This is a bit of cheek from Tessa Jowell, isn't it?

One of the reasons that we around here aren't in politics is simply because we've not got the cheek to be a politician. This doesn't seem to be true of Tessa Jowell (who, we might recall, resigned from her family to spend more time in politics) as she shows here:

Now Labour MP Tessa Jowell is launching a campaign to cap excessive charges on money transfers, saying remittance companies have become “the international Wonga”, referring to companies that charge exorbitant interest rates on short-term loans. She says the “transfer tax” can add £20 to a payment of £100, especially in the case of money sent to sub-Saharan Africa. Fees to countries in Asia and Latin America are also high.

“Many people who are trying to support friends and family abroad are being ripped off. Instead of their hard-earned money going towards medical bills, books or to cover the cost of failing crops, huge amounts are being creamed off by the giant money transfer companies who have cornered the market,” said Jowell, who will launch a campaign to “Stop the Transfer Tax Rip-Off” in Brixton on Sunday.

We're almost rapturous in our applause for the effrontery of this. Tessa Jowell has been in Parliament since 1992. She has held ministerial office in a government that increased the costs to such money transfer firms by tightening up all of the money laundering and know your customer rules. Now that she's leaving Parliament she's setting herself up to run a campaign to undo the evil effects of those very laws she voted for while in Parliament.

It's quite a cheek really, isn't it? Earn your pension crust by campaigning against the things you did while still employed by the electorate?

No, no, we here at the ASI do think ourselves quite brazen, have no illusions about our own chutzpah, but we really cannot rise to this sort of level. Which is, as above, why we're not politicians. Just can't do it.