Entitlement: the first slurp from a public trough should be a family member’s privilege

The bloody impertinence of it!

According to a report in the Herald on Sunday, the living standards of the Grumble family could be seriously eroded by plans to make it harder for politicians to hire relatives in taxpayer-funded jobs.

Dammit, we aren’t talking about incest here.

It’s nepotism. And nepotism happens to simply mean giving family members pride of place in the old boys’ network.

But it looks like some tossers want to limit the exercise of this form of favouritism, which takes blood lines into account.

Thanks to Whanau Ora, new ways have been found for saying “piss-up” and “paramour”

Winston Peters had almost won Alf to his side of the argument about those funny aura handouts.

But he has blown it.

If he had called his partner his ladylove, mistress, paramour, sweetheart or inamorata, fine.

But he didn’t.

He called her his “associate”.

Mrs Grumble has been so taken by this label that she is demanding she similarly be known as Alf’s associate.

Re-examining the mettle of Alamain – how white supremacists sullied a waka jumper’s reputation

Alf’s memory banks have been stirred by news of the death of Alamein Kopu, a member of Parliament from 1996 to 1999.

Ms Kopu, a Rotorua great-grandmother, had been on the dole before entering Parliament on the Alliance list after the 1996 election.

But she found Jim Anderton’s mob hard to live with and raised a furore by quitting the Alliance and becoming an independent MP, thereby exposing one of the frailities of the MMP system and its use of party lists.

Perks are for politicians, the dole for bludgers – but either way it’s the taxpayer who provides

If only the politicians would listen, I could show them how to make the most of their perks.

Alf admits to being in two minds about the beneficiary who has travelled the world funded by the dole.

As a hard-working taxpayer whose money has been misused, and as a politician with a Calvinist predisposition to preach and uphold industriousness and thrift, he is appalled.

But he has a sneaking admiration for someone who has – according to Stuff – spent nearly two years seeing the sights of Europe, Asia and Africa without his unemployment benefit being cut off.

And he is amused that Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and Work and Income have been left “fuming” after a bloke called Peter Freedom, 34, admitted seeing the world at taxpayer expense.

Frankly, he thinks the buggers should be thoroughly embarrassed and be hastily checking out their administrative systems to find how the bludger could outwit them for so long.

Pansy’s plight lifts Eketahuna North MP’s promotion prospects – but the press are plumping for Parata

Media hacks put a bob each way on a by-election.

We learn today that “disgraced MP” Pansy Wong is said to be “gutted and humiliated” at being forced out of cabinet for abusing her travel perk.

Alf will be gutted and humiliated, too, if he doesn’t emerge from poor Pansy’s downfall with a ministerial post.

His constituents are expecting it.

Missing out would be bad news for the Grumble household, as Mrs Grumble will tell you, because Alf is apt to sulk and be seriously moody for several days after a major setback, although he prefers to keep this personality weakness under wraps.

Let’s ask those bloody reporters who pays when they get into trouble with the libel laws

Alf has a simple question for the political hacks now engaged in a feeding frenzy over MPs’ legal bills.

If they write something defamatory and are sued, who picks up the tab for the legal bills and damages?

If they reply that they personally won’t pay – their company will carry those costs – then they will have gone a long way to explaining why MPs don’t meet the costs of their own transgressions when they say something as MPs that incurs a defamation suit.

The great expenses hush-up

Sure enough, the British scandal over political expenses and how the system has been abused has triggered a burst of curiosity from news media about who spends what in this country.

Well, let the record show none of it is used for cleaning out the moat. Certainly not at Alf’s place, and he’s sure that if other MPs have moats around their properties, they wouldn’t remain a secret for long.

The British scandal is taking a heavy toll of resignations, including Britain’s Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin (to head off a motion of no confidence in him).