The Social Contract
Sir: Tabitha Troughton's article (`Raiding in Reading', 5 September) was stimulating stuff. It is heartening to know that vigilant civil servants are catching and punishing window cleaners who claim unemployment benefit while actually employed.
Could she now turn her skilled attention to the House of Lords? I suggest she parks her observation van outside, and records those peers who spend approximately 13 minutes 'booking in', and claim upwards of £550 per week, plus car, rail and postage allowances, for doing nothing. A piquant rider to her report could be a record of those Irish peers, citizens of the Republic of Ireland, who lard visits to the United Kingdom by brief calls to that House which, for nobility of purpose and honourable con- duct, is, we are told, the envy of the world. They are not allowed to vote, of course, just given the money, so that's all right.
It's tradition, you see, and window clean- ers have no tradition. Desperation in poverty, perhaps, and taxes on everything to pay for honourable institutions under the `Just think, if we had been drinkers and smokers we'd have missed all this!' Crown, but no tradition. It's all a part of the Social Contract.
Robert Wythe
10 Manor Close, Walberswick, Suffolk
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