Two different tangos

(And, no, not much to do with Hain.)

Well, two quite distinct withdrawals of whips from Tory politicians (as well as the additional ones who merely had to hand it back to the poor lass when their time was up.)

Derek Conway. Fool, charlatan and fraudster. Thrown out of parliament for, frankly, taking the piss. Yes, MPs have employed family members for years¹. Jackart has a list. There is nothing wrong with this, provided that they do the work. Conways Junior did not. Dad broke the rules. Mind you, if we were going to throw out every MP who broke either Parliamentary rules or British law, we could move them to a much smaller office building. There are still some old-style telephone boxes near Westminster.

Dan Hannan. Eurosceptic and MEP. Thrown out of the 'European People's² Party' for asking the European Parliament to follow its own rules. Remember their smoking ban? Fat chance, mate, but you knew that. Rules are for the little people. Now, it's not as if MEPs actually have any work to do, either - remember that the rules are made by the Commission (TEBAF Margot, twice-sacked Mandy etc) and then rammed through the national parliaments - the Parliament is just a federalist hot air factory³. And, of course, with their pay deal, no MEP needs to employ their wife or mistress - that's a perk for the Commissioners.

There has been lots on blogs recently about pin factories and whether Adam Smith ever visited one (the consensus is that he did - or something very similar, anyway). Where is the discussion of the clearly-necessary piano wire workshops?

1. If I was stuck in London all week (or most of the week) and especially if I had a job that regularly made me attend (they don't actually 'work', do they?) until 10pm, I'd get Mrs S-E a job that meant she could accompany me. And if I could have an arrangement with her boss that meant that when my life was tough, she could get a bit more time off ...

2. This reminds me of the axiom that any organisation with "People's" in its title, almost certainly isn't.

3. See:

Urges the Commission to establish

- pointless, powerless, hideously expensive statist fools. Democratic window-dressing on the tyranny of the retro-Napoleonic federal Europe. With Bliar, the Sedgefield Cat himself, about to adopt Corsican citizenship. Well, we still have St Helena!