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Mrs M Recommends - Regrets, Reminisces, Remembers, Revisits, Rants & Raves
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| BREAKING THE HOLD OF EXPENSE ADDICTION |
| Written by Atticus | |||
| Monday, 18 May 2009 00:00 | |||
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We all know the old cliché that a week is a long time in politics, but this week has been so long that it's difficult to remember the political landscape before it, says Atticus. To an already toxic mix of economic Armageddon, fury at bankers and their fat bonuses, and disillusionment with the political system, has been poured MP corruption and dishonour. With revelation upon revelation it has been difficult to keep pace with the action. Spare a thought, then, for the poor expense-addicted politicians. Their world has been turned upside down – and their supply of tax-payer funded perks has just been cut.
When their sordid actions were first revealed they displayed classic distraction behaviour: turning the attention away from themselves with a hefty dose of outrage – "this is an unacceptable breach of confidentiality. These breaches could put lives at risk. We must find the perpetrators of this leak and lock them up under anti-terror laws." At this stage they just wanted the nuisance to go away in order to get back to feeding the addiction. Then came gradual acceptance that they couldn't wave a magic wand and make the story disappear. Now appeared a denial of the problem - an attempt to normalise their dysfunctional world. "We have to put these expenses in for our work." As revelations about moats and fictional mortgages piled up, this argument lost its power, and so they stepped it up to the next stage... This is a denial of personal responsibly in a dysfunctional system. It's a case of "the rules are to blame", "the rules made me do it", "I asked the claims office and they said go straight ahead with flipping that property again and again." As this is the old concentration camp guard argument it doesn't hold water for very long. And so now quickly comes the next stage – the audacious attempt to plead complete ignorance of personal financial affairs. Again, this argument doesn't hold firm for long, as it's noted that in all cases ignorance led to an increase in wealth. The path from dependence is never easy, and we now appear to be at a period of relapse as MP upon MP blames the system as a whole – "we're all to blame" – and seeks to sacrifice the Speaker of the House of Commons. This is the time to be wary of their intentions: now's not the time to be fobbed off with half measures in the hope that we forget about the whole thing, so they can quietly resume business as usual. We must hang in there to help nurse the the sick system back to health. 
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