More Scum In Parliament

Imagine you have a very generous boss who pays your mortgage for you. He then discovers that you have fallen out with your wife, who has effectively kicked you out of said house, and you are now staying in a hotel. Not only are you staying in a hotel but you are claiming for the cost on your expenses.

So you are now claiming for the mortgage on a property you no longer inhabit. You are also claiming for hotel bills. How do you think your boss would react? I'm pretty sure that most of us would give aforementioned employee a steel toecapped kick up the jacksy before considering calling in PC Plod.

I bet that won't happen to David Curry, Conservative MP for Skipton:

The Conservative MP David Curry claimed 30K for a home in his Yorkshire constituency which he did not use because his unhappy wife had banned him from living there in case he used it to continue entertaining his mistress, a local teacher. He admitted he had not stayed in the house recently “as much as I would have liked” and instead claimed additional expenses for hotel bills.

It’s no surprise that Curry is chairman of the Commons standards and privileges committee. Do you have the weeniest suspicion, reading this, that MPs still don’t get it?

Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times.