Save Jacqui Smith
I can’t believe I’m defending Jacqui Smith, but, well, I am. But only a little.
I don’t think she should be hounded from office because the expense claim she submitted contained a couple of charges for adult movies that her husband had watched on cable TV.
Watching porn (at least, the kind that you can buy on cable TV) isn’t illegal. I’m certainly not outraged. But it is embarrassing. And that’s why privacy matters. You don’t have to be doing something wrong to have something to hide. That’s why we have curtains, and envelopes, and doors on our lavatories. It would be ironic if a draconian Home Secretary who’s done so much to curtail the privacy of the British people was unseated because of a private matter. Or would it? Irony would imply that there’s something contrary to expectation, and everyone has something to hide—especially those who want to take away our privacy to fight terrorists or for the children.
I want to see Jacqui Smith sacked for what she’s done in her public role as Home Secretary. Not because an oversight in her expenses makes for great salacious outraged headlines.
2009-03-31 12:45 UTC. Comments: 8.
Ed
Wrote at 2009-03-31 13:58 UTC using Firefox 3.0.8 on Windows XP 64 or Server 2003:
I kind of agree, but equally I really don’t care why she’s sacked.That said, I’m not sure she’s resposible for the policies she promotes…
Strawp
Wrote at 2009-03-31 14:16 UTC using Firefox 3.0.8 on Windows XP:
I don’t think it’s the porn so much as the fact it was porn paid for on an allowance that came out of taxpayer’s pockets. If they’re paying for porn, what else are they paying for that they shouldn’t, kind of thing.If they paid for it with their own salary then they can fap to their hearts content!
Second home allowance seems like a damned silly idea to me anyway.
Richard Earney
Wrote at 2009-03-31 15:24 UTC using Safari 525.27.1 on Mac OS X:
Certainly on the scale of things a tenner on porn is not as bad as the massive corporate tax avoidance by companies such as Barclays and Tesco.kev
Wrote at 2009-04-01 14:17 UTC using Firefox 3.0.8 on Windows XP:
It’s not so much the tenner for a couple of adult movies. It’s the fact there seems to be one law for rich people on good salaries and another (far more ruthless) for ordinary people.fophillips
Wrote at 2009-04-02 22:03 UTC using Mozilla 1.9.0.3 on Linux:
A private matter? It is anything but, her spending public money is absolutely a public matter and she should be held accountable.Paul Battley
Wrote at 2009-04-02 22:41 UTC using Firefox 3.0.7 on Linux:
I absolutely agree that MPs’ expenses should be dragged out into the daylight, and that they should be forced to account for their claims. They’ll find it a lot harder to pad their expenses when everyone can see them.In that respect, claiming £23K in second home allowance by the wheeze of claiming your sister’s London flat as your main home would be a calculated duplicity that, whilst possibly legal, would not be morally justifiable.
However, submitting an internet bill (legitimate) that is mixed with pay-per-wank TV charges (not allowed) is a far less egregious sin—one might even charitably assume it to be a simple clerical error.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s an Al Capone thing: we can only take them down on the minor transgressions. But I’m sure that simply changing the players won’t alter the game, and I’m far more concerned about the erosion of civil liberties than cable bills.
sackofjamproductions
Wrote at 2009-04-05 15:28 UTC using Firefox 3.0.8 on Windows Vista:
It wouldn’t be that bad..if that’s all she’d claimed for. Fact is her salary and her expenses reached £300,000 in one year, not just claiming porn, but also claiming for two flat screen TV’s and several other mundane household items like an 88p bath plug. Also claiming another £40,000 to pay her husband to be her ‘aide’. If I were on over £100,000 I would certainly pay for my own bath plug, even if I did consider myself extremely important.The only reason people have only heard about the porn is because it’s all the media has latched on to, but in reality, it’s much more scandalous than that.
Craig
Wrote at 2009-04-09 23:44 UTC using Firefox 2.0.0.20 on Windows XP:
I entirely agree with you Paul.But the Daily Mail’s Disgusted-of-Tunbridge-Wells agrees with sackofjamproductions’s comments here. They all want to know why postal workers and nursing auxillaries should pay for a bathplug for someone who is paid 45 times as much as they are. They want to get rid of people like that – and they will this before this autumn.