The most recent overblown British media frenzy is still running as I write. It is even worse than the insane coverage given to the demise of Princess Diana in 1997. At least the media moved on to other trivia once she was buried. Now we have continuous coverage of the excessive expenses which Members of Parliament have been claiming. The problem is that there are over 600 MPs, while there was mercifully only one Princess D. Thus the unsavoury revelations about our elected representatives could run for the next year, with another juicy titbit being unveiled every day or two.
Nearly all the revelations centre on claims for MPs' "second homes". As most MPs represent constituencies outside commuting distance of London, they need a base both in their constituency and in London. The problem then becomes, which is their "main home" and which is their "second home"? The assumption is that they pay the costs for their main home out of their $100,000 a year salary (which is well over twice that of the ordinary working Joe in Britain). But the costs for the "second home" can be reimbursed out of public funds. And the permitted allowances for everything from redecoration to new kitchens to new widescreen TVs and home cinema systems are very generous.
So, all of a sudden, the enraged working Joes of Britain have been introduced to a new meaning of the word "flipping". It does not refer to practices such as tossing pancakes, but the way MPs have been able to switch their "main" and the "second" homes. You could call your London base your "main" home in 2007 and claim expenses for your "second" home in Yorkshire or wherever. Then in 2008 you could nominate the Yorkshire property as your "main" home and claim a second truckload of money for refurbishing, refurnishing and equipping your "second" home in London.
It was not just the blatant fraud involved which has provided ample fuel for public fury. The details of expenses claimed aroused further mirth and derision. My favourite was the Conservative MP who claimed $3,000 for cleaning out his moat. But of course....no English gentleman of taste and breeding would be seen dead with a dirty moat. The luckless Home Secretary revealed a mixture of greed and parsimony when she claimed for everything down to a $1.30 electric plug. (This very senior minister is on over $200,000 a year). She had an even worse day when it was revealed that her cable bill, which was also being charged to the public purse, included a couple of pornographic movies which her husband had watched.
Further merciless fun has been had at the expense of the MP who claimed mortgage costs for a property where the mortgage had already been repaid. As "The Daily Mash" explained, he is the first person in history not to realise that he had repaid his mortgage. And the guy who claimed $13,000 for a new TV.....I did not realise that it was possible to spend so much on any domestic TV. But apparently it is, if you buy it from the top-of-the- market Danish manufacturer Bang and Olufsen.
There have been so many revelations every day that by the time Saturday's crook is unveiled you have forgotten the crooks named on Tuesday and Wednesday.
But our pleasure at seeing one crook after another being publicly crucified should be tempered with several other considerations. For one thing, the information was obtained corruptly by the "Daily Telegraph" when they bought a CD full of this devastating information from an insider. Thus they have acted corruptly to expose corruption. It has been notorious for decades that British tabloids corrupt police and prison officers and civil servants for inside information. In more than one case such corruption probably compromised murder investigations. Now a so-called "quality" paper has indulged publicly in the same sordid practice; almost certainly every British paper, "quality" or downmarket, is in the corruption business if there's a great story on the market.
For another, the DT has a monopoly on this data and is thus able to drive the news agenda for every broadcaster and every other newspaper. These have been reduced to playing catch-up as every day the DT leaks another chunk of information and another politician's career goes down the toilet. Also it looks as if the DT is itself playing a political game to destroy the careers of politicians who the Conservative Party leadership want out of the way.
Also various commentators have been lashing out at the way every one of these crooks has claimed that their expenses were "within the rules". Of course they were. The rules in question were set by MPs. But these commentators have been going further, insisting that MPs should behave according to some stricter moral code than the letter of the law requires.
These condemnations look doubly laughable. For one thing, most journalists' best creative writing has traditionally been reserved for their expenses claims. My favourite was the journalist who reportedly claimed for a lawn mower when he lived in a fourth floor apartment. This story may be apocryphal, but lavish entertainment and fictitious travel costs are always good for tax-free boosts to journalists' salaries. And even without the creative expenses, many journalists, broadcasters and editors are on far higher salaries than MPs - up to $1.5 million a year, which makes their accusations of greed look all the more hollow.
The second flaw was the almost total lack of condemnation of the Telegraph's own corruption of a civil servant to get their hands on the data. Informed guesswork suggests that they paid around $130,000 for the CD - an absolute bargain, considering the publicity it has generated. But so many media people are personally corrupt; if they are paying bribes for stories or in receipt of fraudulent expenses and bloated salaries, they are hardly likely to condemn a fellow media worker.
The third flaw is the fact that the sums involved in MPs' expenses are microscopically small compared with the truckloads of taxpayers' money poured down the toilet on everything from the 2012 Olympics to useless weapons to useless computer systems. But these MPs made the mistake of embezzling imaginable sums of money. The $13,000 for a new TV generates outrage because people know how much a good ordinary TV costs and that the $13,000 would buy them a good secondhand car, a purchase they can imagine making. $20 billion squandered on the National Health Service computer system is just an unimaginably enormous sum and no individual is ever going to order such an object for himself. Yet such criminal incompetence and extravagance in spending public money attracts very little attention in comparison to $1.30 claimed for a new bathplug.
The fourth and most grievous flaw was the "Because it's wrong!" tone of all the writers, as if they were reading from tablets freshly delivered to Mount Sinai. Even the atheist philosopher A C Grayling was wheeled on to add his fuel to the bonfire of condemnation. He was loud in his insistence that politicians and the rest of us should have an inner voice telling us that something which was publicly shameful, albeit technically "legal", should not be done even in private when no one was likely to detect it. Of course the Church has always taught that our consciences should be formed according to an objective standard of morality. So which objective standard of morality are we using this week? A C Grayling? The editor of the Daily Mail? Or the Daily Telegraph? Or the BBC's political correspondent? Take your pick. That's the great thing about the consumer society; limitless choice.
After all, I should declare an interest here. In my Civil Service days, I felt no particular restraint in claiming any expenses going. The sums involved were small compared to the MPs' extravagance, but the principle was just the same. You are always far more careful with your money than other peoples' money, especially when the cash is coming from one gigantic impersonal trough labelled "taxation", rather than out of a small company's budget or your parents' pocket. Yet it was every small company and every parent in the country who I was screwing every time I put in a claim. And all my claims were of course entirely "within the rules" and approved by other civil servants.
