Essentially the EU has a choice, a deal with Johnson or a 'no deal' with Johnson.....where they will inevitably make some kind of deal later on anyway.

Regardless of what the supreme court thinks about parliament these next few days are probably the pivotal moments.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

I think it was a joke, Chris.

Not that many people want to do it. There's about 1 MP per 100,000 people. At each election, assuming the incumbent wants to stay on, they'll probably be standing against 5 other people selected from very short, shortlists.

You're still probably looking at about 1 in every 5,000 people wanting to become an MP.

You ever get people who cant hold down a job (Corbyn) or people who've made their money wanting to do something better with their lifes (Hunt).

£60,000 a year to be responsible for 100,000 with the risk of losing your job every 4 years isn't enough to attract decent talent.

Literacy doesn't appear to be a barrier to membership here and the opportunity to regularly present inciteful wisdom from the Alf Garnett school of political thought. I think your housemate would feel right at home and among friends so it might be a kindness to invite him to join. He might be very lonely out there in the real world.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Whilst I am not suggesting that those who hold public office like an MP ought not be expected to be transparent with their expenses claims and whiter than white I do think we need to get this into perspective.

Like many people when I ran businesses I employed accountants to prepare and present my tax returns. I was once subjected to a HMRC enquiry which lasted months and turned up a number of mistakes in what was allowable and what wasn't. Does this make me a "crook" and unfit to run a business?

The culture surrounding claiming expenses has changed for the better. I well remember a journalist friend of mine who used to keep all the receipts from any activities we did together, including some pretty expensive meals, so he could submit them as part of his claims. He told me then that this was common practice in his industry and it was expected that people like him would earn double their stated salary that way so they could avoid paying the highest rate of tax and that this was encouraged by management. This was though 50 years ago and I am quite sure it won't be the same today. If it was with the level of public scrutiny they would soon be exposed.

So I suspect that many of the MPs who got caught up in the expenses "scandal" were victims of a past culture rather than inherently crooked. Life, expectations and standards move on. So I maintain my belief that most of our MPs are good people trying to do what they believe is best for us all.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Indeed. I’ve seen people earning relative fortunes ask for receipts for cups of tea and newspapers and you have to think lots of restaurants couldn’t charge their ridiculous prices without expense account customers but the difference with MPs was the sheer bewilderment most expressed at being questioned.