Well firstly it seems that Twitter was invented just for his self-important parrumphing. I forgave him for that because he is “Britain Favourite Upper Class IntellectualTM”. However, his true colours were revealed yesterday when he was interviewd by the BBC News regarding the current furore over politicians’ expenses claims.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8045869.stm
Now I’ve been described as a journalist once, but I was one of those types who never really took advantage of the expense culture. I’ve known other who would claim for a cup of coffee (though they came unstuck with the taxman who successfully argued with them that they would have drunk the coffee regardless of their job assignment and so wasn’t eligible for reclaimation). In this interview, Fry claims that the general upset about the Parliamentary expenses is nothing and that journalists are just as bad/greedy/dishonest.
Well that might be true, but the difference between a hack bumping up his expenses and a member of parliament elected to represent his constituency claiming for toilet seats, moat cleaning and the other trappings of the upper-middle classes is that it is directly paid for my Johnny Taxpayer, you and me. Now I don’t mind paying for their travel expenses or their staff or those things that will help them execute their position in the best way possible, but I do resent the signals sent out by Parliament.
On one hand, we have Brown and Cameron bleating on about austerity and tightening our belts. We have politicians running down single mothers, benefit cheats, and telling us how to spend our money or who should be given social aid. But all along they are no better than the tax dodgers and benefit cheats that they rail against.
In the old days, politics was a game for those later in life, for those who had seen everything and actually wanted to change things for their fellow man. They didn’t need expense accounts or their moats cleaned at the public’s cost – they had earned their money and made their connections before they hit parliament. It was never about MONEY – but about politics.
Nowadays, politicians enter the arena as a career choice, not a socio-political choice. You have people there who have trained specifically to end up being elected, with no experience of us common folk. So you end up with this detached, money-grabbing, political cabal that act in absolute collusion to maintain their own expensive lifestyles.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can go to the wall, lose our jobs, homes and savings thanks to years of mismanagement by the Labour Goverment and failed opposition by the Tories. I am a Labour support, I am a left-winger, but it is the current government that got us into this position and encouraged a decade of living on credit.
Yes, I do have a credit card and a mortgage, but my total debts to the bank is less than a third of the value of my home/business, which is pretty fucking fantastic compared to the national average debt without mortgages (I think it is supposed to be £21,000 on credit cards or something).
But I digress. These people who we have elected, who we have trusted, have stolen from us. They have stolen money, and are no better than the dole cheat, or the guy who avoids his tax or doesn’t buy his road tax or MOT. They are the criminal underclass and are no longer fit for purpose.
We all have a right to feel anger at the current situation and arseholes like Stephen Fry prove that this really is a class war. You work, you pay for these people, while they employ the best accountants, solicitors and advisors who will show them how to avoid paying tax and dodging the cost of life the rest of us have to bear.
If I could, I would start my own political party and encourage others to join to stand against these criminals, but you need cold, hard cash to make such a campaign a reality. So in the meantime, I would encourage everyone to write a letter of disgust to Gordon Brown, David Cameron or whoever represents the broken political party you support.
Stephen Fry – you are still an absolute arsehat…

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