Taxation is an Intrusion
The Speaker’s barrister yesterday told a High Court judge that forcing MPs to publish their expenses is a “substantial intrusion” into their private lives. Disclosing a detailed breakdown of their claims for running a second home, including addresses, might attract “the mad and the bad… They might simply not want the world to know the details of how they were furnishing their home in some particular respect”, Nigel Griffin QC claimed.
The Devil puts it well on his blog:
Well, might I humbly suggest that—if this is the case—that MPs do not use taxpayers’ f***ing cash to buy their furnishings?
By all means remove the address if they are afraid of the people they supposedly represent – the important principle is that we should know what they are spending our money on. It is obvious that they really don’t like us watching them pigging out at the trough. They are clearly ashamed of their greed becoming publicly visible.
