Unnecessary respite from reform

This snippet from Jon Snow’s latest blog-post (with my emphasis) is jaw-dropping:

“To add to matters, I have learned that the Labour party is now going through its ranks of peers to determine where their ‘principal residence’ is. This after years of wholesale abuse of the system in which lords and ladies of all persuasions have claimed distant holiday homes to enable them to get the accompanying unreceipted travel expenses.

I have also learned that ‘arrangements’ have been made to allow serving ministers in the Lords to claim a residence out of town ‘for necessary respite’, retrospectively protecting ministers and law officers who may have claimed for such provision.” It’s easy to sneer at Nick Clegg’s call for the Queen’s Speech to be cancelled – particularly as it’s little more than a reheat of his “No holiday for MPs” trick of a few months ago.  But, crude politicking or not, he does have a fundamental point.