A dreadful racket

Timon Molloy, Editor

Rory Bremner, the satirist, is in a bit of a dilemma; the MPs’ expenses scandal is, he says, “beyond parody”. Beyond belief, the public may well have thought but the facts, forensically detailed day after day in The Daily Telegraph, have brought few (convincing) rebuttals. Claims for floating duck islands, cleaning moats and Remembrance Day wreaths, let alone serial flipping of first for second homes, to enable lavish refurbishment courtesy of the taxpayer before sale at a profit exempt from capital gains after a flip back to primary residence status, and, perhaps closest of all to criminality, continued claims for interest on mortgages that had already been paid off, all go to prove that truth is far more colourful than fiction.