Political subsistence

Labour Watch has an excellent piece from the Scotsman on councillors' expenses.

Scotland on Sunday asked every one of the country’s 32 local authorities to reveal which trips councillors had undertaken over the past three years. Glasgow failed to provide any information, blaming an "administrative error", while Orkney and Inverclyde claimed not to have received our request. Figures from the remaining 29 show that hundreds of councillors took the chance, funded out of the public purse, to escape the mundane world of local politics and travel abroad. Highlights - for the councillors involved - include the £856 trip to the picturesque French community of Cognac taken by Perth and Kinross Provost Bob Scott to celebrate the town’s Festival of the Grape Harvest.

[...]

Dundee City Council charged its taxpayers £949 to send Councillor Fiona Grant to the Global Digital Cities Network conference in Australia’s Gold Coast. Then there was the £1,382 cost of flying Fife councillor Tom Dair and a "Mrs T Dair" to Tampa, Florida. The reason for that trip is not known.

What is so depressing is that these same sleazy crooks will be voted back in again next time round.