That was the most incompetent television performance by an MP I think I’ve ever seen. Jaysus…

It’s no fun? Poor bugger is a victim because he is an MP? LOL

I almost cried because of his serious predicament!

My second best favourite word for such as he – Tosser!

Bloody hell, 37 miles???? Fat bastard.

These wankers have basically fucked up any chance the electorate is ever going to trust MPs again. MPs are so hated and despised and ridiculed these days.

I feel sorry for people like Caroline Lucas – clearly hard-working people who want to become MPs – because they are going to have to prove MPs aren’t always scum.

Fantastic stuff.

I wonder what Caroline Lucas’s MEP expense claims look like?

I particularly love tthe way the camera angle keeps catching Ed Davey staring at him in disbelief.

I thought it was OK. I’m not convinced ‘lots of people have to put up with it’ is a good response – you could justify paying MPs £10k a year for that and I wouldn’t think it was a good argument.

Caroline details the expense regime for MEPs here

Caroline has also campaigned to stop the Circus of moving the European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg, a total waste of carbon and money!
Pickles should cycle to work – loose some flab!

“That was the most incompetent television performance by an MP I think I’ve ever seen. Jaysus”

Including Michael Howard ignoring Paxman’s questions?

The way that the McNulty and Smith scandals have been turned into general MP bashing shows the skill of the Govt’s spin doctors; its enabled them to spread the damage. I suppose it helps having the dominant State broadcaster under your influence.

The issue of MPs expenses and packages is separate from that of McNulty’s and Smith’s fraudulent claims. They have falsified their expense claims. In any private sector organisation they would be sacked or suspended. Pickles and others have just claimed for what their package entitles them.

I thought Eric Pickles was rubbish because he failed to make the above point. He was set-up by the BBC and the panel, and could not deal with it. Any Tory appearing on a BBC political programme should be prepared for the inevitable set-up. However, he’s not an Outer London MP, he’s an Essex MP. The comparison with Ed Davey was inequitable. Westminster is far more accessible from Kingston than it is from Brentwood. Also, the Green MEP was a hypocrite, considering the outrageous expenses allowances and fraud committed by her colleagues.

QT has become tedious of late. The celebrity guests turn the show into a rebel rousing, cliché fest. The distorted audience and the predictable choice of Labour voting locations is pure bias.

Even though, the Smith Porngate is highly amusing and signifies an incompetent Govt staring electoral defeat in the face, IMO, the Media are going too far in their MP bashing. I’d like to see some of them publish their expenses.

It was clearly a terrible performance from Pickles, but I think simplistic attacks on him are not helping the situation (and I say that reluctantly, because he’s a Thatcherite Tory and I’d be happy to see him strung up on a lamp-post).

The trouble with all this simplistic MP-bashing is that many people are failing to see MPs as human beings who have to do a job, just so they can delight in thefuelled sheer negativity of having a go.

Yes, I’d like to see MPs paid the median wage, and personally I’d like to see the state buy up flats near Westminster and allocate them as second homes on a lottery basis to anyone whose journey to the HoC was (say) over an hour using public transport.

But the likely consequence of the way the media are treating this issue (and it’s fuelled by public demand in this case) is that MPs will do anything to avoid the potential for criticism. I wouldn’t be surprised to see MPs taking a one-off hit after the next GE (whoever wins), raising their salaries by say 30k and abolishing the second homes allowance and any other controversial allowances that might lead to criticism.

That would imo be the worst of all worlds, but the way we are all treating this issue seems to be leading us inevitably towards that conclusion.

Skewered by Caroline, good work. And thanks for the link to her Parliament page: I think there’d be a fair bit less anger if others did the same.

Also, I can’t imagine wishing to have two homes 37 miles apart – but those who represent areas many miles from Parliament should clearly have their costs met, preferably rental.

Westminster is far more accessible from Kingston than it is from Brentwood.

Not really, it’s no more than 40 minutes train journey from Liverpool Street and the trains run every 10 minutes during rush hour (I know as I get on at the next stop). I find it hard to believe he was leaving at 5.30 in the morning to make sure he made it in for 9.30. And it isn’t 37 miles either.

That’s true, Google Maps says 29.8m by car:
http://tinyurl.com/dyf7ce

Or 22.3m directly:
http://tinyurl.com/dyf7ce

It’s also, more to the point, just 40 minutes on the train, so he’d only have to get up at the same time as the rest of us..

There is also the Monty Python version of the video:
http://www.bbdo.co.uk/blog/archives/1727

Eric Pickles and the four Yorkshiremen

“(and I say that reluctantly, because he’s a Thatcherite Tory and I’d be happy to see him strung up on a lamp-post).”

Are you a fan of Joseph Stalin by any chance?

The fact is that Pickles could have taken the high gorund, offered to give up the allowance, given some ideas for reform, instead of playing it the pathetic way he did – for which he was deservedly humiliated.

#17 – Not particularly. Are you?

I don’t usually enjoy car crashes but it’s not often you see someone rear-end himself.

Mind you, the party he held last night sounds as though it was fun!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/5079471/Police-restrain-three-with-CS-spray-in-House-of-Commons-following-Tory-drinks-party.html

“#17 – Not particularly. Are you?”

Nope but nor do I wish to see my political opponents murdered just because they disagree with me.

I don’t want to see him strung up simply because he disagrees with me (after all, plenty of lefties disagree with me) – I want to see him strung up because he’s a Tory. Surely you can see the difference?

I am shocked, shocked do you hear that Ian Dale does not want to run this bit of video over, and over again. I mean, Dale is always telling anybody who wants to listen that his site is more than just a political site. It is an all singing, all dancing entertainment and news site, apparently.

Mr Pickles should apply some of his much vaunted free market theories on himself. I am sure we could get somebody to do his job at half the price.

He’s an idiot. Hope he never leads the country!

“Are you a fan of Joseph Stalin by any chance?”

I am, although I don’t like his later stuff. The fame had got to him then, and he sacrificed creativity for results.

@10, Richard: Worse than Howard? Nah, Howard was just taking the politician’s tactic of avoiding a question to a ludicrous extreme. He merely came across as an uber-politician (not a compliment, btw), not someone who seems to have completely lost touch with reality, like Pickles.