Nothing New

I see Labour have won back Birmingham with an overall majority after 8 years of Tory Excellence. I also see they even managed to get a Labour seat on Sutton Council for the first time in history. He or she will be lonely there.

Phil

I disagree Phil, Labour didn't win, they are just as useless as the Con Dems. They regained seats because the other Scumbags deserved to lose them. People have short memories.

SB

I entirely agree with what you say, I was merely pointing out the facts of how badly the ConDem alliance failed in Birmingham, not to mention the rest of the country.

Phil

Phil its time all three major parties were recognised for what they are, a bunch of self satisfying, scumbags. By the way how many actually went to jail when they were caught committing fraud with their expences.

SB

I'm not sure, but I think you could count them on your left hand, more to the point how many of them were sacked as they would have been in other jobs? Since when did being an MP make it legal to fiddle your expenses?

Phil when you are part of the Management I suppose you make your own rules. As far as the expences are concerned I hold every MP responsible. especially new MPs who took the job on as a new career and wanted to make "a difference". These people should have opened up about what they could claim. But no they joined the Old Guard and either got stuck in or kept quiet.

What we need is to go back a good few years when local government Councillors got expenses only and no wage, and MP's only got a living wage. It's no good going on about they need a salary that expresses the stress and responsibility of the job. No one but themselves asked them to do the job in the first place.

It matters not how good intentioned they started out, they all end up the same like pigs round a trough.

Phil

Too right Phil, I say thanks for the Freedom of information act. It does take time but at least some of these issues come out in time. How much has been hidden by our masters in the past.

i agree with everything you say, the population have such short memories and forget what the labour government did against the working man - how many lost their end of year salaries under gordon brown when chancellor. the public sector are up in arms at the present because they are facing the same. my ex mp jackie smith actually queried the rules on what expenses where legal, she had a good idea that morally it was wrong but put her head in the trough when told it was quiet legal. the sad thing is that the local labour party did not de select her but the voters threw her out,. however, i have spoken to a number of party members who think she did nothing wrong and yet the voters returned the council in redditch to labour. the new candidate is a local councillor at the moment and a few years ago she tried to run an arts festival which was a complete failure and cost the council a lot of money so how they think she can become a good mp i dont know. unfortunately, i think the voters think that by voting labour the councils will be able to stop some of the governments policies but we know they cant.

steph