Parliament sleaze

In a move that seems quaint by US standards, the British press is leaking the expense reports of various members of parliament -- all but one of whom are members of the Labour party. For example, minister Barbara Follett is in hot water for using public funds for security at her personal residence after she was mugged and stalked a few years back. Again I say, How quaint! In the US, we have various cabinet secretaries who intentionally cheated on their income taxes and now claim it was just a mistake. We have a Senate Majority Leader who has a number of sons who are lobbyists and who just happen to good results when they speak to dear old Dad. When Harry Reid's sons make huge amounts of money or when Diane Feinstein steers federal contracts to her husbands business, we are told that it is no big deal. In the UK, they get upset for a few thousand pounds being spent on questionable items while in the US we accept having those in congress getting millions of dollars. Let's see -- Follett spent about 10,000 pounds per year on security and gets in trouble; Nancy Pelosi spends more than that each time she flies home to California (at our expense) and then she takes offense if someone has the nerve to question those costs.

Maybe it is time that we adopt British sensibilities.