Stopping the MP Gravy Train

Sir Christopher Kelly's report on MPs' expenses isn't due to be published until next week, although its principal findings have, it appears, been leaked to the media. Perhaps full analysis and comment should wait until it is formally unveiled, but it is worth noting the cries of woe that MPs have been generating about the provision to prevent them employing spouses in future. Some 200 MPs do this, and the claim is that these are all properly contracted jobs done by able people who just happen to be MPs spouses. Maybe. But there is no other job or profession that sees such wholesale nepotism going on, and the protests of the MPs and their 'employees' today is indicative of the long road they still have to take before they really emerge from their ivory offices and see themselves as the world sees them. One MPs' wife, employed as her husband's secretary, commented on Radio 4's PM programme this evening that it would be a tragedy if she, as the best person for the job, was now discriminated against just because she was married to the MP. I do just wonder how many candidates for the job were interviewed besides her though!