MP's expenses, what would you do?

The Mechanic

I can not stand Stephen Fry. I think is is a supercillious, pompous ass who is trying to make out he is a latter day Oscar Wilde. However, I freely acknowledge that he is probably amonst the top brains in the UK at the moment. And I agree with his comments in the interview. What needs changing is the system that allows these MPs to abuse it.

BTW, please vote for me at the next general election. I am going to become an MP - if you can't beat em, join em.

robmanic1

Another trough-feeder outed this morning for claiming £16k for a second-home mortgage he "forgot" he didn't have.

These people must think we're mugs, come the revolution............!

GavH

Robmanic1 wrote:

Another trough-feeder outed this morning for claiming £16k for a second-home mortgage he "forgot" he didn't have.

These people must think we're mugs, come the revolution............!

I'm no legal eagle but I'm struggling right now how this doesn't constitute plain, outright fraud? And I'm fairly sure thats a criminal offence the last time I looked.

Brian-Mc

Any MP whose home is within a 2 hour commute should travel in. For anyone further away, the Government should build a Travelodge clos to the HoP which is funded straight from Parliament. All meals must taken in the HoP. No need to claim any expenses for a second home. Job done, millions saved!

Porgy

Unless MPs can reconcile their behaviour with the way the government and all parties demonise minor benefits "cheats" then we should see allt he current offenders voted out.

I suggest a mass vote spoil exercise where we end up with no MPs elected, and then we can all turn up to parliament en masse and demand a new constituion, a new parliamnet, and proper people's justice.

We can shoot all the Daily Mail readers too.

Mashyuk

A little info on what was said by Oliver cromwell, 16th April 1653; as good now as then ????? It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money; is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? is there one vice you do not possess? ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s 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 redress’d, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do; I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place; go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!

robmanic1

Let's raise a people's army an seize control of the state!!! :twisted:

OffTheBackAdam

The level of corruption witnessed is indescribable.
The fact that everyone of them has so far claimed that what they've claimed is "within the rules" is beyond belief.
No, actually, it's their rules that are beyond belief.
They should be taxable as "benefits in kind" and that should be done retrospectively too.
As has been noted previously, this lot are rank amateurs in the expense fiddling dept, compared to their MEP counterparts, a truly Augean stable.

cee

for me....the 'it is within the rules' defence doesn't hold water.

just because it is not against a rule doesn't make it right....

just because something is not unlawful.........does not make it morally right.

To me...the fact that they are rushing to pay it back says that they know fine well they were caught with their fingers in the till....if they really thought it was all above board, they would argue that fact.....

and as above...if you or I fiddled our capital gains tax, there wold be very serious repurcussions.

beverick

What would I do?

With reference to Jo Moore and Stephen Byers, I'd be looking around to see what this, and last week's relatively trivial matter of the Ghurka's residency, is hiding.

Bob

SpinningJenny

beverick wrote:

What would I do?

With reference to Jo Moore and Stephen Byers, I'd be looking around to see what this, and last week's relatively trivial matter of the Ghurka's residency, is hiding.

Bob

Methinks that the Ghurka's residency wasn't trivial to them. They put their lives on the line for the UK and get naff all back.

However, I do see what your getting at....

passout

One of my mates used to double his salary through dodgy claims when he worked for British Gas about 10 years ago. Lots of people do it and politics is generally far more corrupt abroad (eg Italy). Also the media are blowing it of all proprtion.

BUT they should face the consequences like anybody else who gets caught doing this. The Speaker should remain impartial and Brown should show some true leadership in order to clear up this issue and put it to bed.

Porgy

SpinningJenny wrote:

beverick wrote:

What would I do?

With reference to Jo Moore and Stephen Byers, I'd be looking around to see what this, and last week's relatively trivial matter of the Ghurka's residency, is hiding.

Bob

Methinks that the Ghurka's residency wasn't trivial to them. They put their lives on the line for the UK and get naff all back.

However, I do see what your getting at....

I don't think they got naff all - I believe that as a result of 15 years service they were garanteed a pretty good retirement package in their own country.

To be honest - I can't see why they want to come here anyway.

finchy

Porgy wrote:

I don't think they got naff all - I believe that as a result of 15 years service they were garanteed a pretty good retirement package in their own country.

To be honest - I can't see why they want to come here anyway.

Maybe the political situation in Nepal helps to sway a few of them.

And not forgetting that many of them bring up their children knowing the UK as their home.

STEFANOS4784

I'd sack the lot of them and put them in factory jobs so they realise how hard and soul destroying life on the bottom of the pile can be, then i'd cap government wages abolish second home allowances and all that junk. *Did you all know that M.P's get 10,000 p/a for mob phone allowance and 4000 a year bathroom allowance :shock:

IMO people who 'run' the country should be doing it through passion not corruption but hey, what can you do :x :x :evil:

* I was told this by someone and haven't checked so might be made up.

zedders

too the few that said this is petty etc.
16K expense claim for a mortgage that had already been paid? Reason - Because he forgot he paid it? Nobody forgets they paid that amount, nobody! Fraud 100% - Elliot Morley should be arrested and prosecuted. Case closed! :evil:

Porgy

MPs are each awarded a personal allowance of homeless babies which they can eat, torture, put on a stick, flambe, or freeze dry as they please*.

Each MP personally benefits from every penny of unclaimed benefit which they get in vouchers to spend on Eastern Europe prostitutes*.

