I do not care who paid for Baroness Warsi’s various jollies abroad. I would not pay to go to a backwards kleptocracy like Saudi Arabia so I can sympathise with her not wishing to cough up for her fare to Riyadh. And so what if her business partner was once a member of some Islamofascist grouping of nutters. That is, in my view, no reflection on the chairwoman of the Conservative party. But…
It appears that Warsi claimed the maximum accommodation allowance for staying in London when she was either a) staying at a cheapo hotel or b) staying rent free at the house of a mate who says he did not charge her a penny for her accommodation. Other Lords have gone to prison for similar arrangements. Those who take taxpayers cash via the benefits system by telling porky pies are hounded and harassed (rightly).
If those who are meant to be our servants start to believe that they are above the law and are, in fact, our masters we have a problem. This seems an open and shut case to me. If Baroness Warsi can show proof that she did in fact pay rent/not stay at a cheapo hotel then we all owe her an enormous apology and she can make a killing with a libel action against most of Fleet Street and the bloke at whose house she stayed. If she cannot, she should be both fired at once by David Cameron and then prosecuted. A few years ago Call Me Dave thought Sleaze was someone else’s problem – he never grasped that it was the whole political class that played the same game.
She has had two weeks to come up with some receipts or credit card bills to clear her name. Surely her records are not that shambolic? The longer she clings on/is allowed to stay by Call Me Dave the more we, the ordinary peasants, will rightfully despise an increasingly out of touch political establishment.