Audio Version: West London Man (7) – Pre-dinner
Saturday evening 7.00 pm: George and Caroline are having a glass of wine and a dance in the drawing room of their graciously appointed West London home. They are going to a black tie supper party with West London friends. They have cracked open a bottle of fizz and have been discussing the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. George is fascinated by the expenses being claimed by MPs released yesterday, after all legal process to suppress publication failed, under the Freedom of Information Act.
George: Caroline… did you read all this about MP expenses?
Caroline: George… no… I’ve had rather a hard day as it happens with our children. They take quite a lot of looking after and now that Katja has gone and the cleaning agency don’t do nannies I have had my hands full.
George: John Prescott…. claimed £9800 to cover mock tudor boards to his house and his food bill!. Blair claimed £10,600 for a new ivory kitchen and repairs to his Aga and the “Toff-Father”, Cameron, is claiming £1,741.83 a month for the mortgage on his cottage in Oxfordshire…. fantastic…. how do they get away with this?… Hang on… and Margaret Beckett had a £600 claim for plants and a pergola rejected…. a claim was actually rejected I tell you….!
George flicked through The Telegraph, Daily Mail and the FT to see if there were any more reports.
Caroline: George, it is Saturday evening, we are about to go and have a supper party…. why are we talking about the expenses being claimed by MPs?
George: This is important… It is about the government and governance of our country… it is about the principles of democracy…. it is about our future and the inheritance of our children as that strange man on The Dragon’s Den who flogs ladies underwear and stationery supplies keeps saying.
George looked in to the middle distance, a composed, serious, expression on his face…. He turned to his wife and smiled.
George: Caroline… I’m going to stand for Parliament…. hey… I’m a regular sort of a guy… how difficult can it be to be an MP?
Caroline raised her eyes to the heavens, drained her glass of fizz, got up and started dancing… a Polka.
***
Well, Charon, Sir – I think you know my feelings on the matter, as I did post about it earlier in the week. I just want to know why we only know the nitty-gritty on 14 of the buggers… what about the rest of the bunch??
And have you heard total hypocrisy being spouted by Brit MPs on the “transparency” saga on expenses now being discussed in Brussels??
“Oh, we must be transparent with our costs while in Brussels” (but we’ll draw the veil over our expenses back home)!!! What??? Bloody cheek, I say!!
Sounds like a good racket this MP business…
Fancy a flash new kitchen but feeling skint? Become an MP! Problem solved! 😀
Very nice of the rest of us to pay the substantial mortgage on Cameron’s country plie. Isn’t his wife seriously rich in her own right? Well brought up people write ‘thank you’ letters so i look forward to mine…
Andrew… I joined WeCameron in the early days as “Charon QC” – I get regular emails…. and I’ve just received a thank you letter…. he did not, however, mention his Oxfordshire mortgage… an oversight…. nothing for the sleaze commissioner to worry about…. or, god help us, revlting backbenchers and revolting voters…
I think it may be time for me to take seat in The Commons… and fulfill my destiny…. trouble is, the way the wind is blowing, I’d better think about doing it as a Tory….. they say the Labour Party could be reduced to less than 100 seats at the next election… I love all that sort of bollocks in the press… but who knows, Gordon is certainly working on the numbers and he may well reach this target. Gordon likes targets… the trouble is… he appears to have become the target…
Charon MP… hhhmmm… it has a certain ring! 😀 Just remember, though, that you’ll need to get a receipt for anything above £25.00!!
And you mentioned Tinks Blears… god, that woman was rather trilling on, during QT on Thursday night!!
I watch with interest as to who will be sticking the knife in…
[…] West London Man (7): Pre-dinner…. […]
The Thirteen horsemen from Eton are coming… as I remarkd on my latest post… it is no longer a matter of “if” … it is a matter of when…
The times… they are a changing……. as Dylan used to sing….
My dear Charon … the Tory party needs people like you to help corrupt them from the inside!
It’s nice to see that Caroline is adapting so well to the challenges being set her. I suspect that George is going to have a rude awakening soon enough though. Can’t come soon enough.
Schadenfreude, me? Surely not …
Ro… I appear to be wasting yet more of my mis-spent youth by writing…. but… it keeps me occupied!
Yes…. the story is developing…. Caroline has something up her sleeve….
But…. there is a bit more from George… to come….
[…] diversity and silk selection – It is a parliamentary recess period) – I even popped over to the Ministry of Justice website. I live life on the edge these days, now that I have stopped being a nihilist […]
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