Nothing proves Mens Rea like trying to buy silence! In the UK a number of MPs got ousted for stealing relatively trivial sums of a few thousands to a few tens of thousands each, per annum.
(I don’t condone filing false expense claims, but you would think that if you were committed to carrying out fraud whilst in government, you might commit a fraud with a higher pay-off)
What broke the scandal was the secrecy around the expenses, and the fact that Parliament employed ex. Marines to guard the room in which they had minimum wage lackeys entering the false expenses data into computer, to automate the reimbursements. It was viscerally and flagrantly unjust, and eventually the people implementing the policy broke ranks and spilled the beans.
We’ve seen this week that the MPs can vote themselves a 11% pay rise by the front door, which whilst undeserved is at least up-front.
What the Harper Government is actually doing here is putting a price on the full story, that the newspapers must pay to buy out first staffer who will blow the whistle. They’d probably achieve it with a book deal.
