Unintended but foreseeable consequences

The wife has just kindly pointed out that whilst Jackart's position may be technically correct, there is another aspect to all of this. Or, rather, a couple.

The first is that—no matter what the rules say—MPs should have known when it was morally wrong to claim expenses, they should have known that it was morally wrong to flip their designated homes.

"Ah," I hear you cry. "You might have made that moral judgement, but those are your morals, o Devil, and not theirs. And we thought that you disagreed with forcing your personal morals onto others."

And you would be completely right: I do disagree with forcing my morals onto others. But these cunts don't; their entire political lives are spent forcing us to live by their personal mores—one could argue that this is a bit of tit for tat.

I would also argue that someone who breaks the most fundamental of the rules that I believe in—that you shall not steal^*—should have no moral authority over me.

The second point is somewhat less abstract and it is quite simply this: that much of the money that was spent—even when it was within the rules—would not have been spent were it not claimed on expenses.

Would Gordon Brown really have spent £10,716.60 of his own money on cleaning? Would Nick Clegg really have spent £910 on roses if he were not claiming the money on expenses?

I seriously doubt it.

And this is the reason, claims Sir Thomas Legg, that he is imposing these "retrospective rules".

Sir Thomas's letters have been accompanied by a note in which he explained his decision.

He told MPs that there had effectively already been a limit on the amount that could be claimed for mortgage interest, because the total additional cost allowance budget prevented an annual claim of more than about £24,000 last year.

Household goods, he said, were also subject to limits. The so-called "John Lewis list", which was kept secret from MPs, told Commons officials that they could allow, for example, up to £750 for a television and £10,000 for a new kitchen.

However, Sir Thomas said that he could find nothing in the existing rules setting out the maximum allowable for other large expenses, including cleaning and gardening. Therefore, he believed that limits must be imposed retrospectively.

"Some limits must be regarded as having been in place to prevent disproportionate and unnecessary expenditure from the public purse," he said.

In other words, where no limits were set, MPs have basically bought goods and services, the prices of which were far in excess of what they would have paid out of their own pockets—simply because they were able to get the poor bloody taxpayer to stump up the cash.

Sir Thomas Legg has determined that this is absolutely wrong, and has penalised the thieving fuckers accordingly. Good.

I seriously hope that these bastards are made to pay back every penny. And I hope that many of them leave office with their spirits broken, their reputations in tatters and their bank accounts empty.

Because, frankly, I was promised suicides and, disappointingly, there hasn't been a single one yet...

^* To steal life is murder; to steal freedom is to enslave; and to steal property is theft.