MEMBERS of Parliament have more cheek than the Knave of Hearts. They're not running off with the Queen's tarts, but with umpteen millions of our hard-earned money. And it's not only a further £4,000 a year on their wages, but up to £60,000 a year to pay secretarial staff. But the cheekiest monkey of the lot is Robin Cook, the recently-sacked Foreign Secretary and now Head Prefect - sorry, I mean Leader of the House of Commons. In an attempt to justify all this extra dosh, Cook said last week: "I do not think we impress the public if we set too low a value on our own worth. I do believe that we should not sell ourselves short. We should not shrink from putting a proper value on it."

Pardon me, but what's all this talk about value? I never thought the concept of value had anything to do with politicians. Value is a word that goes along with lots of other noble words such as integrity, truthfulness, honesty and (Lord help us) competence. We need an altogether different vocabulary in order to describe politicians. Try deceitfulness, self-interest, wind-baggery and uselessness. But let's swallow Cook's bait and ask in what the value of MPs consists? What great and notable successes have they achieved in improving the lot of voters and citizens? To be specific, what has Cook done for this country, apart from playing his part in getting us embroiled in civil wars in Yugoslavia which are none of our business? Even Blair realised eventually that Cook was a disastrous foreign secretary: that's why he sacked him.

What, for example, has the health secretary done these last four years? He has presided over the worst hospitals in Europe: hospitals in which, according to the government's own figures, five thousand patients every year die from infections they picked up in the wards. These are the same hospitals in which doctors and nurses who, again according to an official report, are ignorant of basic hygiene. The health minister's answer to these problems is to pour more money into the NHS. A waste of public funds. The health system is so lousy that he might as well throw the money into the canal.

What of the education secretary? He looks after schools from which many children emerge after eleven years of full time education still unable to read or write. He employs teachers who are unable to pass a simple arithmetic test. How simple? Well, is there anyone over 55 in this country - that is the generation which was educated before the schools went barmy - who cannot calculate five per cent of £180? But that is a question which teachers' unions have complained about, saying that it puts too much stress on the teachers.

Let us invite the transport secretary to come an explain what he means by value for money. The country roads have more pock marks than the surface of the moon. You'd find more buses on the moon, too, than you'll see in rural areas. Most of our cities are full time traffic jams. Carriages on the London Underground are so filthy they remind you of those horrifying newsreel pictures of people being transported to concentration camps. Last week a train stopped for two hours in a temperature of 100 degrees and dozens of passengers had to be resuscitated. The national rail network is a scandal.

I said politicians are deceitful and dishonest. This is a serious charge and I ought to show some evidence for it. Right, if they want us to believe they are decent, honest people with the interest of the public at heart, why didn't they announce their intention to give themselves a whacking rise before the last general election? Because they knew that, if they had done that, then even less than the derisory 59 per cent - the smallest turnout since the days of Oliver Cromwell's constipation - who actually voted for them would have bothered. Value! What cant! Cookie, you take the biscuit.

Published: Tuesday, July 10, 2001