Can I claim for that?

For me, it started off with a murmuring around the news agenda at the end of last year. A few sentences spoken on 5Live, a couple of columns worth in the newspapers about some MP from Balderdash who managed to claim back on expenses a new plasma television. Cheeky git, I remember telling myself and then totally forgetting all about it, just like I do with most of the news I hear or read.

The murmurings continued to grow, however, on a weekly basis with new MPs from Codswallop or Crudforth successfully making rather dubious claims from new garden decorations to toilet rolls. The public’s interest grew and the media licked its lips in anticipation of another scandal teetering on the brink of explosion. What made it all the more enchanting was that we were being dripped fed information because it was not being disclosed by the government. It smelt bad and the fact it was being hidden made us all the more suspicious as to who spent what on what. Maybe Gordon Brown had made an expense claim on a Rocket Propeller Grenade launcher to wipe out any threat both inside his party and out, or that’s what I like too have thought.

It seemed something was foul and it was being covered up. Yet, someone, either a civil servant or other government employee disagreed with the non-compliance, and decided to do something about it and started giving newspapers info. I hope it was the same 23 year old clerk how was blamed (as it was his/her fault) for all that data being lost on a CD sometime last year, thus ensuing public uproar.

And then The Daily Telegraph finally got the information released letting us all know what’s been going on. MPs had successfully claimed back on expenses things like, mortgage repayments for second homes, restoration of beams to a roof, a garden being redesigned and a moat being cleaned. A moat! Now that is abuse if I ever heard one. The fact it was a Conservative MP only reinforced the stereotypical image of what one has of a stereotypical MP. Still what made this all juicy was that it was all MPs from all the major parties that were abusing ‘the system’. I do believe that the Labour and Liberal Democrats looked worse from this, considering their ace card revolves around being ‘working class orientated’. So instead of blaming each other, they blamed ‘the system’. Along the lines of, I am perfectly within my rights to claim for those items because the system allows it.

Those justifications were as solid as Ian Hislop’s chances of winning on an episode of Have I got News For You. Everyday we all heard more stuff coming out in The Daily Telegraph about home improvements being claimed back but even worse, using ‘the system’ to make a profit on the housing market. Enraged and fuelled with righteous retribution they were all wrong, that was until someone said.

“Yeah, but what would you do if you were in that position. I mean, say you were new and your boss said ‘it’s alright, claim that new ipod touch on expenses, we all do it’, wouldn’t you?”

Shit I thought, I probably would and stayed silent as my conscious wrestled itself into submission. But then, my answer was honest and that made me look at things differently but still come up with the same conclusion, I really want an ipod touch. I would like to think that I wouldn’t make too many far out claims, perhaps buying Pret A Manager sandwiches instead of Boots ones or tipping the cab driver a few pound on the receipt. Definitely no moat being cleaned!

Some of those MPs did make a mistake and claiming for tea cloths is probably just about excusable whereas there were those that did realise exactly what they were doing. What has come out of this though will be a change in the expenses claim system which will hopefully eradicate the lavish and process the appropriate.

What I would like to do is thank the guy or gal who first discovered what was going on and started telling the press about it because without him or her doing that, none of us would have known what had been happening.