The man who’s done about as much for Scottish independence as William Wallace – our incompetent incumbent PM Boris Johnson – has been rinsing the perks for all they are worth in his last days in office.
And his behaviour has once again drawn the spotlight to the subsidised lives that Britain’s elected representatives have built for themselves.
The prime minister skipped an emergency meeting about the hellish heat engulfing middle England the other day, so he could host a gathering at Chequers.
That’s his massive free hoose that he gets to use for whatever he fancies, no questions asked, during his premiership.
There’s a famous phrase about Roman leader Nero “fiddling while Rome burns”.
And it’s tempting to draw parallels between our current PM and the old Roman, who was perceived to have done nothing while the city was destroyed by a massive fire.
But the comparison would be unfair to Nero. Because when Rome began to burn, he was actually out of town at his grace and favour country residence. And when news of the blaze reached him he returned post-haste to lead the response.
Johnson did the exact opposite. He fled to his mansion for a private party. During a flaming crisis.
And the rest of us were reminded about how much free stuff these austeriTories give themselves.
A plague on all their houses
The prime minister gets Chequers, aye. But there’s a bunch of other multi-million pound mansions, city centre flats and the like, with staff and grounds and privacy that get doled out to the cabinet and various government figures.
Dorneywood, for example, is where Rishi Sunak had free access to for the last couple of years.
The beautiful, vast Buckinghamshire pile dates from the 1700s and has been extensively renovated to ensure a high modern standard of luxury.
Man of the People John Prescott lavished his time on the place when he was in office.
Eventually his adulterous ways and a humorous image of him playing croquet on his taxpayer-funded lawn during a time of heightened state tension caused enough controversy to evict him.
But his disgrace did nothing to halt the stream of gravy-trainers. George Osbourne and Sajid Javid have occupied it since, among others.
Lovely day out with the family at Dorneywood, planting my traditional Chancellor’s tree. Hopefully it’s there slightly longer than I was! pic.twitter.com/AkETp1mlDX
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) April 25, 2021
It doesn’t matter if you’re a self proclaimed working class socialist like Prescott or a translucent Tory eel-man like Osbourne, it seems like the Westminster elites just cannae say no to a free lunch.
For me, the irony is completed by the fact that these publicly funded venues are either entirely closed to the public. Or if they are open at all for brief windows, we have to pay £10 a skull to grab a glimpse of the palaces we pay for.
Westminster system brings out the worst in politicians
I often hear folk complaining about politicians.
“The sort of folk that want to become politicians are always the last people you’d want representing you” is a popular refrain.
For Westminster, they’ve maybe got a point.
I want positive change for my community.
But at no point have I believed that running for, say, Labour, becoming an MP and moving south would allow me to make that change.
If I wanted easy money in a cushy environment however, I would absolutely have given it a go.
I don’t think that needs to be the case.
I don’t think politics has to attract bad eggs by the dozen.
But at Westminster, the environment of free hooses, free flats, cheap dinners, free moat cleaning and Amazon Prime on your expenses does seem to have a magnetic pull.
Add the ability to wield power over people whose existence you’ve never even imagined, a platform, a paycheck, prestige and power and you see how it might attract the worst.
Priti Patel's tax-payer funded expenses include £30,000 on beauty products and £77,200 on eyebrows
Meanwhile, the Tories award NHS workers a paltry 1% pay rise
People seriously need to wake up and realise that Westminster is treating us like absolute mugs pic.twitter.com/NsIGWWi45Q
— Socialist Voice ⭑ (@SocialistVoice) March 26, 2021
Oddly, though, I’m not calling for an end to these mansions. Nor do I think ministers should pay for their own moat cleaning.
I think expending energy on trying to mend a broken system, over which we have barely any influence anyway, would be a profound waste of resource and life.
Instead, we should look to Westminster as many have looked to the apocryphal Rome of Nero.
As a lesson in what not to do.
Scotland can do better
We are in the midst of a political rebuilding project here in Scotland: turning Holyrood into an experiment into a functioning democratic chamber at the heart of a European state.
We need to create the right environment so that, generationally, we attract the right sort of people into politics.
Grace and favour mansions are out, of course.
As are weirdly inexpensive lunches in canteens.
I genuinely want to live in a country where the First Minister packs themselves a nourishing wee lunch box before setting off in the morning.
Salaries need to be high enough that working people can take the risk of running for office. But not so high that the greedy would want the position for the pay alone.
We want to lionise great public servants without giving them a tremendous ego, or attracting status-hunters.
It is already a tricky thing, running a democracy. But the less Holyrood looks like Westminster come independence, the better a start our new Scotland will have in the world.
And the more trust we can put in our elected representatives.
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