Three Members of the Westminster Parliament have been charged and will appear in court over their outrageous expenses claims.

Sorry, I'm not PC literate and don't know how to post a link to the story. Perhaps someone else could do that)

__________________
The Bluebell of Scotland is hanging her head,
The Lion, once rampant, is lying like dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8500885.stm

I think that they are ordinary thieves and should do jail time but I have a feeling that they are not considerd real criminals and dont have to go to jail.

Thanks for posting that Fix.
Just heard on the news that their lawyers are now protesting that they cannot be tried in an ordinary court. Funny, I though only Queen Liz was exempt from the law.
Every single one of those MP's who fiddled their expenses should be brought to trial, and once they have cleaned up the government they should start looking at Council members expenses as well.

__________________
The Bluebell of Scotland is hanging her head,
The Lion, once rampant, is lying like dead.

Their defence lawyers are apparently trying to claim that 'Parliamentary Privilege' extends to cover the MPs claiming of expenses! I certainly don't think that it was ever the intention of that measure to protect people who were fiddling their expenses claims, it was just to enable them to speak completely freely in parliament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8501441.stm

Hopefully that claim will be treated with the contempt it deserves. They should stand trial, and let the courts decide whether they have broken the law or not. Parliamentarians are not above the law in any way, they just have their rights to free speech within parliament protected (which IMO is fair enough).

__________________