Dear Gordon,

Dear Gordon,

A couple of things on my mind that I thought I should share:

1)Biscuits

I don't know who your media advisors are, but jesus! Next time some massive circulation newspaper asks you your favourite biscuit, just answer, for fuck's sake. You don't even have to do it yourself. Delegate the task to the person who fetches your tea if its quicker. But answer!

If you had compulsory voting in this country, you would recognise the importance of the biscuit. In failing to engage in this little bit of public banter, its like someone said hello to you at the busstop and you just ignored them. Bad manners, basically. But then, I bet no-one if your office has waited for a bus stop in a very long time. I think this would help.

2) Expenses

Hello? Have you lot never been to public adminstration school?

Rule 1)Fairness, transparency, efficiency.
Rule 2) The appearance of fairness, transparency, efficiency.

So, seeing that you seem determined to fuck this up, I though I would solve your expenses crisis for you, as follows:

1) No allowances for place of residence AT ALL.

2) A travel/remoteness allowance based on the location of the MPs ELECTORAL office. You remember those? They are where the people you represent drop in to see you.

3) Conditions of allowance as follows. If you electoral office is in Greater London, you don't get one AT ALL. If you live within a few hundred miles you get Rate A (to be determined). If you live in the fucking Shetlands or something, you get Rate B, which will be much higher than A.

4) You can give everyone a pay rise at the same time. A simple table (this is where the transparency comes in) can show The People (who are actually the whole point of you going to Westminster at all, and whose money it is, by the way) how the costs and adminsitration savings mean you can afford the pay rise and still save money.

That person who makes your tea could probably administer it for you. It might take them a day or two, but not much more.

Simples, as the meerkat, would say. That took about ten minutes. I am not sure why the Speaker took so long to come up with his idea, but I reckon I'm better value for money.

Please sort this out. If the Tories get in I might have to kill myself.

For my next trick, I will sort out the House of Lords for you, if you like (someone's got to do it, and you don't seem to have been making much progress on your own).

P.S. When discussing the expenses stuff recently, some woman on the telly - I think she was a labour Lord - said something along the lines that it showed a widening gap between "the governed and those who govern". The governed? To reiterate my points above about a) media, communication and good manners, and b)the Lords, it is, depressingly, no surprise that it did not occur to use a phrase such as "the people and their representatives".

No wonder no-one wants to vote.