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The Corrigan Brothers - who sang such hits as There’s No One as Irish as Barrack O’Bama - have been in touch to tell us about their new song.

Ireland’s Corrigan Brothers, the Band who had the International hit “There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama” and who played at President Barack Obama’s inauguration have sent their new song to every British MP - IT’S the MP’s Expenses Song!

The Corrigan Brothers will help pay back expenses for any MP who will perform the song live with them.

Lead singer Ger Corrigan said “those claims are nuts, we just had to write a song about them and we offer to help pay back the expenses for any mp who will PERFORM THE SONG LIVE (JUST ONCE) with us”

THE LYRICS
I’m only human, I’m your MP
I’ve been claiming excessively
Two toilet seats or clean my moat
A pack of Tampax but I’m a bloke

My swimming pool sprung a leak
66 grand, that was cheap
Ikea bag cost 5p
And twenty quid on a porno movie

chorus
I’m only human
Spare a thought for me
It costs a lot to be your MP
Fluffy dusters and HobNobs
We need these things to do our jobs

A claim for nappies and a Kit Kat too
A glittery seat for my loo
A chocolate Santa
That was me
And decorations for my Christmas tree
I bought a lemon and sent in a claim
I changed my lightbulbs and claimed again
82 quid for a frame on my shelf
A lovely photo of myself

Tags: expenses, Jokes

It’s that annual time of year again – as regular as the tide, as traditional as May Day – the annual Bash Prince Charles Over His Expenses Day.

I don’t partake.

Prince Charles gets a lot of stick, and he doesn’t deserve it.

People laughed at his interest in organic farming, yet today it’s a mass industry and in every supermarket.

People sneered when he described modernist building as a “monstrous carbuncle”, but who today disagrees?

And every year he gets attacked for his expenses, and I’ve had enough. Leave the guy alone!

Yes he spent 1.71 million pounds on travel expenses. But he did so travelling more than 50,000 miles to 658 official engagements! As Alan Bennet said, “…he really works his ass off.

“He’s much more conscientious and attentive to people than he is ever given credit for and so, as I say, I have a great deal of time for him.”

Author Ingrid Seward, who has written extensively about the Royal Family, told the BBC that Charles offered “value for money” and was “no burden” on the taxpayer.

“When Prince Charles goes on foreign trips it’s not [simply] because he wants to, it’s because he’s invited by foreign countries and it must be paid for because he’s a great ambassador,” she said. And she’s right.

Prince Charles, and the Monarchy, are a great force for good in this country. In times of crisis they are a symbol of stability, in times of division they are a unifying force that can represent us all and be above politics.

In diplomacy at home and abroad, in business and trade, in culture and international relations, the Monarchy lets us punch above our weight. The Obamas want The Queen at D-Day, not Gordon Brown. America goes into a frenzy when they visit the US. The Heads of every government are blown away by the WOW factor of a State visit.

And easily forgotten is that the Grant-in-Aid funding for the Queen’s Household from Parliament that pays for all this is actually given in exchange for the surrender of revenue from the Crown Estate. The revenues of Crown Estate – with a value of more than £7.3bn – far exceeds the taxpayer grants. The Treasury takes far more from the Royals than it ever gives.

And what the jealous hate-mongers of Republic forget is that the Prince of Wales also raised over £130 million in the last year alone for his core charities which are regarded as hugely beneficial. What have the bearded weirded of Republic ever done?

Tags: expenses, Monarchy, Prince Charles, Royal Family

Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused “the evil British government” on Friday of interfering last weekend’s election, describing Britain as “treacherous”. The scenes were frankly terrifying as thousands upon thousands of fanatical supporters each waved their left arm in the air with a remarkable degree of synchronised insanity whilst chanting “Death to the UK”. As scenes of fanatical leader supporting goes it was right up there.

treacherous – adjective
1.characterized by faithlessness or readiness to betray trust; traitorous.
2.deceptive, untrustworthy, or unreliable.
3.unstable or insecure, as footing.
4.dangerous; hazardous: a treacherous climb.

I very much hope that this shows to anyone who doubted it: Iran’s leaders are dangerous!

Tags: foreign affairs, Iran

More jokes harvested from various sources about MP’s expenses.

Labour MP said his claims were “1000% within the rules”; the same amount he claimed on his mortgage.

