ooops

i shouldn’t enjoy the moments schadenfreude that politics throws up but i can’t help myself. 

baroness warsi is a hottie, and easily gets into my top 5 top tory totty list. there have been a few times when she has talked sense (look even tories get it right: occasionally). 

the tories are very keen to demonise those they describe as benefit cheats – the bane of the country.  for the tories they are the scum of the earth, feckless wasters who are taking money from hard working tax payers.

hard working tax payers such as sayeeda warsi, who is not short of a bob or two (her salary is paid by the tory party, she also gets £300 a day when she attends the house of lords), yet somehow has managed to get herself embroiled in an expenses scandal. 

there are a couple of things about this, firstly the alleged incident took place in 2008 and so we have had the whole kerfuffle over mp’s expenses. you would have thought anyone who was going to be sitting at the top table of government would have gone through their expense claims with a fine tooth comb to make sure there was nothing that could catch them out. 

if you are going to be a government that is going to crack down on people who engage in benefit fraud then you really should make sure that you have checked everyone of your team to make sure that their expense claims are legitimate, above board and can be justified. 

that, surely, is just plain common sense. 

on some occasions you have to be spotless. 

baroness warsi managed to forget to declare that she had a source of income from the rental of a flat in london. yet that isn’t the source of her problems it is her claiming overnight living expenses. for those who attend the house of lords who live outside london there was a flat rate overnight expense of £165.50. before she bought her house in london, the baroness was claiming this in order to pay for hotel accommodation. so far, so what? occasionally she stayed with a friend and it seems she paid her friend the going rate for a hotel. in real terms the amount of money isn’t that much, maybe a couple of grand. 

yet it still calls into question baroness warsi’s judgement – firstly for having a friend who would charge her so much for spending a couple of nights; some friend. secondly for paying a friend (and coincidently a conservative party worker) with public money

just maybe it gives an insight into people who believe they are better than the rest of us, that they are above the petty rules we have to live our lives by. maybe that is why they are so keen on getting rid of red tape everywhere because of the times when it seems to trip them up and entangle them. it could just be another demonstration of just how greedy the rich are and how unwilling they are to spend their own money when they can spend someone else’s money. 

baroness warsi isn’t at all like those benefit cheats because she believes that she acted within ‘the spirit and letter’ of the rules, there is another way she isn’t like those benefit cheats so hated by the tories and the daily mail baroness warsi won’t suffer from being caught out.