The Jury team and independence

The Jury Team have launched a sort of graphic video attacking Jacqui Smith's expenses record.

It is accompanied, in part, by this script:

We think that it is disgusting that a politician should seek to maximise the cash they can claim, whilst voting to keep that information private.
We think it is wrong for politicians to feather their nests at our expense, protected by the hierarchies of the political parties.
We think that politics would be better and cleaner if real people from outside of the political class became our elected representatives.

The problem with this attack on Jacqui Smith is that the Jury Team are becoming their own political party. How can someone be "independent" if they are being sucked into an attack on Jacqui Smith which is, for example, unaccompanied by an attack on Michael Ancram or the Wintertons, who have been equally suspect in their use of the MP's second home allowance?

And really, this stuff about "real people from outside of the political class". What unadulterated bilge! Surely the whole point of the MP's expenses rows is that have been revealed as "real people"?! And are they really saying that there is a "political class" and all MPs are members of it? If so, they are bonkers.

Don't get me wrong. Of course, I want to see more women and more people from more disparate ethnic backgrounds in parliament. But starting yet another political party under the pretence of an "independent" one is not the way to do it.

When the Jury Team sponsors its first raving Communist to be elected, I'll believe that it is truly independent.