Here’s what I wrote a month ago:

It turns out that some MPs have been claiming hefty expenses to which they are technically entitled under the current rules, even though they don’t really need the money. This must have come as a terrible shock to all those who thought MPs were selfless ascetics who spurn all remuneration and donate their salaries to orphanages.

A month later, the story is even bigger. The full details of every MP’s expenses are in the public domain, and I suspect that some people are enjoying the resultant holier-than-thou MP-flagellation orgy a bit too much. The weirdos of BBC Have Your Say are, predictably, foaming. My favourite comment (apart from the top recommended comment, suggesting we should dissolve parliament and put the Queen in charge), is one asking “how much necessary equipment could have been purchased for our troops fighting overseas” with these expenses. Perspective, anyone?

I hate to point this out, but in a capitalist society people often spend money on things they don’t really need. Few people are perfect in this regard. What seems to have provoked outrage in this case is that the expenditure of MPs on second homes falls under expenses — a word which most people associate with train tickets and sandwiches. In fact, MPs have always received enormous sums as “expenses”. It makes up for the disparity between the costs of being an MP (a job which necessarily involves living in two places, running election campaigns, travelling regularly and staffing an office) and the salary the job entails — £64,766.

There are two ways to prevent a similar “scandal” surfacing in future. One, which is almost certainly what will happen, is to make the rules far more restrictive and detailed. The other is to abolish “expenses” altogether, increase the basic MPs’ annual salary to something like £250,000, and let them spend it as they wish. Being an MP is, presumably, and particularly at times like this, an unpleasant, largely thankless job in which your integrity is continually questioned and your ambitions continually thwarted. I don’t know why they bother. Why not give them a salary that makes maxing out on expenses a less tempting option?

Filed under: jonathanbirch on May 13th, 2009