What price power?

Once again sodding MP's expenses are proving fodder for phone-in and paxman alike. The massed ranks of the indignant General Public are once more spitting with fury at the 'massive' misuse of public cash by our elcted representatives. Columnists are beside themselves with glee at getting paid for hitting such a supremely easy target. Those actually affected are beside themselves with fury not only at having a retro-active rule thrust upon them, but at being bound and gagged from complaining about it by their party leaders, who have been dangled by the balls in Harmans 'court of public opinion'. Whoopie-bloody-do.

I'd like the dear reader now to consider their stereotypical granny. Not your real granny, but she of the crochet and rocking chair, the wonderful cooking using ingredients long outlawed by those who think that full-fat milk is only slightly less fatal than cyanide. Said granny has two grandchildren. One of these is an MP, the other a binman. Now, when Granny talks to her friends, neighbours and milkman (she will have a milkman) who does she talk to them about, bore them stiff with?

Having progeny who is an MP is a source of pride for any parent. MP's are important people. They are one of only 600-odd people who represent the entire country; you, me, that strange lady down the road with all the cats. They decide the rules by which our society lives, therefore they are US.

Now ok, they don't actually act as anything more than ciphers for their party leaders and they take longer holidays than teachers. Nonetheless, they are expected to uproot themselves and family from their cozy nest and find themselves some halfway decent accomodation in the most expensive city in the world. Having done that, they are now expected to furnish and maintain these digs at Ryanair rates whilst still being available to walk into the right room at Westminster in the middle of the night at their leaders behest. They have some right to feel aggrieved I think.

Who would want to be an MP now? Derided, disillusioned and comparatively low paid, they struggle along. There are no great political divides now, the Personality is now the Party. We vote for our President, never mind the protestations of great local works and committment. Given the choice of something cushy in the local council on twice the money or running the gimlet gaze of every newshound in the ex Fleet Street, what would you do? So the quality of the tiny number of people who make this place what it is is bound to diminish. Great result guys, nice one.

There is a wider issue as well. Retrospective rules have historically been avoided like the plague, although they have found a foothold in transport law already. Penalising someone for not following a rule which wasn't written at the time is tantamount to Newspeak, yet another Orwellian concept which The Other Blair preciently envisioned in a book written in what he would be amazed to discover are considered as Englands happiest days. It's a foot in the doorway to enacting all sorts of crap which could rebound on us all. Will we get tickets for parking somewhere last christmas which has only just received its shiny yellow lines? The pssibilites are endless.

So, amazingly for me, I actually feel some sympathy for these people. I beleive they actually deserve to be treated with some respect and just a little status. Happier MP's make better laws, really.