Expenses 'not important'? (The time Stephen Fry upset me)

Okay, I'm a little late with this one, but been meaning to write it for a while.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045040.stm


So Fry claims Journalists are ‘venal and disgusting when it comes to expenses’. And that expense stories are a ‘journalistic made-up frenzy’.

Don’t take the piss.

Stephen Fry, you are a witty, intelligent man who is well respected, but you’ve also been very lucky in life. You hopped from Cambridge to star in University Challenge to become a massive entertainer in your own right. Not all of us get that break.

As I'm a journalist whose salary is £800 a month after tax is taken off, I think it’s disgusting for Fry to suggest that journalists are the worst for fiddling.

My HUGELY needed £200 going to the taxman each month is being spent on a floating duck island. Thanks Sir Peter Viggers, I can’t go on holiday this year. I hope your ducks are happy.

Whilst I do claim expenses, I get back what I’m due – petrol and parking. And with rising fuel prices, I probably get less back in petrol expenses than what I spend.

Fry may think it’s ‘unimportant’ that MP’s are pissing our money down the drain; I think it’s a disgrace. It may not be important to those on a high wage who can afford to give this money to a bunch of selfish, pathetic, arrogant money-grabbers. But I’d rather keep it to survive on, thanks.

Plus, it is a journalist’s job to report the news. MP’s claiming expenses for banal things with our hard earned cash, is a news story. It WILL be reported.

Keep the MP’s that haven’t abused the system. Get rid of those that have. If they were average citizens, they would be prosecuted.