What WDM could spend those expenses claims on…

Date: 22 May 2009

The headlines over the last few weeks have been dominated by revelations over the expenses claimed by MPs.

So to coincide with the publication of our 2008 annual review WDM have calculated what we could spend those expense claims on:

£18,000 for bookcases – would fund a campaigner’s salary for a years worth of work on our anti-poverty, fair trade or climate change campaigns.

£2,000 for ‘moat cleaning services’ – would fund a report similar to the one that we used to persuade the Norwegian government to stop pushing controversial water privatisation in poor countries.

£1,851 for a rug – would be enough for props, placards, banners and costumes that would help us get our campaigns noticed and make headline news (like we did in 2005 with Make Poverty History and again in 2009 at the G20)

£1,645 spent on a ‘duck island’ – would fund all our web hosting costs for a year, including email actions like the one that helped stop a devastating coal mine from being built in Bangladesh.

£730 for a massage chair – would fund for a visiting speaker like Mary Lou to come and talk to local groups and activists.

£105.75 for an engineer – to attend to washing machine (because the MP could not work out how to operate it) – would fund the printing of a postcard campaign to lobby MPs to make the right decisions for people and planet, like our campaign for a strong climate bill.

WDM doesn’t have an expense account, instead we rely on most of our income from the generous support of our members.

To find out how we spent our money in 2008 read our annual review.

If any MPs reading this are feeling guilty about their expense claims they can make a donation to WDM’s campaigning work online.