The divine right of Devine
Posted on February 2, 2011The jury have just announced that Jim Devine is the latest politician to be found guilty of false accounting in his MPs’ expenses. Even before they had made up their minds about his criminal behaviour, though, it was clear that at bare minimum he was guilty of being a massive, massive hypocrite.
BBC Scotland’s Tim Reid, who has been livetweeting the trial, reported that Devine’s defence QC came out with this appeal to the jury yesterday:
Even by the often pompous standards of Westminster, that’s a laughable claim.
This Jim Devine who claimed yesterday he wanted “no special treatment” for having been an MP was the same Jim Devine who wasted public money and court time over the last year by first bringing a case and then an appeal to argue that he could not be prosecuted at all on the grounds of Parliamentary Privilege.
He was demanding special treatment for MPs to the absurd degree that they should be above the criminal law and untouchable even by the courts. That dodge didn’t work for Charles I when he pleaded the “divine right of kings”, and I’m delighted that it hasn’t worked for the divine right of Devine, either.
Tags: BBC, BBC Scotland, Charles I, Jim Devine, MPs expenses, opinion, Parliament, Politics, Tim Reid, Twitter
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Westminster
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Wallace and Tory_Torch, Johnny Steyn. Johnny Steyn said: RT @wallaceme: Crash Bang Wallace: The divine right of Devine http://bit.ly/fxazvA #Devine #Guilty #MPsexpenses [...]
10.02.2011 12:53