The loss of millions (of lives) is the greater expense.

If you didn't read the bit in brackets, what would you expect this blog entry to be about? I suppose the abstract, figurative association of 'expense' collocates nicely with the idea of money anyway, so it isn't an entirely fair question. But I still think it highlights an important point: Britain is obsessed with dosh.
Sometimes I get a little tired with this country's obsession with money. No doubt many will see (or WOULD see, if 'many' people actually read this blog!) this entry as naive and ill-informed, but I think such critics would be missing the point.
While the expenses scandal is obviously important and needed to be discussed, I think the past tense of 'need' should really be noted here. We've had discussion after discussion about this and they have led to many new laws in parliament to stop such a thing from happening again. It's not as if it's been treated lightly.
But I have heard so much about it that I am almost sick of it now. I think things like this clearly show a huge loss of perspective, and this saddens me deeply.
The revelation of David Laws' so-called shady activities and expenses claims have brought the issue back into the spotlight this past week (as if they ever went away). But they miss the point. I completely agree with Times columnist Matthew Parris that the issue here is not about money; David Laws clearly wasn't doing this for money - it was purely because he wanted to hide his homosexual relationship, and I think the whole thing is really quite tragic.
It angers me that this is so normal; so common-place in our society, that whenever there's a story or a scandal that involves money, that is what is generally perceived as the key issue, no matter what. And it is really for that reason that I am sick of hearing about expenses. Because that is one of the few cases which really is about money, and yet the ongoing row over it is only causing people to confuse its issues even more with other stories which are completely irrelevant to finance and expense.
But then that is not even really the point of this blog entry. What I wanted to highlight was how people lose all sense of perspective. The expenses scandal was awful, and give politicians a bad name. But as bad a name as they should earn for murdering millions in Iraq? For taking human lives away? Come on. We need to remember the issues that REALLY matter; the issues that TRULY *destroy* lives. While we sit and bitch and moan about 'thieving' politicians, the same MURDERER politicians are supporting a barbaric war in Iraq. The expenses scandal was awful and embarrassing and rightly lost politicians a lot of trust. But it WAS about money. You know, that empty medium that buys us material things but has no value in itself. It is an ideological concept. It's a vacant substance; it's only money, for Christ's sake.
The bottom line is that we should think about what matters to us more, really; losing millions of pounds or losing millions of lives.
Britain is an extremely self-centred nation to live in at times.