Politics. From the Latin ‘poli’, meaning many, and ‘tics’, meaning blood sucking parasites.

How many MP’s does it take to change a lightbulb? None, they’ll stick it on expenses.

People say politicians need to be more transparent, that’s rubbish. Politicians are more transparent now than ever, the entire country can see right through them.

Vote Labour. We’ve got what it takes to take what you’ve got.

Speaker Michael Martin has been removed. The last time I saw a speaker removed so fast it was under someone’s arm in Dixons.

A florist goes into a hairdressers for a haircut. Pleased with the result she goes to pay but is turned down. “I’m on community service this week, I’m not charging”. The florist goes away happy and the next morning the hairdresser arrives at work to find a thank you card and a bouquet of 12 roses from the florist. Later a baker has his hair cut and again is told not to pay, and the next morning the hairdresser discovers a thank you card and 12 cakes on the door. Later an MP has his hair cut and again gets it free. Wondering what she will find the next morning, the hairdresser is shocked to find a thank you card and 12 MPs wanting free haircuts.

Tags: expenses, Labour, Politics

Today legal history has been made - for all the wrong reasons.

The Lord Chief Justice, Judge Judge, has approved the first ever trial without a jury in England!

The hideous option, breaking a fundamental principle of our justice system that every accused has the right to fair trial and due process in front of a jury of their fellow countrymen, was introduced by Labour in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act.

The four men in question, charged with the Heathrow robbery, will not thus be found guilty or not guilty by a panel of their peers, but by one single Judge.

The reasoning? Cost. Judge Judge has decided that protecting jurors from outside influence would cost too much! Far better just abolish our ancient legal rights!!!

The defence that some civil cases are heard by a Judge alone is very flimsy. We aren’t talking about a small claims squabble here but a Criminal Case with serious consequences.

A very sad piece of news.

Tags: Justice, Law

David Cameron must be in a cooking mood. A round-robin letter by an anonymous person - claiming to be a Tory MP - accuses him of using ‘Stallinist tactics’ and anger at the expenses scandal to remake the party in a new image, using ‘kangaroo courts’ of his close supporters to force out old MPs. The old adage that you can’t make on omelette without breaking some eggs springs to mind.

Now I am certainly not in favour of Stallinist tactics or the ousting of elected representatives by party leadership. But - and it’s a big but - many MPs have acted very badly, breaking the expenses rules or at the very least having their snouts very firmly in the trough.

Caught out, many of what are described as ‘old guard’ have reacted terribly to the revelations. Disgusting arrogance, rudeness, dismissive responses, a ‘my right’ culture. Douglas Hogg walking away from reporters. Anthony Steen accusing his constituents of jealousy. And now Brian Binley - who claimed over £50,000 for a flat rented from his own company and £2,115 for a truly dire website I half suspect he made himself - being absolutely petulant in his assertations that he won’t repay anything even if asked!

With friends like these, who needs enemies? Each are surely guaranteed to lose their seats if they stand again - they simply have to go! Yes it is a blessing in disguise that a few people who are tired, stale and old (in the sense they have been MPs for too long, not actual physical age) are being replaced by hopefully better new recruits, but it is still vital.

Of course if we had Open Primaries and Voter Recall, we wouldn’t have this problem, but I can’t see these ‘old guard’ wanting that. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

Tags: Conservative, expenses, Politics, Westminster

ToryBear notes that whoever designed Brian Binley’s shockingly bad website didn’t factor in the thought that the scrolling BBC news feed might one day be leading with a scandal about their boss:

And it is a shockingly bad website too, which “was funded from the Incidental Expenses Provision” and cost a rip-off £2,115 according to his expenses claims!

The website has no “Webdesign by……” footer, instead reading “Brian Binley MP is responsible for this site”. Hmmmmm. Either he did it himself, or he hired the World’s worst web designer at a rip off rate!

Tags: Brian Binley, Consrvatives, expenses, Politics

Shocking. And who says political correctness hasn’t gone mad?

Members of the public are being stopped and searched under controversial anti-terror laws to racially balance the overall official figures, the Government’s watchdog over the issue said today.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, QC, also said people are being stopped by police when there is not the slightest possibility of the individual being a terrorist.

Read more at The Times.

