Foot-in-mouth disease

Should you ever find yourself in a hole then my advice is to stop digging. It’s a pity that 71-year-old Tory party grandee, Sir Nicholas Winterton, didn’t do just that following a recent foot-in-mouth episode when the politician complained bitterly that MPs were no longer allowed to travel first class on Britain’s railways at the taxpayer’s expense.

The crusty old bugger has been milking the parliamentary expenses along with is MP wife for quite a few years. Their claims include rent of £80,000 on a flat owned by their own family trust. When asked to explain why he felt entitled to travel first class for free, Sir Nicholas replied that passengers travelling by standard class were a ‘different type’ to him and that they have a different outlook on life. He added: “They may be reading a book but I doubt whether they're undertaking serious work or study, reading reports or amending reports that MPs do when they travel.”

Sir Nicholas then rammed his foot further into his elitist mouth by adding: “Very often they have a different outlook, of course they do, because they are in a different area of activity. They may be travelling just because they are on holiday or they are going to London to visit somebody  -  MPs are going to London to work.”

Poor Nicky really is terribly upset by all this unpleasantness over MPs’ expenses. “I am angry. I feel MPs are being treated extremely unfairly. I believe matters on expenses have been misrepresented,” wailed the knight. “It’s not for the public' to decide how politicians travel,” he added.

I can’t really understand why he’s making such a fuss. Sir Nicholas and his wife have been the sole passengers on their own little gravy train for a very long time.