- Joined
- Mar 25, 2012
- Location
- IOM
People seem to be missing the point on the decorating. If it's proven he used funds he shouldn't have, then it's dishonest, and should start in depth investigations into other things, such as awarding million pound contracts to mates firms who had just been set up with a few quid in the company account.
Exactly this, and people who say 'Who cares how he paid for his flat?' are IMO guilty of deliberately avoiding the very obvious issue with this situation. It matters. It's important.
Anyway, as it happens someone has summarised it very concisely and effectively in this short piece.
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If someone relieved me of a bill for £58,000, I would feel greatly in their debt. The only debt a prime minister should feel is to the electorate. If a prime minister cannot live on his official salary, but is dependent on financial gifts from wealthy patrons, we need to be certain that this is not coming with conditions that pit private against public interests.
So this is not a story about soft furnishings, or taste, or a snobbish attitude to a department store. It is about money. And because it's about money, it's about accountability. And because it's about accountability, it's about democracy.
That makes it about us. If a prime minister digs in his heels; if he tells us that we are not allowed to know who is paying his expenses, or to whom he owes favours, or what he might have done for them in return, he is issuing a challenge to our democracy. Do we accept that a prime minister is not accountable to the public? That he does not need to tell us if he's in receipt of cash favours? That he can open up a private revenue stream, and tell the public where to shove their right to know about it?