brought in more) was allowed, and he was intending to follow her example as soon as possible.
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Given that they're trying their best to make a demagogue out of Fred Goodwin (undeserving of his honorific title, so I won't use it), and hence have somewhere else for the media to throw rotten tomatoes, you'd have thought they'd have been extra careful about keeping their own moral house in order. But at the same time as we have your old friend Harriet whining that whatever's legally right for Goodwin doesn't cut the ice; the 'court of public opinion' should ensure he gives back his lucre, we have McNutcase and his ilk clinging desperately to the letter of the law just as tenaciously and shamelessly as Goodwin. Can no-one see the hypocrisy?
Incidentally whilst the papers today are full of more revelations about Goodwin's greed and deranged ego (having the bank cough up for fruit to be flown from Paris to Edinburgh regularly ... and writing aggressive memos about the right sort of biscuits he wanted at meetings), it only goes to show what a painfully inadequate job the financial system did of regulating executive compensation for failing companies, and much more to the point, what a disastrous job the government did when handling the state buy-out, which should have been predicated on those responsible at least having their perks thoroughly examined ...
I'm afraid that I'd missed today's revelations about Fred Goodwin up to now, although they scarcely come as any surprise. More interesting though are claims that some of the RBS's non-executive directors knew that the bank was in trouble, but were bullied into keeping quiet with threats of losing their directorships (and the £72,000 salary they enjoyed). If true, the bank's directors were operating outside the law and (you will obviously possess expertise here that I lack)) would I believe face unlimited personal liability as a consequence. That's the route I'd go down with Fred and his cronies.
Hypocrisy tends to be most politicians' stock-in-trade and always has been, most of all when it comes to their financial interests.
I should have thought this post needs updating, in respect of Mr Hoon and many of his dishonerable friends ...
My apologies for my delay in responding, PU. Circumstances entirely beyond my control have kept me away for a while. But no longer...
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