Wednesday 16 July 2008

BBC are spinning for Gordon Brown on expenses debate.

If you were to read the BBC's article on the expenses debate taking place in parliament today, you would believe that the debate was all Labour's idea. I would like to know who wrote the article, because whoever it may be is obviously an out and out Labour supporter. Reading the first five or six paragraphs you would never guess that it was David Cameron who called for this debate and that it is the Conservatives who are going to publish their expense claims, in detail, for the first three months of this year. Labour rushed out their proposal last night in an attempt to avoid embarrassment.

The author of the article points out that Gordon Brown was disappointed that the last vote to abolish the list was lost because it was his MPs (including no less than 34 ministers) who voted against it. What he failed to point out was that Brown couldn't have been that disappointed seeing has he didn't turn up for the vote, or that his Whips were nodding Labour MPs towards the NO Lobby. He also didn't mention that the Conservatives believe that Gordon Brown let his MPs vote against expense transparency in return for accepting an inflation matching pay rise.

The author of the article says: "Labour say they are serious about their proposed reforms and will try to rush them on to the statute books before the summer recess." However, there is no mention of the various statements made by David Cameron in the last 24 hrs. You'd think that the BBC would be interested in why Cameron has called this debate, or at least you would think the public might want to know. So I'll help the BBC out. This is what Cameron had to say about calling this debate on MPs expenses:

"Some might say calling another debate on this subject is an unusual step. "But I feel passionately that the Conservative party must carry on showing a proper lead and do everything we can to correct this flawed arrangement."

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