Consequences worse than the 'crime'

I feel a little sorry for Jacqui Smith. Given her job, her public profile and the vultures who now await her on the Tory benches, the revelation that her husband added two soft porn films to her expenses claim must be a source of overwhelming embarrassment for her..more in fact than the circumstances demand.



I live in the same cable area and take the same Virgin Media service and I can quite see why two porn films can have been overlooked in that VM don't itemise the movies you watch unless you request them to do so (presumably to protect embarrassed spouses who might have to own up) but it is surely wrong that additional bought movies, porn or otherwise, over and above the basic telecommunications allowance should have been claimed.

No wonder these politicians did not want their expenses published. They must have realised what an impression would be given to the public and, so far, it must be a worse impression even than many had feared. Pigs in the trough.

I am beginning to wonder if Jacqui Smith has a future. Not because of the porn films but because this whole issue of expenses is making her look extremely careless. She claims the flat she shares with her sister as her 'main residence' and then claims on her website that 'she still lives in Redditch with her husband and two children' This clearly to impress local voters but it would be appear slightly deceitful on one side or the other. Either she is cooking the expenses books or lying to the electorate.

Then surely, even if you ARE a busy Home Secretary, you put some time aside to personally vet stuff which is being claimed in your name..in fact PARTICULARLY if you are Home Secretary and given the nature of your job. The fact that either she didn't or she is now wriggling out of a mess of her own making, doesn't say much about her judgment.

And Ministers of the Crown, blatantly lacking good judgment, are not what Gordon Brown needs in the Labour government right now.