Wendy Alexander, Electoral Commission, Holidays & Expenses

There was a piece on tonight's news about Wendy Alexander, the Scottish Labour leader.

Right: Wendy Alexander, New Labour bigwig, Scottish opposition leader (the Scottish Nats are in control) laughs it up. She broke the law, and her punishment is a 24 hour suspension from Holyrood which won't take effect until the Autumn as the MSPs (Scottish MPs) are off on hols until then!

She was guilty of accepting illegal donations from a "non-dom" Labour supporter from Jersey - i.e. he was not on the UK voter register and so could not donate to UK parties.

I found two things very interesting.

The first was that the Electoral Commission refused to take action over her rule (law!) breaking, and it fell to the Scottish Parliament to suspend her for one day (yes, one day!).

This is further evidence that the Electoral Commission is a toothless joke which covers-up or ignores blatant law breaking by political parties and politicians; all of which (needless to add) does nothing to assuage the fears of an increasingly cynical electorate that the politicians bob and weave to side-step the rules (even feeble ones) and when caught they shrug their shoulders and seek out the next loophole.

The second interesting point was that the single day's suspension (wow - that'll teach her!!!) will be... erm... suspended (!) until the Autumn because the Scottish Parliament is closing down for the Summer.

Excuse me?

These bloated bureaucrats, these prancing prima-donnas, these expense-account executives, get exactly how long off? Three months???

And they wonder why we think they are overpaid, money-grubbing, expenses twisting miscreants!

In what other profession do you get a good wage, almost carte blanch expenses, housing and food paid for, subsidised bars and restaurants, elongated holidays, free travel, free post, plus the ability to hold down any number of other jobs (regardless of conflicts of interest) and to employ family members without advertising the posts?

I'm not alone in thinking that these people should take their snouts out of the trough and cast a view around a crumbling country which they have allowed to descend into an amoral mess in which criminality, drugs, violence et al are endemic.