Fleaflyfloflum

Oh, i agree with you, and yes, i watched HIGNFY last night very very funny
But not as funny as Margaret Beckett getting verbally anialated by the audience on Question Time the night before

Mallory

I like the one about the payment for a sparkly toilet seat. I bet the sparks are flying now!

jmh

I completely agree with that, and as Ian said on HIGNFY the press can't believe their luck because even just one of those would be a good story in a week, and they got 36, .... it's like Christmas! Having said that, it's one thing for greedy bankers to get rich, it quite a different story when I am paying for it!

dunroving

Yes, one definite plus in the UK's favour (politicians being publicly called to account) ... although the US has various commentators who call it as they see it (e.g., Jon Stewart/Daily News), you almost never see a US politician on TV with their feet being held to the fire.

elfman

agreed - the sums of money they're talking about in most of these cases seem fairly small compared to the amounts involved whenever some US senator or congressman gets caught on the fiddle

sleepysnooze

There are a lot of large ones as well, the best site for the info is http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news.../mps-expenses/ as it was The Telegraph who did the journalism to uncover all this.

For example, my MP has claimed £100,000 in second home expenses. This is despite already owning outright the home he claimed for, and despite living somewhere where it takes 40minutes to get into London on one of the regular trains.

BristolUK

There's a limit to what the 'layabout' can claim for. The sky's the limit for a politician.

There are safeguards built in to social security systems (albeit not great) but there don't appear to be any in the MPs expense claims systems.

The couple with him claiming for home A as the main residence and B as the second while the wife does the reverse; the MP getting an allowance for a property while another MP gets an allowance for renting the same place; the MP getting the allowance for a mortgage years after it's been paid off. Why is that sort of thing not picked up? If relevant addresses were to be recorded on a computer alarm bells would sound when one cropped up a second time.

If Mr and Mrs Smith are claiming benefits, the computer system will pick an attempt to use one of their National Insurance Numbers on a different claim. It should be easy for something similar where an address has already got some kind of expenses claim recorded against it.

£46000 to furnish a 2 bed home? If it's the second home it only has to be comfortable not bloody luxurious. I furnished our entire 4 bedroom home for less than £10000 in 2005 and for as long as I've been a houseowner (1984 onwards) I've never managed to get the value of the contents even close to the minimum level of cover required by the insurance company and that would have included all my personal stuff as well as furnishings.

steviedeluxe

I think if you're someone who's seen years of hard work come to nothing (either losing your job or house, or your business fold) it must be hard to see how these people milk the system. To be honest though, I'd be happy paying MPs a million a year if they sorted the economy out and got us all back to work. After all a Premiership footballer often earns more than this.

Bevm

I noticed this when we were back recently. Politicians on the TV and radio and people asking them tough questions and not letting them weasel out of answering.

In Canada, they hide unless they have something to boast about, and then they avoid any tricky questions. And reporters seem to obey some rule that you can only ask the same question twice. I'm sure there are plenty of abuses here that everyone colludes in covering up

For one thing, there's a court case going on about public servants in BC who probably had something going on with the sale of the railway to private interests. IIRC. It's been 5 years now, and the case had been before the courts for at least a year, and hasn't even got moving yet. Now the judge has been promoted to a national position, which could mean it all starts again. And soon someone will say the process is too slow and let them off the hook -- along with all the other bigger fish involved.

This report is old now but nothing's changed.

Bev

folic

Around 12 or a few more years ago, the Gold Coast Council reportedly took itself on a trip to Paris or somewhere ... to 'study' tiling -- yep, that's tiles, floor tiles I think it was. Allegedly, approx. one dozen councillors involved, from memory.

Reportedly, only one of those invited declined to take that holiday at ratepayers' expense and that was Dawn Crichlow (sp?). She took it to the media and said the trip could not be justified on any level.

Upon their return, Dawn Crichlow was presented with a gigantic penis by her fellow-councillors .. in council chambers. And that made the media too.

