And the money kept rolling in...

So, Communites Secretary Hazel Blears has written a cheque for £13,332 to the Inland Revenue for capital gains tax on the sale of her "second" home.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Phil Hope is also to pay back money - to the tune of £41,709 in second home allowances.

Just to put this in context, Blears' £13,332 cheque is roughly what I made (after tax) when I worked at the Scottish Parliament in a YEAR.

Who has that kind of money lying around in a bank account, with the ability to write a cheque straight off? The kind of people, perhaps, who know that they have done wrong and are ready to act when they are found out?

Yes, Lord Foulkes, we need to pay these people more money. Because goodness knows, they don't waste have enough of it already.

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For Foulkes sake!

Got to love politicians trying to defend themselves over pay and expenses.

Everyone's favourite peer, Lord Foulkes has a go.

"They're [MP's] paid £64,000... what's your salary?... £92,000?! That's nearly twice as much as MPs."

Actually, it's just less that 50% more... not quite "nearly twice as much." Back to school, Lord Foulkes. Also, is he really trying to suggest that an MP can't live on £64,000 a year? I suppose you can't re-tile your swimming pool on that...

"And you are paid a lot more than them to do a lot less important work."

And there was me thinking it was the job of political journalists to hold politicians to account, to demand from them the high standards that their office should maintain. Okay, the journos aren't making the laws of the land or sending our forces off to war, but they are the medium through which the public are informed of the decisions the politicians take.

Our favourite Lord might do well to remember that the media often hold the keys to re-election for a number of MPs. Not that he needs to worry about that for his second job in the House of Lords I suppose.

Favourite line from this piece:

"What a lot of nonsense you're talking."

Though it should probably have come from the reporter and not from Foulkes...

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Some Foulkes never stop

With a hat-tip to The Steamie, the Scotsman's new political blog site, I learn that Lord George Foulkes has launched his own YouTube channel, which can be found here.

I'm all for politicians finding alternative ways of connecting with the electorate, and I'm impressed that Lord Foulkes has taken it upon himself to update voters with what is going on in the Scottish Parliament on a weekly basis (with no hint of bias at all...). I suspect though, as the good Lord is 66 and probably doesn't know his technological proverbial from his elbow, that his staff have a lot more to do with that side of it.

Just a shame his views are a wee bit on the biased side... for the opposite view to Lord Foulkes, the Scottish Government's YouTube channel is here. Don't say I don't give you both sides of a story!

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