Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Winterton

This is the greatest case of foot in mouth I have ever witnessed by a party trying to to get on the right side of the less well off in the UK. It makes great reading, but I feel a little sorry for the poor fellow, not his fault hes of a better social class (ha ha). I have included a copy of the AP article for your browsing:

A veteran Conservative MP has said MPs should be allowed to claim taxpayer-funded expenses to travel first-class on trains because passengers in standard class are "a totally different type of people".

Sir Nicholas Winterton said that people travelling on the significantly cheaper standard tickets had "a different outlook on life" and were unlikely to be working or studying during their journey.

MPs deserved to be treated like businesspeople and senior public servants and should be allowed to claim for first-class travel between their constituencies and London so they can work, he said.

The Macclesfield MP's comments came after he told Total Politics magazine that he was "infuriated" by the clampdown on MPs' expenses after last year's scandal and said reforms of the Commons allowance system would "make things much worse".

Sir Nicholas told BBC Radio 5 Live's Stephen Nolan show: "If I was in standard class, I would not do work because people would be looking over my shoulder all the time, there would be noise, there would be distraction and, I am sorry, if I am doing work I want to concentrate on that. Why do businesspeople travel first class?"

Asked whether he thought standard-class passengers behaved differently from those with first class tickets, Sir Nicholas replied: "Yes, I do. They are a totally different type of people. There are lots of children, there is noise, there is activity...

"They have a different outlook on life. I very much doubt whether they are undertaking serious work and study, reading reports and amending reports which MPs do when they are travelling."

Nolan asked the MP whether he wanted to retract his description of standard-class passengers, and he responded: "They very often have a different outlook, of course they do, because they are in a different area of activity. They may be travelling just because they are on holiday or they are going to London to visit somebody. MPs are going to London to work."

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "David Cameron has made clear his support of the reforms of Parliament and MPs' expenses. These comments today are the out-of-touch views of a soon-to-retire backbench MP. They do not in any way represent the views of David Cameron or that of the Conservative Party and should be treated as such."

Whats best is the fact he is oblivious to the prospect that people apart from MP's may have to travel to London to work, because as everyone knows its really cheap to live in London and thats why everyone who works there lives there. Have to admit the statement tickled me a little.