All MPs are careerist, self obsessed, greedy, lying, bureaucratic officials who have sold their soul to the prime-minister, corporations or the leader of the opposition, although some are Lib Dems.

* not true.

passout

I have to say that most of them are OK and probably do go into it for the right reasons, despite this....but I don't pretend to know anything more about it than you guys. Does anyone actually know what % of them are making un-ethical claims? Be interesting to find out.

frenchfighter

Some good comments here.

IMO:

- Every single penny repaid going as far back as is possible to know. So no sympathy for those paying stuff back. That they can afford to do so, even for large sums, suggests they have cash in the bank enough to afford any expense under the sun.

- Certain MP should be charged with a criminal offence if applicable.

- Public apologies are required.

- Let us not forget that there are many many people in this country who LIVE for a whole year on a lot less than some of these claims.

- MPs deserve no credit what so ever as it isn't a meritocracy. A 2 yr old baby could be elected into a position if they public wanted.

- There is a very senior MP living near me and she has 24 hr police guard. She is there before I leave for work and there when I come home. Often she 'works' all day from home. So much for hard working people.

- With a salary superior to £60k they should have to pay every single expense themselves.

- Why cant MP's expenses work like any other business. Why are these muppets unique.

- A system used by the same people that use it is ridiculous, but when the person in charge of the reform has flipped his house then we are in fairy tale land.

- More needs to be done by the media to notify the public of the honest people (or aren't there any?)

- Great work by the DT for their coverage. Really excellently presented with no 'tabloidesque' headlines.

- Let us not forget that in addition to their vastly inflated salary, they also have major financial benefit from all sorts of things. That means roughly that if you or me have x% as disposable income they have 2x%

- They are only repaying money now and deriding the current system due to the media coverage, but they are perfectly happy to go on doing this for years to come. For this reason, none of them can be trusted.

- There are 646 MP and so far there are scandals big and small about 80 of them (12.5%). Many, many to come though.

- The DT have 2million pdf files on the hard-drive they bought, so there are going to be news on this for many weeks to come.

frenchfighter

DAVID DAVIES One of the good guys

nick hanson

One question,just because they are queuing up to pay back their ill gotten gains,does this get them off the hook?
Like hell it does....It's just a straight forward admission of guilt.
Send them down for fraud,don't need much of a trial,as they've shown admission of guilt?
To take it further,couldn't we somehow move along from fraud to treason (they are actually robbing the country)
Oh,i seem to remember that the punishment for treason is still the death penalty ...yep...bring it on

Porgy

nick hanson wrote:

Oh,i seem to remember that the punishment for treason is still the death penalty ...yep...bring it on

No - it was abolished quite a while ago - something to do with the human Rights Act i believe.

nick hanson

Porgy wrote:

nick hanson wrote:

Oh,i seem to remember that the punishment for treason is still the death penalty ...yep...bring it on

No - it was abolished quite a while ago - something to do with the human Rights Act i believe.

I bet if you put it to the vote,MPs wouldn't qualify for Human rights!

guilliano

We'll never be allowed a referendum on that.... it's against the human rights of the inhuman tw@ts that have been abusing the system and robbing the hard workers of the country of their tax payments

The Mechanic

What about the latest example. Husband and wife both MPs. One claining second home alowance on one home whilst the other is claiming it on the other home. Priceless.

The Mechanic

What about the latest example. Husband and wife both MPs. One claining second home alowance on one home whilst the other is claiming it on the other home. Priceless.

mrushton

The Mechanic wrote:

What about the latest example. Husband and wife both MPs. One claining second home alowance on one home whilst the other is claiming it on the other home. Priceless.

Julie kirkbride is one of them and oddly she used to be a columnist in.....The Daily Torygraph. i think her views were slightly left of Hitler but probably considered Thatcher too soft.

teagar

i'd be surprised if none of the posters on this thread havn't once or twice been a bit liberal with their expense claims. "I'll go to a more expensive restaurant" or "i'll go business class instead" or, "it's ok, this phone is a company phone".


It's ALWAYS been like this. It is nothing new at all. It's just the papers finding a campaign to circulate their dwindling shite papers. Is the fact that the telegraph got these figures at all completely illegal?

No-one noticed before, why bother now?

It's peanuts in comparsion to other public expenditures. I bet the treasurey would not even notice if they all stopped claiming.

Le Commentateur

Exactly, how many of us are posting here from the office on a work computer? Getting something for nothing is almost a national sport.

The real issue is that this witchhunt is distracting attention from real electoral issues, such as the banking crisis, baby-boomer pensions time-bomb, etc, and allows fringe parties to garner support without fully revealing their agendas (which is how Hitler got a toehold on power in the early 1930s, for example).

mmitchell88

Le Commentateur wrote:

Exactly, how many of us are posting here from the office on a work computer?

I'm not. And even if I were, it would have zero relevance to someone else's wrong-doing. I also have no interest in whether or not The Telegraph has acted illegally - I can choose to buy the newspaper or not if I so wish. I don't have that luxury with my taxes. If The Telegraph has acted illegally, I'm sure it will be exposed to the appropriate level of legal investigation.

Le Commentateur wrote:

The real issue is that this witchhunt is distracting attention from real electoral issues, such as the banking crisis, baby-boomer pensions time-bomb, etc, and allows fringe parties to garner support without fully revealing their agendas

I agree. I think this is a very real and very concerning issue.