Trousergate Form Letters From HQ: The LOL Alternative

Clearly most Council Groups, MPs and MEPs have the gumption to write their own letters to their electorates. But circulating a rather turgid template might just get the creative juices flowing. So LOL think the GuFster protests too much.

Here is the Labour of Love alternative template. More snappy. More robust. More combative. More effective for that we'd like to think. Letters that get results. Feel free to adapt ad lib:

Dear Fellow Class Warriors

All this latest expenses hoo-hah has been a bit of a storm in a tea cup don't you think? When it comes to Labour anyway. We're the least bad of the lot. As we've probably told you before? Boom, boom!

This is a crate of tepid beer and a platter of curly sandwiches short of a feeding frenzy if you ask us. We've hardly had a taste. And the sleight of hand, quite frankly, is so slight it hardly merits the name.

Hope you're with us so far?!

We've hardly had our hand in the till at all ourselves. We've done our bit of course. In our small ways. But quite frankly we're too honest for our own good round here. No flipping, no duck houses, no luncheon vouchers, very little lippy, and very few items of women's clothing indeed.

Our boy/girlfriends' dry rot lies untreated; our wife/husband has bought their own iPhone; our sorry moats are undredged; our wisteria is rampant on our mock Tudor gable; we actually do have a main a second and a spare; and our television was picked up overnight from outside the Help the Aged in the High Street. They don't take electricals. Health and safety. Only trying to help!

My god we are miserable sinners! So miserable we've hardly managed to sin at all! You'll perhaps be disappointed, thinking you'd elected someone with a bit more chutzpah? But alas, we are but a footnote to the footnotes in the minor appendices to the annals of trousergate.

Let's all cast our minds back a few months shall we comrades? When expenses rip offs and donations fiddles were worthy of the name. But when hardly anyone noticed. Apparently all was forgiven and forgotten as 88 pence for a bath plug and a spot of partnerly porno made mighty waves.

Here's just a few that caught our eyes. And no!! We haven't got the decimal point in the wrong place:

* George Osborne MP (Con) - Substantial six-figure sum from various financiers for his office, but didn't bother to stick it in his members interests;
* Alan Duncan MP (Con) - Substantial six-figure sum from various oil interests for his office, a fat cat job with one of them, but also didn't bother to stick it in his members interests;
* Den Dover MEP (Con) - €1 Million illicitly to family firm;
* Rest of Tory MEPs (Con) - Families wallowing to dew-lapped necks in gravy;
* Derek Conway MP (Con) - Substantial six-figure sum on hand outs to the clan. Blood is thicker than water after all;
* 18 More Old Etonian Front Benchers (Con) - "Foreigners" coming out of the ears;
* Caroline Spelman MP (Con) - Triangular "constituency secretary" and "childcare" scam before that Julie Kirkbride MP had taken her first toddler steps at the game;
* "Lord" Taking the Mickey Ashcroft - A "flying liar" Vulture Capitalist cheating the rules on travel donations and swinging a cheeky eight-figure sum into the shires.

So yes, that [insert most publicised £2 to £200 "error" here] was a mistake on our part. But let's be reasonable. It was all within the rules. And many Tories insisted on putting four or five noughts on the end before they'd get up in the morning!

We'll try harder in future, don't worry. Nothing is too good for the working man/women. We know we can count on your vote. Especially since that 7 pence rise in minimum wage! That's hourly that is. More than £3 on a 46-hour week!

Yours in class war


Everyman/Woman MP

PS An apposite slogan may be added at the elected member's discretion:

- When it comes to troughing Labour're the runts of the litter!
- Tories are thieving toffee nosed bastards!
- Labour ramps are comradely and proportionate!