Shush! Mustn't upset our hard-claiming working politicians!

On reading this, the first reaction was a stifled yawn but it does open to a couple of more interesting questions:

ALEX SALMOND is facing fresh accusations over his expenses as an MP, after the Conservatives proved he was out of London for several weeks during the whole period for which he submitted maximum claims for meals from the House of Commons.

The first minister claimed the monthly £400 maximum for both August and September 2005, despite Westminster being in summer recess.

Salmond has repeatedly refused to publish his diaries for the months, dismissing suggestions the claims were unjustified as "laughable".

Last week, he told a BBC Radio Scotland phone-in: "I was in London in recess in 2005.MPs often go to London. They were all legitimate Parliamentary claims."

As slippery as the slipperiest of eels that Salmond!
The argument is not over whether or not they are "legitimate"; meal claims can be made apparently when the MP isn’t even in London, it’s more the moral dimension-ie simply because it’s "legitimate" for Salmond to make these claims, it doesn’t mean that he has to take advantage of the system by doing so.

Whatever...the bigger interest for me is that the Scottish media is not letting up on not just this particular claim, but the expenses of their political representatives generally. With one or two honourable exceptions, this has not the case with the N.Irish media. Read any further research into how the Robinsons accumulated a 30 grand grocery bill? How about Eddie’s expensive flights? Where does your typical Shinner MP buy his curtains? Journalists have the resources (the main one of which is time) to dig deeper, but they don’t here- instead they are happy to sit back and almost permit the polticians (or the respective party’s press-offices) write their articles and reports for them. Oh, for a Northern Irish Guido Fawkes, he certainly wouldn't struggle for material!

OK, to finish with, here’s a funny one from one of those honourable exceptions, Newton Emerson:

Mystery remains over a £410 pair of curtains purchased on parliamentary expenses by Jeffrey Donaldson for the London flat he shares with Sammy Wilson. It is obvious why Mr Wilson needs a good pair of curtains. However, Mr Donaldson says he needed a "very heavy type of material" for "security reasons". How heavy does material have to be to perform a security function? Were the curtains bullet-proof? Now it transpires that DUP colleague Nigel Dodds has claimed £300 for "picture framing". Was it security framing?