The dignity of the undignified.

Let it not be said that I am a cold-hearted mandarin with a beancounter's mentality when it comes to the public till. After all I did not set my hair alight - can Africans do that? Set their hair alight? - when they decided they wanted car "grants". I didn't think much when they whinged piteously that they really, couldn't, HONESTLY NOT, pay any tax on their allowances. But now they want us to give them a one-thousand-dollar pay-rise. This is the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.

Isaac Mwaura seems like a bright enough spark. Having witnessed his on-camera interactions, he also comes across as an arrogant man. That is par for the course. I have a suspicion that Mr Mwaura an avid supporter of the inanity that is the Order of Precedence Bill. His clever use of "preserve the dignity of former legislators" is a beautiful touch.

There's just one thing with Mr Mwaura's justifications, especially that "dignity" line. It is utter shit. I wish he hadn't described his colleagues and the ones that got shoved out of the political gravy train by their own electors as "dignified." There is little dignity displayed by the Eleventh Parliament. It may conduct its business using the arcane rules developed by the perfidious British, but make no mistake, they are about as dignified as a ham sandwich.

Do you remember the debates during the passage of the Sexual Offences Bill in 2005 or the Marriage Bill this year? Have you listened to some parliamentarians when they refer to their colleagues? Have you read how some of them have justified their misogyny? I hope you have a keen memory, because what these people have done since the day they were elected has been anything but dignified. In the space of eighteen months, some of Mr Mwaura's colleagues have defended child marriage (on religious and cultural grounds), FGM (on cultural grounds), wife-beating (on cultural grounds), VAW/GBM (one religious and cultural grounds)...the undignified list is quite long.

All these people had jobs, somewhere, before they decided they wanted to add the initials "MP" after their names; some of them still run business and firms. It is time we reminded them that they may be professional politicians, but they are neither professionals nor, strictly, employees. It is not the function of the taxpayer to sweat it out in a harsh, harsh economic environment, only so that he can support a parliamentarian after he has ceased to have any usefulness to his constituents. Their pension law is on the books; but if it could be repealed, that would also be a good thing. It would discipline these parasites that simply because they squandered the family fortune to become "waheshimiwa" there is absolutely no reason to enrich them at the expense of teachers, doctors, nurses or policemen.

Mr Mwaura used to be a vocal member of the reformists club. He is now well and truly a former member. He isn't lonely; the new club he joins, the former reformists' club, is chock-full of members. The membership roll, opened on December 28, 2002, is a veritable Who's Who of the reformists club. Some were vocal about "balancing the books" when they sat in the Parliamentary Accounts and Parliamentary Investments committees. Look at some of them today; so obese that it is almost impossible to see their dignity as they trample over it on the way to the Paymaster-General's window. There isn't enough money in all the known worlds to preserve the dignity of the undignified.