Not a leg to stand on

Oh dear. The Evening Standard reports that Harriet Harman trod on Sir Thomas Legg’s toes and forbad him to publish claims that the fees office had turned down. Harman queried the ‘appropriateness’ of extending the enquiry beyond wrongly approved claims.

English is a wonderful language and ‘appropriate’ has a number of nuances. The fees office rubber-stamped pornos, so what on earth did it turn down? Membership of Madame Jo Jo’s? A mail order bride as part of the second home allowance? In fact on reflection I don’t want know.

Now on the face of it this disclosure is yet more bad news for Britain’s beleaguered political class: it looks shifty and runs contrary to the new fashion for transparency. But those are superficial concerns. The defining feature of the Legg Commission was its author’s incompetence. Rushing to deliver judgement, Legg took matters into his own hands and over-charged everyone, worsening the situation.