Which petard shall we hoist Brian Coleman from today?

Q: Which petard shall we hoist Brian Coleman from today?

A: His own !!!!!

Brian Coleman told Paul Waugh at the Evening Standard (in relation to disclosing his expenses) :-

“I won’t do it vountarily. It’s none of the public’s business. They have coped well without knowing this kind of detail for more that 75 years."

“They are not entitled to drool over our personal lives. I’m not going to help the mad, bad and the sad, the bloggers on the internet. I’m not pandering to mob rule. It undermines democracy to suggest that all MPs, all politicians are the spawn of beelzebub.

“Nobody is going to go into public life if they think the minutiae of their grocery bills are going to be looked over.”

When it is pointed out that fellow Tory Andrew Boff managed to pull on the hairiest of hair shirts with zero expense claims, Mr Coleman replies:

“Politicians with lower expenses tend to be the politicians who do least work. Those with higher expenses are the ones who do most work.”

Mr Coleman adds that he has nothing to hide and points out his exes are audited. But he adds:

"I'm from the Boris school of anarchist thinking. If somebody tells me to do something, I don't want to do it."

Lets go through this. Firstly, Brian Coleman doesn't like bloggers does he?

Strange that he used to write a blog for the New Statesman then, here's the directory :-

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/brian-coleman

Brian Coleman doesn't think he should disclose his expenses because "They have coped well without knowing this kind of detail for more that 75 years"

Well in one of his blogs - http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/brian-coleman/2007/12/local-government-service - He says :-

"When I was first elected to my local council the annual allowance payable to a councillor in suburban Barnet was £600 (less income tax). There was also a complicated attendance scheme that necessitated filling out a monthly form which most members, including me, couldn't be bothered with for the sake of a couple of quid."

He clearly was operating under a completely different set of rules when he started, which the public new very well. This "75 years" nonsense is pure rubbish. Especially since the GLA only came into being 9 years ago.

Brian Coleman goes on :-

To keep the backbenchers happy so-called 'Special Responsibility Allowances' now have to be paid for all sorts of minor, functionary positions: £2,500 for being vice-chair of the Trees and Cemeteries Scrutiny Committee or for turning up at a Licensing Committee once a year. In short big money for local politicians.

The danger of this, of course, is leaders now win or lost their positions on the strength of who they had promised well paid jobs to.

Brian is quite right to criticise these political bungs. he knows all about them. He earns over £100,000 for these grace and favour jobs.

Brian Coleman says that politicians who claim least expenses do the least work. His colleague, James Cleverly, who claimed for a Travelcard and nothing else says on his blog :-

Brian's candour can be refreshing. The by-product of that candour is the occasional gaff.

And his recent comments about expenses, transparency, bloggers and the work rate of fellow Assembly Members sits squarely in the gaff side of the equation.

The only thing I'd disagree with James Cleverly about is the word "occasional".

Finally, Brian Coleman claims that both he and Boris Johnson are anarchists. He may be right. I thought I'd Wiki Anarchism and it says :-

Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and promote the elimination of the state or anarchy. Specific anarchists may have additional criteria for what constitutes anarchism, and they often disagree with each other on what these criteria are. According to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, "there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance."

It certainly looks to me as if Brian Coleman's behaviour could be construed as something which undermines faith in the institutions of the state. I have yet to meet anyone who condones his behaviour. People look at him and say "they are all the same", which is unfair if you look at the expenses of most of the other members (eg James Cleverly, Roger Evans).

I've long wondered why Boris ever promoted Coleman to run the Fire service. If they really are both anarchists as Coleman claims, it is a perfect job for a Boris anarchist henchman. Could this by why Wiki talks about "a certain family resemblance" ???