Of Bail Outs And Parliamentary Expenses: Has Good Old Britain Gone Bonkers?

October 14, 2009

Anton Goryunov writes: Is it just me, or has everyone gone bonkers in good old Britain? How is it that several hundred bankers rip off the whole nation, by getting tens of billions from the public purse to cover up their incompetence and corruption, and no one seems to mind, yet, when it comes to the expenses of several hundred members of parliament, which amount to a tiny percentage of what the money men have stolen, everyone is up in arms.

OK, I understand that British MPs have been elected to serve the people, and if they are seen as being too generous to themselves it does look a bit annoying. But the thing is that the absolute majority of the MPs have not broken any laws and have not contributed to bankrupting the nation.

What is two and half grand for a TV set? Or four grand for a gardener, especially as it was not a one off payment but a bill for two or three years? Disgrace, total disgrace, screams the British press and some easily excitable members of the public! How do these MPs sleep at night? They must be punished! The must repay back all that money that they have taken for the taxpayers.

And now the MPs have received letters from a bunch of overzealous lawyers and accountants who are telling them to return some of the expenses that they have ‘overclaimed’.
Hold on, people, hold on! The MPs’ expenses were not actually claimed fraudulently. They have been approved by the relevant parliamentary authorities. Whereas the bankers were given the bail-outs illegally. Because you would never convince me that the British people would have approved a massive bail-out of the banks that resulted in several generations saddled with an enormous debt.

So my Russian suspicious mind tells me that something is not right here. And as I am prone to believing in conspiracies of all sorts, I would even go as far as saying that this whole scandal with the MPs’ expenses is used as a smoke screen to cover up a much bigger scandal involving misuse of public funds to save the banking sector.

How was it that the whole of Britain has been taken for a ride by the money men with such ease? And have the MPs been chosen as scapegoats? If this is Western democracy in action, then screw such democracy.

I personally do not trust elected politicians very much and I would agree that some of them need an occasional kick up the arse to keep their sense of reality intact. So some of the British MPs probably deserve to be reprimanded and some of them should probably resign over excessive claims for expenses and allowances. But, ladies and gentlemen, all of this pales into insignificance with the public money that has been showered on the banks? And shouldn’t the money men be forced to pay back the billions that they have been awarding themselves out of the public purse for nothing?

I never thought that I would see the day when the British press would be ignoring one of the biggest swindles in the history of the country, while making up scandals that are not really scandals at all. I thought that these things only happened in Russia. Or in China. Or in North Korea and Cuba.

Well, it seems I was wrong. And it’s sad.

– End –

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