Paul Johnston

The latest Surrey Comet reveals:

"Expenses racked up by MPs last year have been revealed by the House of Commons.

They claimed a total of £87.6million, up five per cent on the previous 12 months.

Kingston's pair of Lib Dem MPs notched up a bill of £262,583 between them.

Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, claimed £126,983 while Susan Kramer, MP for Richmond Park, claimed £117,837."

These expenses refer to running offices in constituencies (such as the one in Berrylands) and 'communicating with electors' and secretarial assistance and are allowable to all sitting members under arrangements voted in under this Labour government. Lord Ashcroft, a Conservative peer and donor, discussed the implications of this munificent regime in the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that such generous taxpayer funding inevitably allows sitting MPs to appear very active on the constituents' behalf and places candidates seeking to replace them at the next General Election at an unfair disadvantage as they must either raise their own money or rely on the fundraising efforts of party volunteers to be in any position to compete. How many coffee mornings or raffles would one have to hold to raise £127,000 do you think?

Lord Ashcroft has set up a fund to help aspiring Conservative candidates in target seats to compete more effectively. It is open to to other parties to do the same. Ashcroft's scheme is under attack from some Labour MPs including, it would seem, the Leader of the House.

A story is circulating that the world-famous Red Arrows have been banned from appearing at the 2012 London Olympics because they are deemed "too British". This story has given rise to an on-line petition to the Prime Minister at this address.http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/RedArrows2012/?ref=redArrows2012

The authors of the story say that the Arrows are being ‘banned' because their military background might be "offensive" to other countries taking part in the Games. The display team have performed at more than 4000 events worldwide, but the Department of Culture, Media and Sport are alleged to have deemed the display team "too militaristically British".

I am indebted to Mr. Moore for his comment on our ward blog in which he draws attention to the RAF website which calls this story ‘rubbish' and would recommend all readers to view Mr. Moore's comment and the website (link http://www.raf.mod.uk/reds/teamnews/.

Gordon Brown has emerged as the outright winner in the 10-year long contest with Tony Blair to see who can tell the biggest whopper of them all.

Tony, seen here boasting of his own achievements, has been completely outclassed by Gordon's performance in Iraq yesterday.

He announced that 1000 troops were coming home from there by Christmas - failing to point out that 270 of them have already returned to Britain, more are already on their way and 500 (yes HALF of the number) are still in Germany and haven't been in Iraq in the first place. Even Jeremy Paxman http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=all&go=homepage&scope=all&q=newsnight&Search.x=34&Search.y=14&Search=Search couldn't conceal his disgust at this cheap, cynical ploy.

The media, especially the parts owned by Rupert Murdoch, are trying to whip up a reprise of the Diana-mania they enjoyed so much 10 years ago. On the various Sky channels one can have almost non-stop wall to wall Diana programmes to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her death. One I saw even went so far as to suggest that the Alma tunnel in Paris had become a place of pilgrimage to rival Lourdes. Such crassness defies belief. The BBC is not innocent either with its interviews outside the gates of Kensington Palace and 'wondering' if the place would be decked in floral tributes etc again as 10 years ago.

Happily they also reported that sales of  anniversary memorabilia were low and their vox pop interviews suggested that, unlike the media, the British people have 'moved on'. Let's hope the media will now catch up and let the Princess and the rest of us rest in peace.

I am glad to note, by the way, that the special prayers composed for the Memorial Service by the Archbishop of Canterbury, remember to pray for the repose of her soul. Those who really care about her and cherish her memory should do just that. 

This link takes you to a document published in .pdf format by Open Europe, comparing the Treaty that Gordon Brown and Mr. Milliband say isn't the proposed Constitution with the proposed Constitution: http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/guide.pdf

This isn't just a Tory thing. It's a matter of all elected politicians of whatever party keeping faith with the people that voted for them. Labour MPs like Frank Field, Kate Hoey and Gisela Stuart have sought to make Gordon Brown hold the promised Referendum, as have Lib Dems John Hemming and Mike Hancock. Our own local MPs seem rather coy about expressing openly their views on the question. Yet both of them were elected on a Lib Dem manifesto pledge to hold a Referendum on the European Constitution.