Bought to account

As mentioned yesterday, I am launching a second career as a politician. A number of eminently winnable seats will be up for grabs at the next election as MP after MP falls on their own sword (purchased no doubt with taxpayers money). The MP for South Blacburyshire, Sir Godfrey Fleece, is one who has said he will go after damaging revelations about his beach footwear appeared in the media. Apparently he designated one pair of loose fitting sandals as his main pair for tax purposes but a different pair for allowance claims. Then he switched the designations – flip-flopping the flip-flops. So I will be standing as an independent next time out, with a particular emphasis on umbrella issues.

This whole sorry episode shows an extreme abuse of power and is highly embarrassing for all those elected to serve. If they haven’t got the nous to use that power to keep these things quiet then they don’t deserve to have it as they are clearly incompetent. If the Chancellor himself can’t stick £700 of dodgy expenses “off balance sheet” what hope have we got of him massaging economic figures to give a positive spin? I have no issue with them milking the system, that is what it is there for after all, like a great big bureaucratic cow. But it is the fact they are witless enough to get found out that makes them unfit for office. And apart from anything else it all makes it less of an attractive gravy train for those that follow to board and slurp from.

I find the whole moral outrage about this a little hypocritical. Who among us hasn’t pinched a biro from work or bought a knocked off illegal soft porn DVD from a bloke in a pub car park sorry your honour I thought it was legit but I can’t find the receipt honest swear on my dog’s life guv.
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There is absolutely no difference between knicking an envelope from the work stationery cupboard (value: 2 pence) and avoiding capital gains tax or claiming for a mortgage that has already been paid off (value: tens of thousands of pounds of public money) apart from the obvious difference that the latter is worth a great deal more money, taxpayer’s money at that, and has been perpetrated by those supposed to be making life better for everyone and not just themselves. I suppose congratulations should be in order for the fact that they kept it going for so long – good effort chaps – but ultimately they have paid the price for getting caught.

If I get elected I will back reforms to the system that allow continued exploitation of it with the cast iron certainty of no one ever finding out. But what I will need to get the nod from Joe Voter is a decent campaign slogan. A request I put out to my loyal fans on Twitter yesterday led to the team at Canopy Finance suggesting “Yes we canopy” and “Things can only get wetter”, which are both genius. I will do some mindBoggling myself later, but has anyone any other suggestions? Respond via the comments box or email me at robinbogg@hotmail.com.