Why such fuss over Jacqui Smith's expenses claim?

I'm sorry to blog about Jacqui Smith two days in row, but I'm a little baffled by the whole situation.

Has the Home Secretary come under such criticism because she claimed a "TV package" on expenses, or because that package included two pornographic films?

The BBC says: "MPs can claim for subscription television services but they have to be used wholly, exclusively and necessarily to perform their duties."

Obviously, the blue porn movies didn't help Smith perform her duties (so to speak), but neither, presumably, did Surf's Up or Ocean's 13 – the other films covered by the claim.

Had Smith only claimed for the latter films, I'm sure she wouldn't now be facing quite such criticism and anger – but what, really, would be the difference? The same rule would have been broken.

This suggests that the anger aimed at Smith is fuelled in part by people's feelings towards (legal) pornography, and not solely by misuse of the expenses system.

Anyone care to agree or disagree with me?

• Guardian.co.uk: 'Home Secretary Jacqui Smith embarrassed by new expenses row'

• Telegraph.co.uk: 'Jacqui Smith is clinging on by her fingernails'

The House of Kitty Ussher

As regular readers of this blog will know, one of our preoccupations is names - company names, product names, project names and especially personal names.

On that theme, this morning I was tickled to learn that the Labour MP for Burnley and Padiham is called Kitty Ussher. What a brilliant and unlikely name for a politician - to me it seems very 1920s. And I love that double 'S'. Anyway, here's a picture of Kitty (taken from her website), in which she sadly isn't dressed as a flapper:



Any other politicians with good names that you know of?

(Oh, and isn't Wikipedia great? Apparently a previous Burnley MP and indeed relative of Kitty Ussher was the equally impressively named Gerald Archibald Arbuthnot...)