Who is Backing #KerryOut?
A friendly lefty gets in touch:
I’m a member of the Labour Party and I support the #kerryout campaign, there, I said it! Why do I support a campaign that seeks to oust a Labour MP you may ask. For me it’s not that she blocks people on twitter, as don’t I really get the point of twitter. However, I do find the use of blocking slightly ridiculous, what happens when you meets that person in real life and they say the exact same thing to you? Do you stick your fingers in your ears and sing to block out their thought crime? Our MPs shouldn’t fear debate, it’s what gets people engaged in politics, and it gives you a new perspective that you will not find by just talking to party members.
On Kerry McCarthy’s blog she justifies spending £400 a month on food allowance because the other kids told her to: “Until April 2009 there was a £400 per month food allowance. As new MPs in May 2005 we were advised by the old hands to claim this as a matter of course; it was our entitlement. So I did although not over the summer or other periods when I didn't have to be in London. I admit to being uncomfortable with this.” Sure she stopped claiming after she’d claimed the full £400 for Jun 2005,Jul 2005, Jan 2006,Feb 2006, Mar 2006, Apr 2006, May 2006 Jun 2006, Jul 2006, Oct 2006, Nov 2006, Dec 2006, Jan 2007, Feb 2007, Mar 2007, Apr 2007, May 2007 and Feb 2008. Oh and£300 May 2005, £200 Aug 2006, £200 Sep 2006, £300 Jun 2007, £300 Jul 2007, £100 Aug 2007, £300 Oct 2007, £300 Nov 2007, £240 Dec 2007, £250 Jan 2008£200 Mar 2008, £150 Apr 2008, £200 May 2008, £250 Jun 2008, £200 Jul 2008£200 Oct 2008, £240 Nov 2008, £200 Dec 2008, £200 Jan 2009, £200 Mar 2009 This in total is an impressive £11730. The Nuremberg defence just doesn’t cut it with me, it shows that her morals and judgement are dubious to say the least, if you know something is wrong you don’t do it, it’s not hard! Do we really need an MP in Parliament who knows something is completely wrong but goes along with it anyway? I know I’m going to get jumped on by a fair few Labour members, who feel I’m betraying the party, but I don’t see the difference between criticising Kerry McCarthy and this:“BevaniteEllie : I'd like to register my utter contempt for Charles Clarke. The irrelevant little swine that he is. Thanks.”
I also think we need to look at the wider picture, sure if Tory Bear is successful with his #kerryout campaign we’ll have lost a Labour seat, but I’d rather lose Labour seats then keep people like this representing us in Parliament. I want to see MPs that not only encourage excellence within their party (whichever that may be), but much more importantly within Parliament. The expenses scandal has shown we need to shake up Parliament, we need to get rid of the expenses troughers, the deadwood and the MPs who lost their moral compass on their much more important quest to become sycophantic career politicians. As such I think all the people with questionable expenses and questionable morals not just Kerry McCarthy should be booted out of Parliament, even if that just leaves us with Rob Marris MP for Labour and Richard Benyon MP for Conservatives in Parliament!
If people want to go all Glen Cullen on me and "start a shit fight." Feel free to at my email address:
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8 comments:
Any MP who thought that taking £400 a month from the lowest paid in society to spend on their food bills, does not merit the description honourable.
Taking the food out of the mouths of pensioners and cleaners, simply to gorge yourself at La Gavroche (or Le Manoir, or Ask, or Pret, or Waitrose, does it really matter where?).
Utterly, utterly shameful.
Mr and Mrs Balls take note.
As for the "others egged me on" defence, well, if you see someone rolling in shit it doesn't necessarily mean you have to join them.
If it is the top food allowance claimers you are after, there are bigger fish to fry.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5561988/MPs-expenses-more-than-30-MPs-charged-the-taxpayer-4800-annually-for-food.html
I still don't know why you have picked out Kerry McCarthy for this campaign.
"Nuremberg defence" ??
I find it rather hard to believe that Kerry and the other troughers (of all parties) were going to be shot by the SS if they didn't claim the Luxury Food Vouchers paid for by the sweat of the workers and soldiers.
On the basic tenets of the post I do agree with the friendly lefty.
I am firmly of the opinion that political activists across the spectrum should beast their politicians on the issues of troughing and general arsity.
@Conrad
I admit bad choice of words on that front, but at the time when I was writing it couldn't think of a better way to describe the "oh be they told me to defence"
@Duncan Stott
For me it's not the fact that she claimed more or less then anyone else, more the fact that she admitted she knew it was wrong but continued to do it regardless
+ I mentioned in the post that I felt we had to go after all questionable MPs not just Kerry McCarthy.
"For me it’s not that she blocks people on twitter"
Thats good, otherwise I'm sure whoever starts a #NadineOut campaign would be expecting your support.
"Do we really need an MP in Parliament who knows something is completely wrong but goes along with it anyway"
I could list a great number of Tory MPs who claim on a lot more frivolous things than food, and statements from many of them honestly claiming they don't understand what the problem is. But you can find all this yourself by googling.
Although I have to admit, I know I've been trolled. No such "labour supporter" contacted you. This entire post has as much credibility as if I were to say "A conservative supporter emailed me yesterday saying Tory Bear was a closet Labour voter". I'd expect most people wouldn't be stupid enough to believe me.
@Anoymous
"I could list a great number of Tory MPs who claim on a lot more frivolous things than food, and statements from many of them honestly claiming they don't understand what the problem is. But you can find all this yourself by googling."
"...I think all the people with questionable expenses and questionable morals not just Kerry McCarthy should be booted out of Parliament"
I'm not sure how I could of made it any clearer that I think all MPs that have dodgy expenses should go, no matter what party they are from, I wish there was #kerryout style campaigns for every single MP involved in the expenses situ.
@Those suggesting the net be widened to include a cross-party range of spongers and swindlers:
Do bear in mind that a great many are stepping down, and a great many will be swept from office at any rate.
Focusing on individual cases won't let anyone else off the hook.
At last!! Other people have finally noticed. Here is a post written at the start of the Labour Party conference (Sept 09) which tracked Twitter activity by Labour MPs and Party Members; namely Kerry McCarthy, who took the time to add a comment to the post. She didn't really understand. I would hope you do. It is astounding.