Kenneth Roy
My neighbour and his hairdryer

There are not so many Roys in the world that I can afford to neglect any of them. Two prominent Roys of the modern era are both Labour MPs – Frank, a master tactician of by-election campaigns, and Lindsay of Inverkeithing fame. I think of Lindsay as something of a pal because for years we have been next-door neighbours in 'Who's Who in Scotland', my entry diminishing (what's the point of remembering a career at the BBC in any detail – or at all?), while his own steadily lengthens.
     Last year I was delighted when my namesake was selected as the Labour candidate for Glenrothes and, like everyone else, surprised when he won the seat. Politics in Inverkeithing had not received such a boost since the colourful era of Raibert MacShimi-Sim, SNP provost of the town when towns had provosts and the SNP had people called Raibert. The provost, usually accompanied by his dogs (Dalmatians, I believe), was celebrated locally for his tartan trews and flowing locks. He had an endearing habit of conferring a civic reception on any local citizen who took his fancy. I speak as the embarrassed co-recipient of one such honour; embarrassed because we were preparing disloyally to upsticks and leave. Raibert, who headed the first SNP council in Scotland, fell out with the party big time but continued as an independent member until Inverkeithing reverted to Labour or the town council was abolished; I can't remember which happened first.
     Too late for Raibert to have fallen across his radar, Lindsay Roy became head honcho of the high school at Inverkeithing, which, before it opened, was the subject of a local competition to name it. 'Inverkeithing High School' was the winning entry. Perhaps the sanest person in this mad burgh was Lindsay Roy. I wonder whether, in the last few days, he has not longed to return.
     Surveying the record of his parliamentary career, I find that in his maiden speech he referred to poor little Gordie Brown being belted at school (Kirkcaldy High) but going on to 'leather the opposition'; that, on a slightly more elevated level, as a member of the 'British Offshore Oil and Gas Industry All-Party Parliamentary Group', he visited Total's 'carbon and storage demonstration plant' in south-west France; and that, just the other day, he signed an early day motion on the welfare of the racing greyhound. As the former dog racing tipster of the Daily Record, who observed many a favourite weighed down by a corruptly administered fish tea, I applaud his endorsement of this initiative.
     As a Commons man, Lindsay has been a model pupil. A parliamentary monitoring service records that his attendance is 'above average' and that he has never rebelled against the Government. He has, for example, voted 'very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war'.
     I think you are getting the picture. Whatever you think of Roys in general, this Roy is no threat to the established order. He is a team player through and through. Indeed his strongest statement since November 2008, when he was elected to Westminster, appeared on his own website – it is still to be found there. 'I can't believe what I've walked into,' he declared. 'How can we ask people to trust politicians when many of them – in all political parties – have abused the expenses system? Some of the claims for expenses are quite frankly shocking and I do not wish to be associated with them.'
     
A month later, a pivotal episode occurred. An unsuspecting Lindsay walked into John Lewis in Oxford Street – a favourite haunt of off-duty MPs – and bought a Babyliss Salon Dry hairdryer at a cost of £24. The Daily Telegraph later described it as 'top of the range', a typical case of media hyperbole. If you want a top of the range hairdryer, I recommend The Envy Professional, 'perfect for the considerate early riser, giving a salon finish without waking up the rest of the household' (£95) or Wam, complete with ergonomic handle, which 'dries your crowning glory in half the time' (£130). Although I sense that Raibert MacShimi-Sim would have gone for Wam, my canny kinsman contented himself with a Babyliss Salon Dry. The member who had confessed to his website that he could not believe what he had walked into, who had been transported from the cloistered bliss of Inverkeithing High School to this cessspit of dodgy expenses claims, then tendered the receipt to the fees office at the House of Commons and wrote in a firm hand (I know this because I have seen the evidence) 'Hairdryer' against his claim for the Babyliss Salon Dry. It was too much, even for the notoriously tolerant chaps in the fees office. His claim was turned down on the grounds that this was a personal purchase.
     Why did he do it? Of course there are thousands of claims more outrageous – 'shocking' as he would put it – than this; some involving serious amounts of public dosh. Sadly it is the petty claims, often the rejected ones, that are remembered; animal-friendly dog sitting here, an inoffensive carton of pot noodles there. We find it difficult to comprehend the 'flipping' racket, the casual exchange of first homes for second, and the fortunes accrued as a result. But that pathetic 'adult movie' for the forlorn chap married to the last Home Secretary, whatever her name was – yeah, we got that.
     Why do any of them do it? I cannot speak for Lindsay Roy, 'the local man', who seems a pretty good egg despite his uncharacteristic lapse of judgement, but my theory may be true of others. Consciously or sub-consciously, MPs make out-of-order expenses claims because they are bitterly resentful that, acting in the public service as most of them do, they are paid just over a quarter of the salary of the medical director of a bog-standard Scottish NHS board, without his job security or vast pension entitlement. Well, they are right to be bitterly resentful and, of course, many will be out of a job next spring and quickly forgotten: that's politics. But it's a bit rich – in more than one sense of the word – to moan about MPs when the bureaucrats quietly get on with it unobserved, until a small-circulation magazine starts poking its nose into their affairs.
     If I had been Lindsay – I speak as a fellow Roy – I would have gone for The Envy Professional and been hung for a considerate, early rising, well-dried sheep.