Tory MP for Boston and Skegness, Lincolnshire and Foreign Office, Africa minister Mark Simmonds has declared he has quit (but won’t stand down until the 2015 election). The minister earning £89,435 who pays his wife £25,000 of public money and has a rental allowance of £27,875 plus 3x £2,500 for his children and who has received £500,000 in expenses all of which are paid by taxpayers is quitting as minister and stepping down at the next general election. His reasons are noble – in summary – that he cannot install his family in a location close enough to his work to allow him to be a good father and husband. In reality he is claiming that he is entitled to more than the aforementioned. That he is entitled to things that ‘hard working families’ trying to keep afloat in the capital are not. Another irony?

Here’s his voting patterns on benefits: ¹.

• Voted moderately for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the “bedroom tax”)
• Voted moderately against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
• Voted very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
• Voted very strongly for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
• Voted moderately for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
• Voted strongly against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed

He obviously feels he is entitled to more than me and probably more than you. That for some reason, the taxpayers should stump up more money to allow him to take his (presumably rather comfortable) lifestyle into London (and presumably that’s as a second home).

And they ask why the UK electorate are disillusioned with modern politicians.

[1] How Mark Simmonds voted on Welfare and Benefits