As Obama Progresses, MPs Regress

Yesterday, as I’m sure I don’t need to point out, saw the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. We had an event on here at work where we invited clients to watch it, served food & drinks (with an American theme) and gave a couple of presentations on lessons for marketers from Obama’s campaign. And a lot of fun it was too.

So it seems rather depressing that in the same week that the new President said,

And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account – to spend wisely, reform bad  habits, and do our business in the light of day – because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

British MPs may vote to make details of their expenses secret. This would mean that we wouldn’t be able to find out that MP Barbara Follett, claimed £1,600 for cleaning the windows of her London home last year. In an effort to update Tom Lehrer’s pronouncement that satire died when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, I should add that Follett is a Labour MP & married to a multi-millionaire author.

Anyway, the website mySociety are encouraging people to campaign against this disgusting move, and there’s only one day to do so. So join the Facebook group & write to your MP. I’m not sure I could stand the embarassment of having such a bunch of self-serving crooks serving us if this vote is passed.

UPDATE: In a sign of the amazing political power that this blog wields, Gordon Brown has backed down on this issue. It seems that the Tories decided not to support it: I’m not really sure that they can take any moral victory out of this though as their 1922 Committee were one of the driving forces behind it.

Obama image by Maya Mem on flickr

4 comments

  1. “…to spend wisely…”

    His proposed budget is going to cost $217,000 for every new job it will supposedly create. This isn’t progress. Its more of the same insanity branded as HOPE and CHANGE.

  2. Hi Tony,

    I’m afraid I’m not going to respond your comment because:

    a) I’m not a US citizen and so haven’t followed his campaign enough to know all the details of it
    b) I’ve found out the hard way that political discussion online almost always falls prey to Godwin’s law, and usually pretty quickly

    Cheers

  3. No need to respond as you are right on both counts. I won’t be offended if you choose to wipe my comment from this post.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *