When blogging earlier today about how Labour MP Dawn Butler was one of those who blocked reforms to MPs’ expenses last year it crosseed my mind to make a satirical comment. Good thing I didn’t try really, as it would have been topped straight away by the latest Daily Telegraph revelation – that she claimed for a Jacuzi-style bath on expenses.
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In what way is a Whirlpool bath demonstrably worse that £1k leather rocking chair, hiring an interior designer for the refurb of your flat, a £750 cherry wood chest of draws or trying to claim £2500 for a TV during the disolution while you aren’t even an MP ?
All posts like this do is
(a) feed the prejudices of a section of the activist base that we have been quantitively better than everyone else.
(b) make the party look sanctimonious to any passing voters who are appalled by all of this and know fine well that there have been Lib Dem transgressions that have led to pay backs.
I remain of the view that the only Voice collective member who really “gets this” is the fragrant Alix.
Agree with you Dawn Butler’s a seriously greedy pig,not just the whirlpool bath but two homes within 11 miles of Westminster!
it may have something to do with the fact that Dawn Butler is fighting Sarah Teather for Brent Central at the next General Election and this could be used as Focus leaflet information if mud starts to get slung, David.
Carrion,
I’m aware of the local circumstances which in my view makes the post even worse. Screw you your national narrative for local tactical advantage when frankly the infomation could be used anyway.
I think John’s point about two homes close to Westminster is very valid here.
Yes, I agree. Alix did “get it”. If the verb, “to get it”, means, in this context, joining a media induced frenzy and suspending one’s critical judgment in the process. It was Alix, remember, who repeated the “Torygraph’s” libel against Andrew George, only to retreat with egg on her face when the truth emerged later in the day. I don’t think Alix got it, rather she was got – by the Barclay Brothers.
According to David Morton, Alix has something in common with Lady Archer – she is “fragrant”. I suppose David’s comment is marginally less sexist than that of a Tory troll who wanted to see her naked.
Butler is toast. Not only is she hopeless, but her convenient memory “lapses” are laughable.
Sorry, is this Alix or Lady Archer who is naked? It makes a big difference!
I have a long history of Brent politics, which I have withdrawn from and I know from experience that the residents from the old Brent South part of the Brent Central constituency would very seriously object to taxpayers money being spent on a whirlpool bath.
I remember seeing Paul Boateng often in the Constituency, even the Conservatives had competing “Saturday stalls” on Wembley High Road. I have never seen the Obama forger. In fact, my mother who still keeps all of the political leaflets delivered in her ward, has never even seen a Labour leaflet, despite being in an area that was Labour for years.
Brent central was always going to be a battle seat for Labour and the Lib Dems, combining some of the poorest wards in London, with some of the richest.
What will shock some as pure greed and abuse, will have secured Sarah the seat.
If I was Sarah Teather’s campaign, I would – as a viral- do a mash up of this story & the lolcats/icanhascheezburger phenomenon. So it’s lolfatcats. A picture of Dawn Butler superimposed on a jacuzzi with ‘i can haz taxpayer pay for my jacuzzi?’ slogan on it.