Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act all the juicy details of our MPs expenses and allowances were due to be exposed next month, but thanks to the Daily Telegraph's ability to get their hands on the details in advance we have now been treated to several days of gory details, firstly those relating to the Government, from the Prime Minister downwards and through all his Cabinet members, and now it's the Conservative Party's turn to be blown out of the water in today's Telegraph.
We have seen how thousands and thousands of taxpayers' pounds have been expropriated under the stupidly lax system of expense allowances for such things as gardening, patio furniture, mock Tudor beams, items of clothing and toiletries, cleaning services, soft furnishings, kitchen appliances, plumbing work, electrical re-wiring, toilet seats, and so on and so on. Assistance with mortgages are given on second homes. Nobody denies the need for second homes when an MP's constituency is several hundred miles from London, but many of these MPs who have second homes turn out to be living within easy commuting distance of Westminster.
Many MPs have been getting second homes improved and enhanced at taxpayers' expense and then selling them in order to buy yet another one and start the process all over again.
The sickening thing is that a good deal of this has been achieved withing the "Rules" and so it is patently obvious that the rules need re-writing and overseen by a totally independent body.
Barbary Follett - a Labour MP - claimed £25,000 p.a. for personal security. She was told by the officials who vet these claims that it might look a bit odd if it became public, but allowed it anyway. Now it has been made public, and yes - it looks a bit odd. Follett claims she doesn't feel safe living in Soho. Well, nobody made her live in Soho! And in any case, if she wants personal security she is married to a multi-millionaire husband - author Ken Follett - and so should be able to afford her own damned security!
The public at large is getting hugely angry by all these revelations about snouts in the trough. And so far it has been made obvious that they are both Labour and Conservative snouts. It remains to be seem whether the Liberal Democrats turn out to be any less pig-like.
I'm guessing - even hoping - that at the forthcoming local and European Parliament elections voters will make a special point of voting for anyone other than the Parties currently wallowing in pig swill. At the same time I hope that such a feeling will not lead to people voting for extremist parties like the BNP. That would not achieve anything useful.
It is a shame that those MPs who are honest and are claiming only what is fair to claim will be tarred by the same brush.
I think that Parliament should be dissolved and we should start all over again with a snap General Election. The public could then make a point of not voting for those greedy and (sometimes) fraudulent MPs and put them out to pasture.
There was a nice Matt cartoon in the Telegraph the other day: two MPs walking together outside Parliament, and one says to the other, "I went into Politics to improve my living room".
6 comments:
The parties over for this one too.
Step forward and downwards Michael Martin. At last he’s doing the decent thing. Dig out your old service revolver sir and really do the decent thing. The speaker of the house, were you out of order? You bloody well know you were. Were you defending MPs expenses claims when you told MPS not to give any quotes to the press? Or, were you trying to defend your own?----- You are a disgrace to your country----
In December 2008----
Martin won the right to a taxpayer-funded, index-linked pension worth close to £1.4 million consisting of half his MP's salary and half his Speaker's salary, inflation-adjusted until his death----
Mrs Hazel Blears. Is it to late for you? You either have it our you haven’t, Its in short supply for Mrs Blears at the moment. What is that she may well ask, of course, silly me, I‘m forgetting you forgot the word years ago, its TRUST. Okay! Waving her check, this will make it alright, you are only fooling yourself if you think that. Paying back the taxpayers money that she stole from the taxpayer Dur! She said, “I will pay back the £13,332 of the taxpayers money (trying to avoid paying capital gains tax) which I know now I should have paid.” Come on lady! Are you a dur? Or not a dur? Its because you got caught.----Have a nice day Freddie.
the party sould be over for al of them mps.I think it is so digracfull that this women has been getting away with al this money when people are having such a hard time to make ends meet. She sais in the newspaper, I’ve heard the anger the public feel, we must get trust back between the polaticians and the public. Did we ever feel that way about any mp.
hazel brown Essex.
I an appalled, but you can bet your last £20 note (there were 487,000 forged ones discovered in 2005) nothing will be done. They have all done an excellent job in reinforcing most voters opinions of the British MPs integrity and honesty. They have shown that greed and failure is rewarded.
Letting self absorbed politicians regulate their own salaries and expenses (they should not have any) has proved catastrophic. Faith! If it every can be restored in this now failing abysmal democracy, must have a solution. A totally independent body should be set up to review this atrocious selfish and self-indulgence.
They are just a bunch of thieves, Highwaymen in their chauffer drive cars, STAND AND DELIVER. We the MP will stand while you the voter and taxpayer deliver. Theft from the British taxpayer is a crime. Ignorance is no excuse under the eyes of the law. The taxpayers put their trust in a person, not a politician, how wrong they
were.
They! The politicians are elected to stand for, to speak for and to act for the voter, that person who put them into their privileged position. An MPs morals should never ever be in doubt or come into question. Boy! Have they proved us wrong, they have now broken that unwritten code, the damage has been done. Can the people, the voters and above all the taxpayers, every forgive and forget?
Dave.
Oliver Cromwell told the Rump Parliament in 1653, Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lords temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation, you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, have yourselves now become the greatest grievance. I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go! Get you out! Ye fenal slaves be gone!.......This is wonderful stuff.Nothings changed then as it.
martin, Doncaster.
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