His Master's Voice

reports Mr Salter's final speech in the Commons (one of not very many all told) in its usual uncritical fashion.  Here is an excerpt from its report (with a little fisk from me):

Suggesting setting a maximum age limit for MPs no he wasn't, he said: “I am leaving this place because I vowed not to be rattling around the house in my 60s. he is leaving because he knows he would lose if he stood and does not want the electorate to give its verdict on his tenure.  He told then Labour councillor Tony Jones before he made that decision that only he Jones or John Ennis would be candidates who would get his support, 

“That is not to say that people here in their 60s do not do a fantastic job, but I became a councillor 25 years ago when I was 29-years-old that makes him 54.  In fact he will be 56 on 19th April. and there are other things that I want to do with my life.” he previously told us he would be working for a national charity.  Nothing more has been heard about that since.  Now he is off to Australia to smoke dope with former Reading Labour chums.

He raised concerns about the new rules which have been brought in since expenses scandal.

He said: “The travel arrangements say that my constituency of Reading West can be commuted in one hour. I have done that commute for 13 years  - I have never had a London flat no but you claimed 1000 quid a month for a non-existent one for four years - and I have never ever done it in an hour.”

And he added: “The idea that a minister can deliver that job and the ministerial requirements as well as be an effective constituency MP while commuting during all those crazy hours, as I have had to, is for the birds. a minister gets a driver - you never got to be a minister despite years of toadying

“If we in our politics undervalue, underpay and under-resource ourselves, we undervalue our democracy and our political system.”

He mentioned the Reading Evening Post I bet he did, he owes them big for their lies which have protected him and its role in his campaign with Whitley mother and Reading East resident Liz Longhurst to get downloading violent internet pornography outlawed.an extremely stupid law which is unenforceable and will protect precisely nobody, as Mrs Longhurst herself has acknowledged

This election campaign is not going to be dull, as I feared it would be.  It is going to be FUN.