£92k TO READ FROM AN AUTOCUE? CUE NEXT WITCHHUNT!

It must have been with a large dose of ambivalence that most people watched the terse exchange between the BBC’s Carrie Gracie and Lord Foulkes on the Beeb’s 24hr news channel recently.  Gracie, first class investigative journalist that she is, was rightly probing the bruiser Foulkes MPs’ about the probity of recent expenses claims for an assortment of goodies including moat cleaning, dog food and chocolate Santas!

Just when we thought that Gracie had Foulkes over a barrel (or a £1,200 plush new rocking chair, fully reimbursable from the Parliamentary Fees Office) the redoubtable Scot laid into Gracie about her value for money as a familiar face to news junkies like myself.  To her credit, Gracie calmly admitted that she earns £92k per year; roughly 50% more than the great and good (and apparently downright corrupt!) in Westminster.

I can’t help feeling that once the Daily Telegraph has milked the MPs’ expenses story for all that it’s worth (and fair play to them for having a go), the popular press will  be looking around for the next fattened lamb to sacrifice on the altar of public opinion.  Woe betide any news reader, senior civil servant or local apparatchik who happens to fire in an ill-considered expenses receipt for a diamond encrusted loo seat.  And if newsreaders have been supplementing their generous basic salaries with exotic expenses claims, their hapless mugshots are sure to be splashed all over the newspapers in the coming weeks!

Watching Question Time last week, and seeing a panel of senior politicians facing a barrage of criticism from a very hostile audience, it struck me that Sir Menzies Campbell surely had a point when he claimed that MPs’ pay packets had fallen behind those of headteachers and senior civil servants, and that a parliamentary pay increase is long overdue.  It’s a reality, however, that doesn’t elicit much sympathy with the many out there who are facing the full force of this recession. Strikes me that there are certain benefits to working in a slimmed down private sector – with any diligent boss, these extravagant expenses claims would never even have seen the light of day!