When we lived on the Coast, I knew some long-term GC councillors socially. Mmmm. Not impressed. They had minimum education/qualifications and were genuinely and obviously extremely ignorant. In my opinion, they were motivated purely by financial gain. In fact, they made no secret of it. A couple had run/were running spectacularly failed small businesses, which again I regarded as testimony to their basic lack of intelligence, experience and acumen.

People generally are unaware of the often lack of qualifications suffered by those they vote-in to run what in effect is a small-business (local council) .. albeit that the small-business involved has an annual budget of many millions of dollars of the public's money.

Instead, people vote for the Smile, the Promises and the seeming 'Concern for the Public ' invested by those who .. after they're elected .. stick their noses in the trough and suck up all they can before their luck runs out.

Seems to me that the most genuine .. the most worthy .. find it difficult to produce phony-smiles on demand and tend not to make promises they feel they might be able to uphold. So, unlike their phony counterparts, the most worthy tend to be pushed into the background at election-time by their flashy rivals, who're motivated by greed and ego but know how to con the masses and media.

Observation has also proved (to me at least) that many 'groups' -- be they police, bodies-corporate, even pottery groups -- often contain crooks. The decent, the honest, are often driven out or leave in disgust and despair.

Only way to minimise the damage is to ensure they're held accountable. But of course, which of us has the time in which to do so .. or the means ? It remains for the media to conduct orchestrated 'beat-ups' .. usually when government is intent that the public's attention be diverted from something far more grave.

sonlymewalter

Excellent post and very true. I recently left as a chamber of commerce committee member for the same reason i.e. they submitted & won a large amount of money to provide business services to other chambers when they couldn't even get their own house in order. The money would be used to fund the guy who was the "salesman" of the chamber rather than provide a service of business excellence. The tender they submitted was full of crap about providing small businesses with help and yet not one of the chamber members knew how to put together a business plan, never mind make one happenAlso, the minute they won the tender, the guy who ran the chamber then brought on his mate to help ...."sharing the love"

I'm glad they are hounding the UK MP's. I'm under no illusion this happens the world over. It's a pre-requisite that to be a successful politician you need to be as good as a crook that's never been caught, you need car salesman acumen and a smile to melt even a babies heart

It remains to be seen if any of these thieves are going to be prosecuted & how many get back into the fold once the dust has settled and the fuss has died down

babycart

There is a sudden realization that the fabric of a society is deeply flawed to favors the political elite and the corporate rich. UK has now constructed the most extreme set of laws which determine how each person can be tracked, made accountable for and answerable to the state instrument that is government. Our liberty & freedom is something the politicians have deemed not necessary for us, but have the audacity to conduct their affairs in such a manner that makes a mockery of so called democracy.

Do these people not realize that we the public have voted these people to protect our interest, not the converse, and certainly not to allow them to live a life that is devoid of moral standards. The tax payers’ money has been laundered by the Bankster under the noses of our government and their actions reaffirm that our hard work in just an inconsequential fact for our sad lives.

The supercharged HMRC that has been given wide sweeping powers to investigate our minor tax indiscretions seems to be amazingly silent on all the tax fiddles our politicians have undertaken so blatantly that one can only assume that they believe there political position allowed them to be exempt from such investigations. GB’s stance in all this is to go into his bunker and remain silent until the political storm blows over. He has learnt that the British public have become so apathetic that give them about a week and they will soon have something else to worry about. However I think this time GB has truly miscalculated the public mood and he needs to acknowledge this crisis as one for the country rather that the head in the sand tactic he usually employs and uses it as a political opportunity for himself.

This a constitutional crisis which goes beyond NuLbor, Gordon Brown & David Cameron as it tears through the unfettered power that politicians have over the public. How many times has it been said that these people are public servants not masters of all they survey. My view would be to open the Bloody Tower and hang the bastards for treason.

cricket1again

Give the fact it happens so I'm not going to get steamed up about it, I'd rather be ripped off by someone who works for their money.

cricket1again

What's wrong with being rich and owning a corporation?

babycart

Nothing wrong with being rich & nothing wrong with owning a corporation- whats the point you want to make?