Has Brian Coleman No Shame?

According to London’s Evening Standard, Barnet and Camden’s Tory member of the Great London Assembly (GLA) Brian Coleman is the one and only Assembly member who has not vountarily itemised details of his expenses. Only the ‘mad, bad and the sad’ would be interested in the minutiae of his taxi bills, he is reported as saying, with characteristic arrogance. The minutiae — if leaked reports are true — include some taxi bills running into hundreds od pounds, apparently caused by keeping taxis waiting for him for hours while he was attending functions. One can understand why the taxi drivers of London might love him, but why should we London taxpayers have to foot the bill? ‘It’s none of the public’s business,’ Brian Coleman protests, ‘They are not entitled to drool over our personal lives.’ I have not the slightest wish to know anything about BC’s personal life. The very thought makes me queasy. But raking up expenses on the public purse is not ‘personal life’. Or if the events were indeed personal, he should not be charging them to GLA expenses. David Cameron has rightly been taking a hard line with his MPs, about half of whom have so far had to return money to the exchequer. Meanwhile, Coleman has become the Widow Twankey of London politics and it is about time that Boris Johnson and David Cameron booed him off the stage.