To heal this mess will take more than plaster (From Worcester News)

To heal this mess will take more than plaster

8:00am Thursday 2nd July 2009 in

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SIR – It could not have been easy to choose a new speaker for the House of Commons from the gang of pirates that preside there.

As there are far fewer MPs with credentials that do not include downright stealing than those who do, they have taken the easy option by choosing one of their own ilk.

According to the Telegraph’s complete expenses file, John Bercow flipped two homes and claimed them both as his main home each time he sold them, therefore paying no capital gains tax (that’s your money.) He claimed a total of £143,455 (that’s your money) in second home allowances between 2001 and 2008! How many readers have even earned that amount in 20 years, let alone fiddled it in seven?

Indeed, Mr Bercow at 46 is one of our youngest MPs, so imagine what the total would have been after another 20 years in office.

His first task as speaker, he says, is to heal public anger over MPs’ expenses. Even if that statement is believable I feel he has an impossible task because not unlike the bombing of Pearl Harbour this scandal will in the immortal words of President Franklin D Roosevelt ‘Live in Infamy’ and it comes from a man with little credibility elected by a group of 600-odd individuals who would not be out of place on board the Black Pearl with Jack Sparrow.

No, Mr Bercow, to heal this mess will take more than a sticking plaster – it will take a complete internal transplant!

Greg Fester,
Malvern