Its the paperwork.....

Being self employed has some things to commend it. In particular I am pleased to have dispensed with the pretence that the organisation I work for is wonderful, has a mission and strategy that I believe in wholeheartedly  and that their values are my values. In the end its a job of work. If I do it well then the client is happy: if not, they can show me the door.  Somehow that seems a better way of working, free of the office politics and all the other baggage that comes with being a corporate animal.

But it has its drawbacks: the paperwork, the tax returns and the taxes themselves. Once the government have got the income tax, the national insurance, the employer's NI and VAT out of me they have done far better out of it than I have. However I feel very fortunate to be working at a difficult time for the economy. So I happily render unto Gordon that which is Gordon's. 

Had I known that quite a lot of the rendering was going to be more unto  MP's themselves than  I might do  so a bit more grudgingly.  Its not the money itself that is the problem rather the conduct of MP's from whom we might expect better standards of conduct. Surely the noble calling to public office should not be devalued by the kind of naked self interest so evidently displayed by MP's on their expense claims. What example does that set to the rest of us?

There is a pressure group called "None of the Above" who believe that we should be allowed to tell politicians just what we think of them by positively voting for none of them. If we had an election tomorrow I am sure that the "None..." party would have a landslide on its hands.