The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Setting an Example

Is there such a creature as a Conservative MP who thinks he's rich enough already, thank you? Jonathan Djanogly is one of the ten wealthiest members of the House of Claimants, despite having had to pay back £25,000 in stolen taxpayers' money: he owns real estate and some Scottish trees, is a successful gambler on the stock market and gets a sixth of the profits from a Lloyds insurance underwriting partnership. Djanogly's payouts from this partnership average £41,000 a year, and two years ago he received almost £97,000, which exceeds his present ministerial salary by approximately the price of a cheap place at university. Djanogly does not even have to work very hard to keep his parliamentary seat: he represents Huntingdon, where they would elect a sheep's rectum if it wore a blue rosette, and indeed recently did so in the form of John Major.

Clearly, then, Djanogly is fairly well off, and perfectly capable of setting an example to the proles by utilising his wealth, and the considerable natural ability that comes from having a rich father, in the interests of the Big Society. His response to the expenses scandal was typically selfless: he hired private detectives to spy on local party underlings in the hope of finding out who had been telling tales. No doubt he was only too pleased to pay the snoopers out of his own pocket, rather than the taxpayer's or Lord Ashcroft's. At the moment Djanogly is legal services minister; or, in Standard English, the minister in charge of withdrawing legal services. He is personally responsible for a parliamentary bill which will cut the legal aid budget by three hundred and fifty million, and place the burden for paying legal fees, court costs and insurance policies on the claimant. Multinational corporations will be protected from poor people; the insurance industry will benefit by hundreds of millions; and Jonathan Djanogly's £41,000 a year from Lloyds may well undergo a certain comfortable expansion. We must hope that his disinterested philanthropy can stand the strain.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home