Democracy – just clock in to get your expenses paid

Another illuminating day for those of us not entirely convinced that we live in a functional democracy.

.The Mirror, The Independent and the Guardian carried the informative tale of Lord Hanningfield who was followed by hacks from The Mirror for a few days in July. They discovered that while claiming his £300 daily attendance allowance he was in fact in The Lords for less than 40 minutes in 11 of 19 days. This shouldn’t be entirely surprising as he was recently released from prison after serving a mere nine weeks of his nine month sentence for fiddling his expenses to the tune of £28,000.

The Haze can’t help wondering how this tallies with the four year sentence handed down to a guy who tried to incite a riot in 2011 on er Facebook – but lets leave such heinous crimes aside and hear from the man himself about quite how he defends his behaviour.

Confronted about the claims by the newspaper, Hanningfield said: “Lots of peers go in and check in for their expenses but they are using their expenses for a lot of things – entertaining, employing people.”

“Clocking in and out of parliament is only part of being a peer.”

“By the time I have people at home to help, time I have people in the House of Lords to help me, I spend something like £150 a day on expenses, so I don’t really make any profit. I have to live, don’t I?

I don’t do anything else. How do you think I am going to eat, how am I going to pay my electricity bills?

While electricity bills are a worry for many in the populace – claiming £300 a pop for half an hour in The Lords is not an option available to the masses.

It has to be said, Lord Hanningfield is about as gifted at dealing with the media as he is at fiddling his expenses – this is what he had to say about his fellow peers – as they performed their vital role as guardians of the nation’s democracy.

He told the Mirror :

“I can name 50 that do it. I see the same people go in and out as I do. I don’t want to be persecuted.”

Oh well that’s alright then.

isn’t this the perfect example of what democracy in this country has become?

You turn up, clock in and cash out.

Its not hard to see why the public have such antipathy and disgust with the modern political class.