Jackqui Smith Down

You would have to be a bit fucked in the head to vote for either the labour
on conservative parties now shirly? Corrupt or bankrupt at the
parliamentary and consituency level. ****, even I would have to vote liberal
out of the 3 main contenders, and they are less than clean at constituency
level.

 

Sorry, but that cannot be true, because of one small detail.

Inner London MPs did not have access to the Additional Costs Allowance,
"just" getting an Inner London Weighting of £2,812 instead.

 

"have become"?

 

I'd be amazed

It isn't all, I think there are lots who do not. Expenses have to be
justifiable. These aren't little mistakes, it is outright fraud.

I'm an honest man, I don't fiddle my expenses.

It is down to having career politicians rather than people who care with
limited terms in office. The salary is more than sufficient.

The liberal party?

 

your question is valid. For me, what they did isn't the problem. The
problem is that all of them went along with the business of trying to
cover it up at the same time as the government were going about the
business of eroding public freedoms and rights and moralising about
things such as large bonuses and pentions for bankers.

yes - but do you agree they were right (to paraphrase Jacqui) "in the
court of public opinion"?

even less democracy and freedom. What do I win?

BTW - leave your goodbye message to JS:

http://www.dearjacqui.co.uk/

 

have you seen "the siege" (1998)?

 

I take your point but to be fair there are quite a few decent honest MP's
and there always has been.

It would be nice to see similar exercise carried out on senior Civil
Servants now. Bet you there is a lot of shredding going on.

 

Actually, most of the time they were fiddling the system, MPs, or
ministers at least, were supporting the large bonuses for bankers.

 

I have this image of the First Division Association working on their licks
while Westminster burns.

 

Frighteningly plausible aren't they?

To answer some of the posts further down - I'm not quite in the Champ
BHALC corner, I do feel that this 'scandal' has been manufactured by
(mostly) the BB's as part of their ongoing attempts to mould British
politics to their own agenda.

I don't like being moulded by strange old men.

Whilst I don't agree with the lying and covering up - and claiming by
senior MP's of mistakes in accountancy - these people should not be
making such schoolboy errors - the actual amount of money 'fiddled'
outside the rules that apply is negligible in the great scheme of things.

Remember, they (MP's) are told when they enter the house that the
allowances are theirs by right and the fees office will assist them to
claim as much as they are allowed. They should not be fiddling the tax
man though - and that should be something that perhaps should be followed
up in the same way it would be if you or I did it.

Now I am not of the camp that thinks MP's should be earning 100's of
thousands a year - I do think that the basic salary is too low - under
60k - I would not work for that and neither would most of ukrm. However,
maybe, if I was political or motivated by the need to help my fellow man,
I would. I'd struggle to survive on it though. So I would milk the
allowances and take non-exec directorships to make up the money. I've
got a family to support like everyone else.

The thing that has cost them their credibility is the attempts to cover
up the whole business - they should have been honest from the start and
said: These are allowances, we are told to claim them as they are our
right, and we are, so **** you Barclay Brothers and your newspaper.

 

They wouldn't have had a scandal to manufacture if there wasn't the raw
material.

It's not the monetary value, it's the moral hypocrisy that I (and most
others IWHT) dislike.

If Brown had had the guts to sack Blears (and others )when it was
discovered CGT had been avoided or non-existent mortgages had been
claimed for, it might not have come to this.

Hahaha! It's the old "well off people never think that they are the
well off ones" thing isn't it?

I suspect that the majority of ukrm do earn less than that.

The rules state that claims must be wholly, exclusively and necessarily
incurred in order to carry out MPs' duties. They've been on the take,
are hypocritical and have been found out. Don't project onto the
messenger, however abhorent you may find them.

 

well, recently at least some of them appeared to change their tune.

 

that's what I said.

 

That doesn't mean they had to do it though.

V recently had a tour of the Commons with David Lammy who recounted that
when he started as an MP he was pointed toward numerous peope who could
show him how to fiddle the system but he found the whole idea
reprehensible so didn't.

The fallout from the scandal has been focussed on tbose who didn't take
quite such an ethical viewpoint. These people set the legal agenda. They
write and pass laws saying what the rest of us can or cannot do. They
fought tooth and nail to keep their escapades secret and, after a five
year legal battle, lost.

**** them.

The Telegraph may have been the media conduit through the the story
broke and took hold, but the journalist who spent five years
investigating and fighting to expose the details was a freelancer, not
(afaik) in the Telegrah's pocket.

The Barclays may be trying to control the agenda but they didn't create
it. For that the MPs have only themselves to blame.

 

In which case I disagree with it entirely and would like everyone reading
this thread on company time to be shot as they are as bad as the MPs.

 

The raw material was their - it's the spin that's been put on it.

I think that's what I was saying.

I think it would - everyone is dancing to a tune where you and I can't
really hear the music.

Maybe - but would they commute to Westminster and do an MP's job for that
(excluding the independently wealthy)?

The rules are well and truly open to interpretation - and I think it
would be an act of blatant hypocrisy for any of us to think we would not
have taken as much of the allowances (not expenses) as we could have got
away with. The difference is, the honest and truthful would not have
lied about it afterwards.

 

Two points. Not *all* MPs took the same approach, and I'd lean toward
calling it abusing, not using.

One of the crucial points for me is that they had their snouts so deep
in the trough that despite it being fairly obvious which way the wind
was blowing as regards exposure - QCs don't often give their services
pro bono unless they think they're onto a winner - they kept at it. Any
sane person would have at least stopped the fiddling when it looked like
they might get caught.

Their behaviour is stupid, greedy and hypocritical. And people wonder
why the public are pissed off.

 

I noticed you've still not made any comment on the observation that I
and a couple of others have made that what we really object to is not
the allowance claiming, it was the fact they faught a legal battle to
cover it all up for years.

Plus, the fact that they themselves right the rules about what they
can or cannot claim for, makes saying "it was within the rules"
meaningless.

 

And there you have it. Fraud. Simple.

If you were a Bluechip director or senior manager you would be out on your
ear and talking to plod.

 

Agreed - and many of them didn't do it.

It is reprehensible - but it's (the scheme) is there to make up for the
appalling wages - they should (and this goes back at least 2 decades)
have voted themselves a wage that would support the lifestyle required to
be an effective MP, but even all that time ago, were dancing to the tune
played by the newspapers.

I quite agree. But if these are allowances to support them in their
work, then be honest about the fact it's a bit of a scam to avoid the bad
publicity of admitting it costs 120k a year (say) to be an MP and the
wage of 60k doesn't cover it.

Only Anne Widdecombe if you don't mind... She looks like a dirty woman.

I think this is manna from heaven for those trying to mould us...