ministers of the inferior interior

Bryan Appleyard can't get too worked up about MPs' expenses. He says their pay is poor, and of course I can see what he means. The fact that it's nearly double (say) mine is meaningless in the wider scheme of things, and the fact that it's more than three times the national average means - well, what does it mean? How many times over the average must one earn for it to seem like a good salary? Probably about ten. I know if I were on £62K I'd probably only be complaining that I was broke.

But Bryan hits the nail on the head with his response to the Second Homes Scandal, with an observation that did hover ghostily over the margins of my own imagination, but failed to materialise into the following:

..."one stares at the list of second home allowances with sickly fascination. The sideboard and the rugs, the food mixer and the coffee maker, the nest of tables. It is simply outrageous they haven't included a hostess trolley and hardboard panelling to conceal any remaining period features. For this is a home circa 1962 when Barry Bucknell and Fanny Craddock were on TV, prawn cocktail and goulash were on the menu, people set fire to their liqueurs and Ikea was just a distant dream. Happy days."

He's so right.

And now maybe we'll drop it, shall we... I have my readers to think of, after all.