Seven or eight years ago, friends of mine who live in Italy explained the state of British politics at the time by pointing out that the UK was simply falling into line with its European partners in creating a smug, arrogant, self-perpetuating political class which saw nothing wrong with living high on the hog at taxpayers’ expense while doing absolutely nothing to implement the electorate’s wishes.
At the time, I thought my friends were exaggerating. Time has proved that they spoke nothing but the truth.
Gordon Brown was on Radio One earlier today, being interviewed by first-time voters. According to this blog in the Daily Telegraph , he took a bit of a beating. They wanted to know how the PM could justify his own expenses claims – especially the one relating to the cleaning of his house (not No. 10. Downing Street, if you’re wondering – this is for the house he doesn’t use).
If you haven’t clicked the link to James Kirkup’s blog (if not, why not?) here are some of Brown’s responses:
“I hired a cleaner, paid her a decent wage and that’s why people thought it was acceptable. You have someone to clean your house, it’s an acceptable expense.”
“I was paying her more than the minimum wage and [Sir Thomas] told me I had to pay that back. I accepted that.
“I feel my crime was to pay a decent wage to my cleaner, because nobody was saying you can’t claim for cleaning your house.”
The mind doesn’t so much boggle as seize up completely.
David Cameron once accused Brown of being semi-autistic (before wetly withdrawing the charge). Of course, Brown isn’t semi-autistic – he is completely and irrevocably autistic. The world and the human beings who inhabit it are a complete and utter mystery to him.
He is so used to privilege, he is so habituated to the public paying for everything, so wedded to the idea of the state grabbing a huge percentage of what ordinary folk earn by the sweat of their brow, that it doesn’t even occur to him to put his own hand in his pocket and pay for the cleaner himself.
“Nobody was saying you can’t claim for cleaning your house”. Good God, man, you’re the Prime Minister – are you too bloody stupid to figure out for yourself that there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for asking the tax-payer to pay to have your house cleaned. We already pay for No. 10, because it’s publicly-owned. Your house belongs to you – pay for it, you idiot!
“I feel my crime was to pay a decent wage to my cleaner,” he whines. But that’s not true – we were the ones paying for his cleaner, and I must have missed the bit where we agreed to pay top dollar for the privilege of having this rich Scotsman’s home regularly spruced up. Only a politician could try to sound morally superior for having splurged other people’s money on his own private property.
But he was saving the best till last. If steam isn’t already coming out of your ears, how about the piece de resistance, the line that would undoubtedly have the whole nation queuing up to slap this ridiculous man’s miserable, dilapidated face:
“What do I do? I have got two children and a wife that was working at the time.”
Savour that remark. Roll it around your tongue. Place it under a microscope. Prod it. Take a cricket bat and hammer the crap out of it.
Can you spot the teensy-weensy flaw in the underlying logic here?
If you’re a working couple with children, our Prime Minister thinks you should expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for cleaning your home.
This man has been in charge of this nation’s finances for 13 years. This country is pretty much bankrupt. Given his views on what constitutes a sensible use of taxpayers’ money, is it any wonder that the interest alone on Britain’s debt is currently running at £20 million a day?
To think we let this wretched man run our country.
And he did. Right into the ground.
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