Words fail me!

Caught out in all manner of dubious expenses claims, MPs lost the goodwill of the voters to a large extent.

Since then, however, they have accepted for themselves a more generous subsistence allowance, and one with less transparency than before.

Now they have agreed to set up a publicly funded childcare service for their children. They will pay for it, but there will be public funding because of the variations in usage. The scheme will be useful if there are emergency or late night sittings and votes, but might otherwise be lightly used.


The rest of us are subject to the need to eat, and to make occasional emergency arrangements for child care. The former will be sometimes financed by employers but will be also rigorously monitored, the latter in most cases will be our own responsibility. Why should MPs be any different?