And they think we're going to believe this. She should be made to stand up before the people who watch Daily Politics and say why she is really leaving, just how much she owes in CGT, and be made to write a cheque live on air.
Up until a few weeks ago, Kitty Ussher was the high-flying Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, a job description which needs at least an A-level in Mastery of Tongue-Twisters to write, not to mention say. She resigned from the government because, as Wikipedia states:
On the 17th June 2009, after controversial details of MP's expenses had been released in the press Ussher resigned, citing a desire to "prevent embarrassment to the government" .Ussher is said to have flipped the designation of her second home from Burnley to South London, in order to avoid Capital Gains Tax estimated at between £9,750 and £16,800 on her Burnley property.
Essentially, another one caught with her hand in the CGT till. If she really felt this way, why was she a high-flying junior minister?
She claims to be leaving Parliament, essentially, to spend more time with her family, and not that her short and relatively inglorious career led her to commit tax evasion with public money. Although not yet a criminal offence, under GB's new ideas she'd face a year in jail. Hopefully if these laws come into effect they will make it retrospective.
Bye-bye Kitty. We all know the reasons you're standing down, and you're using the oldest excuse in the book. No need to pretend why you're doing it - people appreciate honesty in their MPs, and unfortunately, you being MP for Burnley might just have given the BNP more votes. Please don't let us face the prospect of a BNP MP...oops, you might already have.
The future is dim - the future is Nick Griffin. Hopefully, Labour can turn this one around, but I don't put it past the public mood, and this video does you no favours. In a time when we need truth - however ugly it is - we get another corrupt little porker who thinks she can slide into genteel obscurity. Wasn't that hard to get elected - but how hard will this make Labour's re-election in Burnley next time? One can only guess and hope and pray you don't send us into a re-run of 1933.
Let's have a look at this through the lens of the oracle cards.
Kitty Ussher - person/MP
Fertile Ground - Green - Enchantment/Aura
Pretty, valuable, and delicious - a boggart thief's trifecta.
Kitty tried to have her cake and eat it, and was a very promising young MP and minister. She appeared quite a tasty scalp for the Telegraph, and the elements of thievery here relate to the CGT issues. Without a moral compass, the 2005 intake - who could use Blair and Howard for their own gains and dump them when the coast was clear - have been seduced by the cornucopia of what was offered. Most candidates now will learn the pitfalls of such an approach, and one can only hope that the 2009-2010 intake will have learned from their predecessors wrongs. Tasty, fertile - and tempting. One could be referring to Ms Ussher and to Parliament here...but the party's over, kiddo.
Ostensible Reasons for Leaving
Elvish Branchbender - Green - Elf Druid
"How do the vinebred feel? Fah! We do not ask the puppet how it feels when the puppeteer bids it dance."
In the video, Kitty claims to feel that her children only see her on the Parliament channel given the workload. Owlperson advises here: it's possible to balance family life, even as a man, with parliamentary demands, particularly given the family-friendly hours. He confesses to feeling some sympathy for her - and it is no coincidence that "spending more time with the family" was once a genuine excuse to leave front-line politics, even if it became a euphemism for other less savoury events leading to resignation - but this sympathy is outweighed by the sheer incendiary nature of the video given that she was an ambitious minister who suddenly had to find a reason to leave with dignity. If she was operating under the new rules she would have got a prison sentence. So what the Daily Politics is thinking about the intelligence of the people seeing the video, he doesn't know, and why they - who were propelling the expenses scandal forward - are now trying to downgrade it is also anyone's guess. Again, bias gets in the way of revealing unpalatable truths. Perhaps Ms Ussher should be forced to make a second video - this time giving her real reasons for standing down.
Real Reasons for Leaving
Thick-Skinned Goblin - Red - Goblin Shaman
The shaman of the tribe is responsible for keeping track of all its treasures, including angry pets, cursed lamps of fiery doom, and CGT bills from HMRC.
Owlperson's addition. Ussher is just another person caught with her knickers down, a goblin with a knowing smile on her face thinking to Andrew Neil - will this do, Brillo-Pad? The great thing about TV is that the public have very limited right of reply.The even better - and scarier in the context of Burnley - thing is that the public have an extensive right of reply at the next election. Which is coming. Soon. Labour better put pressure on Ussher to do another slot, distance themselves from her, and select a decent successor for Burnley. Otherwise the nauseating spectacle of European election night and Nick Griffin could be repeated. For Westminster. If we don't stop these people hiding behind a benign spending-more-time-with-the-family smokescreen - or if we keep giving them peerages ;) - we will lose a lot more than just a couple of scamming bastards.
Outcome for Burnley
Wing Storm - Green - Sorcery
A thousand wings beating as one can choke the sky itself.
Burnley is going to be in ferment, not necessarily solely because of the video (though the BNP could plausibly do a version like the Downfall parodies, inserting subtitles to show Ussher's real reason - their marketing has got a lot better in recent years and I don't put it past them to do this) but because of the scandal in general. The elder in the picture is confronted by the horde of birds and flying animals beseiging him, which shows to me a public revolt. The green card suggests it may not be the BNP Labour are under threat from here, and it is more likely to show public dissatisfaction with the political system itself than just with the Burnley Labour Party. But the force here is a force for good, not evil, so something must happen to put the BNP on the back foot, if not Labour back on the right one.
How very well said.Now she deserves all she gets.Its nothing but plain greed.The more they have the more they want.Even worse they all thought they were entitled to do it.A perk of the job.Well tough sh*t Kitty you were rumbled like all the other thieving liars.No one party is any better than the other,they are all as bad.How many accidents have occured,and suddenly these people want to spend time with their kids.Not while the going was good they didnt did they.Why cant she just say i am sorry i was stupid and now i must pay the price.Obviously she wont be forgiven but she would be able to walk away knowing she had come clean,All she has done is made herself even more of a liar.No one believes that crapp excuse.Pity the kids didnt come before the pot.