When factory worker Viv Nicholson, the famous pools winner, was asked what she would do with the money, she told reporters: “Spend, spend, spend!” Her phrase passed into language, much like Mandy Rice Davies’ remark: “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?” To the best of my knowledge, Viv lives quietly these days in Castleford, having found God. Truly, he lurks in the most unlikely places.
Her story came to mind when I read local coverage of the latest revelations about MPs’ expenses. The Yorkshire Post couldn’t resist a splash headline: “Spend, spend, spend”. Round ’ere, it has extra resonance, because everybody knows about Viv’s £152,000 win in 1961. And how it pretty well ruined her life. The sub-heading read: “Yorkshire MPs spent £1 million on homes as officials fought to keep secrets.” Three broadsheet pages of lurid detail followed inside.
I don’t imagine MPs in this region are any more (or less) creative about their expenses than those other parts of Britain. Some of it is deeply unimaginative. They must keep the purveyors of flat screen televisions in business, not to mention sellers of beds, sheets and pillowcases. And no wonder so many of them put on weight. It must be all that food they claimed from the Fees Office. How could John Battle consume £3,500 worth of food between April 2008 and June this year? And no wonder Dick Caborn runs. He has to do something to burn off the £2,000 worth of grub charged to taxpayers.
There is a lot of fun to be gained from these disclosures – and I intend to have some more. Why did Ann Cryer spend £18 on a toilet brush? I could have found her one for a fraction of the price in Pricebusters, Keighley. And why did she have to buy three digital radios, costing a total of £373? I admire Rosie Winterton’s taste – £198 for a Persian rug – and I can well understand why Clive Betts needed John Lewis oven gloves (£15.50) to protect his delicate hands. Chris McCafferty’s £1.49 purchase of “measuring spoons” I find baffling. I thought all spoons could measure.
But once you stop laughing, there is a desperately serious point. The Labour Government gets most of its majority from Yorkshire and Humberside. Of the 57 MPs returned by the region, 45 are Labour, with nine Tories and three Liberal Democrats. The propaganda impact of “political dishonesty” implicit in the intensive media coverage should not be under-estimated. The ruling party will get the biggest kicking, because they are in government and “they should have done something about it”.
Moreover, while ordinary voters’ eyes may glaze over at the maximum £24,006 second home allowance claimed by five Labour MPs (including John Prescott), because it is incomprehensible to most people that the state pays for your home, they certainly understand what it is to have a £800 40-inch flat screen televison and stand (as claimed by Eric Illsley), because they’d like one, too – if they had the money.
It is impossible to gauge all the political fallout from this orgy of bad publicity, which is presumably mirrored right across the country. Suffice to say that it will not be trivial. At least Viv Nicholson has kept her sense of humour. There won’t be much to laugh about on May 7 next year. l
The commercial centre of Bradford is a very large hole in the ground, covering several acres where the chain stores used to be. Known locally as the Hopkins Hole, after Kris Hopkins, Tory leader of the city council and parliamentary hopeful in Labour marginal Keighley, it has been there for years and looks like staying for years to come. Australian developers who promised to rejuvenate the city centre plead the recession for delaying the project.
As if one hole isn’t enough, the Tories plan to dig another, at the other end of the centre outside Bradford’s magnificent town hall, whose interiors are often used in TV dramas set in Westminster. This hole will be filled with water as a “mirror pool” in six-acre City Park. Irony has never been a strong point with the Conservatives, so it was no surprise that Hopkins announced his lake as a “flagship project”.
It was originally intended that the £20 million scheme would be funded by the Big Lottery Fund, but its representatives took one look at the plan and put their wallets away. The cash is now coming from strapped council coffers and Yorkshire Forward, the regeneration agency that Hopkins’ boss David Cameron has promised to scrap if he gets into power.
Promoters of Loch Hopkins claim it will attract more than two million visitors a year, bringing £80 million into the local economy. Quite where these shoppers will come from is not clear. No one goes to Bradford for retail therapy these days. In fact, the city’s German Christmas Market closed after only two weeks, a full fortnight before Christmas Day. Citing poor business, traders at more than forty stalls in Centenary Square packed up their bratwurst and strudel and went home.
Gumption must not be a translatable word these days. An earlier generation was more resolute – so much so that an inner-city textile district is still known as “Little Germany”. Santa Klaus ain’t what he used to be.
So, auf Wiedersehen and a very merry Christmas to all Tribune readers. Sithee in the New Year, which I trust will be happy and successful all round – or not, as the case may be.
