Expenses Scandal

People have been asking why, under pressure from such notorious trouble-makers as Drayton Parslow, we have not adopted a similar policy to the MPs and appointed someone to go through the Druids' expenses for the last few years.  The suggestion is that if we find that any members of the Druidic council have over-claimed they should refund the money.

The fact is, it's very difficult to go through these expenses claims.  Those for 2004 were inadvertently turned into a papier-mache model of an oak tree during a "Messy Druids" session.  2005's were destroyed during flooding - you may remember that we found somebody had unfortunately dropped hundreds of unsold copies of Victoria Beckham's "Learning to Fly" into the brook, causing an unprecented rise in water levels.

2006's expenses were supposed to be wheeled in the expenses wheelie bin from my study to the Expenses Shed, but unfortunately somebody left them out for the night.  It's amazing how similar that bin was to the ones the council collects... 

Likewise early in 2008 we discovered that unfortunately somebody had used the expense claims for 2007 to light the Mayday wicker person.  And at the very end of that year, the Expenses Shed itself unexpectedly exploded after we needed to use it to store all those butane bottles, firewood and phosphorous.  Who'd have thought it?

And today I have to report the remarkable news that a dog got into my study and ate the expenses.

We managed to recover only the claim that was still in the dogs mouth.  I have had to enage in some serious document restoration, and resorted to some minor conjectures.  But the gist would appear to be that Drayton has put in a claim for a helicopter.  Since we have no need for a helicopter, and indeed there is no helicopter around that anyone can find, we have asked Drayton to return the money forthwith or face the full penalty of law.

Some Beaker People have suggested that we should hold expenses on-line in future, and possibly publish them on this website.  Definitely an idea we should consider.  Paper's all very well, but for real potential for creative amendment there's nothing like a computer.