I hate Ruth Kelly

Yeah, this snooty pompous Brown "babe" is on the expenses gravy train too.

She claimed thousands of pounds for damage to her second home caused by flooding.

If my house were flooded and damage ran into large sums of money, the first thing I would think is to contact my insurer about it.

But, like all MPs, Ms Kelly first thought "I'll claim it on expenses".

I also find it quite interesting how MPs from all parties are coming out in support of the change in the rules to permit Gurkhas to live in Britain. If they have all supported this for a long as they claim, why does it only happen when support for the Government is at an all time low? Answers on a postcard..

Serallan

You're a twat

More bad news

This week we have heard that a baby was orphaned after its parents both died after they jumped into a river to try and rescue their dogs. A sad story, but I am surprised that we've not had the standard Government kneejerk - ban rivers. Or dogs.

On North West Tonight there was a story about a child that had hanged himself, and his father blamed "high energy drinks" such as Red Bull, calling for a ban on all energy drinks. Again a sad story. His father stated that the child was "bouncing off walls" and always hyper. I'm not really sure what hanging yourself has to do with high energy drinks though. He also declined to say who was buying the child these drinks and why he didn't do anything to stop it.

Finally what's the best way of gaining permanent residence in the UK if you're a Gurkha? Die in Afghanistan. Sad but true.

They are all ripping us off

So, finally the grand old tale of how much of our money the Members of Parliament are creaming off to feather their nests is exposed. After all, in a system that allows you to fund a second life on expenses it is not surprising to see all members taking part in it.

The News of the World came up with a cracking promotion this week; just collect tokens to enter a competition to "live like an MP" - food bills paid, mortgage paid, gas and electric paid, home improvements paid. The only downside was that they were only offering £75,000 - about half what an MP claims on expenses every year.

I find it quite funny that over the weekend a special hotline was set up for MPs to come clean about expenses that they feared would be exposed and pay them back before they were. It's a whole web of deceit, and certainly a very very long gravy train. Why is our entire so-called democratic system so institutionally dishonest?

The MPs that have been caught are all coming out now claiming that they never supported the system and how they believe it should be changed. That is mightily convenient. They didn't seem to think about that when they were milking it dry for things such as sit on lawnmowers, under soil heating for their tennis courts and trimming of foliage around their helipad.

One in particular that I despise is Barbara Follett, who apparently is the Tourism Minister (although I would hedge not for long). She happens to be married to a best selling author who himself earns around £15million per year from his books. She claimed £25,000 for security patrols at her second home because she "didn't feel safe".

Some of them are paying the money back but it is important to note that this is only happening because they got caught.

Blame, according to MPs, is planted firmly at the door of the Fees Office for approving claims made, however the Fees Office in turn blames the MPs for submitting claims for frivolous items and says it is not their job to decide whether something can be claimed for or not. Hardly the shock of the century, I know.

Both are at fault.

There is also group of MPs that switch their second home repeatedly around the multiple homes in their property empire in order to claim expenses on each one for renovations. It is a disgrace.

I for one cannot believe Hazel Blears is still an MP after her cynical switching of homes both for expenses purposes and tax avoidance purposes. If it were anyone else they would have been arrested for tax evasion, but since she is Member of Parliament she will no doubt get away with it scot free, disappearing to the back benches in a reshuffle.

The salary for being a MP is hardly paltry, yet I would not be surprised if in the case of most of them their salary goes directly into the bank, unspent. The ease with which some of these MPs are able to pay back tens of thousands of "misclaimed" expenses tells you that most of them have feathered their nest. Mind you, the fact that even unknowns have multimillion pound country retreats and live like aristocracy tells you that.

There was a classic interview on Sky News with former MP Lord Foulkes yesterday where his agenda was clearly to ignore the fact that MPs are lining their pockets and ignore the fact that the Speaker Michael Martin is also doing it and trying to block publication of further expenses claims, but instead assault the interviewer and tell them they don't offer as much value as an MP.

Foulkes is also Scottish and clearly he is friends with the Speaker as he spewed out some rehearsed nobody-to-somebody rhetoric about the Speaker being from Glasgow, where according to him not many people get to the "top". More like he is trying to appease the hard working people from Scotland because he knows they will be livid to see a so called hard Labour man from a Labour heartland living the life of riley at their expense and trying his utmost to prevent anyone finding out about it.

When Foulkes was interviewed on the BBC, he was told the presenter earned £92,000 which according to him is almost twice as much as an MP. He does sort of have a point there in that the BBC is also funded by taxpayers albeit by an optional tax. However, she is not stealing money to supplement her earnings whereas all MPs are. To say an MP earns £67,000 is not the whole story - that all gets banked, and their living costs and any luxuries are all claimed on expenses.

If I got a job in London, I'd have to move there and buy a place to live. If you're a MP, you get it all for free. In fact even if an MP already lives in London, they can and do still claim for another house. That in itself tells you that it's "worth it" for them to do so, if only for the giant profit that they will pocket when they sell it. And it should not be.

They should be provided with a flat in London and the second home allowance should be scrapped. All current second homes should be sold and the profit split in proportion between the public purse and the MP. Paying for food should be scrapped, and paying for any furniture or renovations should be scrapped. This would remove any second home switching in order to abuse the system for more gains.

Even Gordon Brown has made an apology about all this; but why now? He knew about it all along and indeed he was part of it. Same for David Cameron: apparently he went ballistic at some of his party for their expenses claims.

He will have known about it, so please "Dave", give up with the publicity stunts.