WHAT"S BEEN HAPPENING WHILST I HAVE BEEN ON THE BEACH? - 21 October 2009

Back from a great hot sunny break to Spain so just a few comments of a number of things which caught my eye whilst I was away.

I was very sorry to hear about the sudden death of Stephen Gately a talented young man who still had an awful lot to offer. When one reflects of the early start of Boyzone on the Gay Byrne Show on Irish television (you can still see it on YouTube and well worth a look) in 1993 - not the best start for a group hoping to enter the world of entertainment - to what Stephen and some of the other members of the group achieved they came an awful long way. Stephen of course had a a very successful acting career appearing as Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat in the West End and as the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also in the West End. May he rest in peace.

Oh dear the MP's and their expenses have returned to us again. Now that all the leaders of the main three parties and the new Speaker, appointed to sort out the mess, have now all had to pay back some of their claims, this raises some some very serious questions about those who are supposed to be our leaders. The questions do not need to be raised here. There are ethical questions, questions about the claims office which allowed and authorised such claims and questions about what should happen now.

I have to say that I have some sympathy with our MPs. They have been made out to be something which many of them are not. If I was told that I could claim up to £25,000 which I should consider was part of my salary, and I put in my expenses in the normal way and the claim was accepted by the claims office as being in order - I think I would feel I had done nothing wrong - save maybe the ethical issue. If I was a new MP I could easily use the claim on the interest payments on a second mortgage, needed to allow me to do my job, but if I had been around for sometime I would be scratching my head as to what to spend it on, hence the duck house etc. For the leaders to demand that MP's must payback claims that were made in accordance with the rules, raises even more questions. For the party leaders to then say that MPs who do not pay back what was accepted as a legitimate claim will not be allowed to stand for reelection smacks, not of leadership, but of bullying. The truly worrying aspect of all of this for me is that these people are supposed to represent us normal folk - how can they do that if they live in a world which is so far from the reality of the rest of us? Those who are guilty of fraud, have cheated, have claimed for mortgages that do not exist, failed to pay tax etc should face the law or the consequences as the rest of us.

I also notice that David Cameron has stated that he wants to have all female candidates list. This is something Margaret Thatcher did not need. There are a number of skilled women MP who have achieved their positions without being given positive discrimination. For me, discrimination is discrimination be it positive or not. To prevent 50% of the population from applying for a vacancy on grounds of sex is ludicrous in an age when any kind of discrimination has become, rightly unacceptable. Such a course of action must be illegal?

Oh well lazy days on sun drenched beaches over, back to work, looks like in the rain!!