Technorati Profile

Tags: police, political correctness, terrorism, Waste

Something incredible is happening. On September 6, 1943, Winston Churchill famously told an audience at Harvard University that “the empires of the future will be empires of mind”. It was interpreted as a signal Britain understood the age of empire was coming to an end; but of all Churchill’s great soundbite quotes this is perhaps the most insightful, and least understood.

The age of empires did indeed draw to a close, but Churchill’s empires of mind have only just begun. These new empires of mind aren’t built by armies, run by colonialists or shaded pink on the map (or any other colour). They have no Head of State, nor State for that matter either. They are ideas and information, and one such idea - free western liberalism and democracy - and the information about it, is conquering new territory every day. Ronald Reagan said that information was the oxygen of the modern age, for it “seeps across the borders topped with barbed wire, wafts across the electrified borders.” The internet has turned that seepage and waft into a tidalwave - and the results are staggering. Unrelated and distant events are all proof.

Why did the public in Pakistan so suddenly turn hostile to a Taleban threat they had been happy to appease? They got a viral email featuring a YouTube clip. No one knows what the poor young girl had done; what they did know is what they saw done to her - held to the ground and whipped - and that they were reviled. Video killed the radio star, YouTube killed the Taleban (or their PR anyway).

What’s letting protestors communicate and the public stay informed in Iran? Twitter and its #hashtags. It’s not so much a case of “They may take our lives but they may never take our freedom” but more “they may rig our election but they may never take our Twitter and Facebooks.”

Why do we know Labour planned to smear its rivals? How can anyone reach a global audience? How can the World, his wife, his kids and the pet parrot all have a say? Blogs.

From video of state wrongdoing - the recent taser incident being newest - to blog journalism, YouTube video to Twitter updates, the ever more rapid and open flow of information is going to be the biggest force for change - and it’s good news for freedom and democracy.

Most of it may be rubbish - YouTube videos of cats yawning, blogs about Ukip, Twitter Tweets about the weather - but that’s its biggest strength. They can block the BBC, but they can’t stop someone outside pasting articles onto an email or blog (and if they find and block that then another will take its place). And they can’t stop people imparting information about other places and lifestyles from even the most mundane of things.

The Internet will change the World, and the revolution won’t just be televised, it’ll be YouTubed.

Tags: Freedom, Internet, Iran, New Media, Twitter, YouTube

Sir Alan Sugar is one person who really annoys me. The Apprentice is one of my favourite shows, I’m extremely pro-business and have no qualms with any other businessman in particular – but he drives me mad.

Maybe it’s because I’ve not agreed with a single one of his final choices on the series – James and Miriam in Series 1 then Lucinda and Raeph from S4 were the only ones deserving a six figure salary – or maybe it’s because he is just such an envious, arrogant and obnoxious misery (as Paul Merton discovered when Siralan went on Room 101).

But most of all I think it’s because he promotes himself as one of Britain’s top business gurus. Margaret Thatcher ones said that being powerful was like being a lady, if you had to tell people you were then you probably weren’t. I get that feeling with Siralan.

He sits on his raised chair in a TV studio’s mock-boardroom with its bizarre shortage of seating, presiding over grovelling Apprentice hopefuls who had never heard of him before the series started, telling us all how he’s an acclaimed business expert. But has anyone bought an AMSTRAD lately? No, me neither.

Alan Sugar was extremely successful at producing and selling cut-priced consumer electronics; mass market versions of more expensive products. There is no knocking him for that. But that does not qualify him to be the nation’s business guru, the government’s oddly titled ‘Business Tsar’. He failed to innovate, stifled creativity, built shoddy products, fall out with buyers from chains such as Currys (reportedly being rude, swearing at them etc)…and got left behind.

From its heights to its sale last year, Amstrad had lost 90% of its value.

If the government wanted a real advisor on business, I would recommend Sir James Dyson. Also a self-made man, he exemplifies innovation, quality, and sound business practice. Worth £1.1 billion according to The Times, Dyson is the market leader (by value) of vacuum cleaners in the USA – outselling Hoover in their home Hoover market!

He also knows – as he told the Money Programme recently – that Britain’s future lies in the creative industries, innovation, design, technology. Being the best rather than being the cheapest. The polar opposite of Siralan.

Tags: Apprentice, Sir Alan Sugar