MPs badgering the fees office

One of the most unedifying aspects of the leaked information about the expense claims so far has been the way some MPs have badgered the fees office about expense claims and in some cases bludgeoned them into submission.

Andy Burnham joked in a letter to them that if he did not get reimbursed for his flat moving costs (more than £16,000) then he "might be in line for divorce!". This betrays to me a sense of entitlement far beyond what should be expected. It is not the job of the tax payer to satisy Mr Burnham's wifes desires in this way. He hassled and hassled and eventually got his way. This to me makes a mockery of the claims by MPs and their spokespeople that everything was above board and approved by the fees office if they were being harranged and bullied in this way.

This quote from an unnamed former Labour minister from the Telegraph article is absolutely breathtaking in its arrogance:

One former Labour minister said: "I object to your decision not to reimburse me for the costs of purchasing a baby's cot for use in my London home... perhaps you might write to me explaining where my son should sleep next time he visits me in London?"

How about you buy a cot from your £64,000 salary like the rest of us would have to? The more I read, the more disgusted I get and I suspect much of the rest of the country feels the same way.