Dennis MacShane MP has now been found guilty of submitting fabricated expenses allowing him to steal thousands of pounds from the taxpayer. He was suspended from the House of Commons for a year but says that he has now taken the honourable step of resigning as an MP as well. Cobblers. I am reminded of chapter ten of Animal Farm by George Orwell when the pigs start to walk on two legs. No longer is it “four legs good, two legs bad.”
“Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.
“My sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”
For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
Indeed they are. Will MacShane get his Parliamentary pension? More importantly at this stage there seems no indication (and certainly little pressure in Sleaze central, Westminster) for the Old Bill to re-open an investigation into this common criminal. The man submitted false invoices and stole money. The evidence (i.e. the false invoices) is there. If this horrid little man is charged he is bound to plead guilty.
Am I being stupid and missing something or is a greedy MP animal more equal that all other animals now?
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