The Life and Times of Me

I've been asked to comment on MP expenses. I am not sure if I should, since I live off approximately £4.55 a day of expeses for three days a week. However, I will comment. Since MPs seem to earn about 3 times the average sallery in the UK why do they have expenses to claim beyond that of the cost of some photocopying and maybe some biscuits for their staff to have with tea and coffee. I have heard some interesting comments from MPs, their wives and the general public.

I was particularly annoyed when one MP said that he needs a full sized abode in London as he has to take his family with him when he is in London. This pissed me off because, my cousin, his wife and their two small children live full time London in a one bedroom flat which was built for a single person- they don't have a choice over the size of their abode and so why should the MP.

The Scottish parliment had major problems with expenses when it first opened. They resolved it by making MSP recipt for everything and by saying that you can only rent a home in Edinburgh not buy one. This system seems to be working, can it be replicated for the London parliment.

Two ideas put forward on Radio 4 have caught my ear, the first was on the NOW show. It was suggested that once the 2012 olympics have finished, why not hand over the olympic village to parliment. Then every MP will have some where to stay if they need, in green homes already furnished and desgined for maximum security. The second idea was from someone phoning into any answers- why not instead of giving MPs a buget for a London home, provide them with a constituancy home, which is rent free and council tax free, they just have to pay utilities etc. This home would be for whoever was elected, like 10 Downing Street is for the Prime Minister and so handed over if the MP changes. Any second home that an MP may need in London then just comes out of their usual salery, no expenses can be claimed.

I am trying to get money for my guides, to buy tents, I was counting on O2 (the phone company) to give us some money, and I have just had an email to say I was unsucessful. I need to now follow up some of my other leads. Anyone got any ideas? The 10 page grass roots grant does not seem appealing.

posted by Amy @ 12:08 0 Comments

Over the last six months, my computer has been getting slower and slower and slower. So today I bit the bullet and got out the disks that came with it and started the thing again. Tim and I have got as far as putting back on office 2002, windows XP and firefox. I'm not re attached to the printer and I now only have three web pages book marked (more worryingly is that I can't remeber some of my passwords). My computer seems to be running a little quicker however, I have a memory stick with all my documents on that need to be transfered. That may slow everything down again.

My quest to find a job that pays me continues. Last week I had two rejections, the first came with a "I'm sorry but why not apply for the job we will be advertising next month" while the second came with a "I'm sorry but why don't you do some more volunteering for us". You can imagine the thoughts that came into my head when I heard the latter. On a brighter note, these rejects came while I was on the farm and Tom did say that although he was sorry I hadn't got any of the jobs he was glad coz he would miss me and didn't know how he would cope without me (which considering how grumpy he's been over the last few months was nice). I have since applied for a job based on Cleeve Common with FWAG, so fingers crossed for that one.

I better get back to playing with my computer and emailing people (being SAGGA chair requires lots of emailing- people actually want to know what I think).

posted by Amy @ 20:42 1 Comments