Jump to content

MP's Expenses and Political Apathy.

Quillan

By Quillan,
in Other Topics

 Share

Recommended Posts

Quillan Newbie

Quillan

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Gay, thanks for the link. I didn't see it, wish now perhaps I had but you and everyone else knows you won't get a straight answer. I mean three homes to look after, not comparable to normal peoples jobs, who is she kidding. The more I see and hear of these people it becomes clear to me that they have no morals what so ever. Who the hell do they think they are, clearly above the law and much more knowledgeable and intelligent than the rest of us idiots. Its the last bit that really makes me mad and angry, I hate being talked down to especially by people who simply don't have a clue. [:@]

Clair, in answer to your question, of course not, they will go for the government and one or two sacrificial lambs in the Tory party, probably those that have already resigned.

I don't think we need kid ourselves, I think we all know in our hearts that very few if any will ever be touched by 'the long arm of the law' or get sacked. In short they will all make some token payment back which is what is now happening and then nothing more will happen. They will blunder on in their ways just as before. The 'Enquiry' will of course take ages then it will all get swept under the carpet just like that chap and his pension. It probably won't get reported on till after the next election.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 150
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Russethouse Rookie

Russethouse

Posted
Posted

 I have written to my MP today to ask what his position will be in the motion of no confidence in the Speaker - if you have an MP it may be worth doing the same.

 I believe the person who put the motion purposely timed it so that MPs would have time to gage the feeling among their constituents, I'm making sure my MP knows my feeling.

I suspect the who question of grace and favour homes going with certain posts needs review, but its easily fixed surely.

What I would like to know is if the UK taxpayers are subsidizing MPs 2nd home mortgage payments why don't we at least get a percentage of any profit made on that house?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Quillan Newbie

Quillan

Posted
  • Author
Posted
The other thing I was thinking is if somebody has been caught with their fingers in the till that normally is not the only thing they have had their fingers in. I wonder what else these MP's have been up to that we don't know about, back handers here and there, bit of insider trading etc. Now they have been seen to be morally bankrupt you just can't help wondering.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gluestick Collaborator

Gluestick

Posted
Posted

I have been mulling over the thing, holistically.

And going "Hmmm" a lot........................

For me, when compared to the wholesale corruption and abuse of the EU parliament (No audit for 14 years+), the scale of the abuse is effectively peanuts: and the much lauded amounts they are paying back, husks.

However all of this begs, to me the following questions:

1.    Can we really trust this self-demonstrated venal bunch to be directly (Treasury) and indirectly in charge of disbursing, this year, some £640 billion of taxpayer's money?

2.    How is it that no firm audit regime has been in place? Expenses have traditionally been an area where companies are ripped off: and large companies (And decently and properly run small ones too) have rigorous and robust audit proceedures in place. Indeed, Mrs Gluey used to be responsible for auditing and checking sometimes exorbitant "Expenses" claims for the senior partner's subordinates of a major department of the biggest and most expensive management consultants in the World.

Hard nose or what! [:'(]

But then she absolutely had to be: people pulling down £250,000 and up would try and sneak stuff like a haircut at £ 50 (Hotel concession jobby) onto their hotel bills!

I am quite surprised that such as CIPFA have made no statement thus far.

Here:

3.  Now my own considerable experience of organisations at all levels, in an organisational sense, many years ago, led me to realise that any body where those at the top demonstrated a cavaliere attitude to the organisation's resources and failed to drive a tough regime of integrity and tight financial management and audit, presented with a systemic level of corruption and malfeasance right the way through to the bottom echelon It rapidly became a sort of covert corporate culture.

Thus this demands the question: "What else is going on right through Central, Regional, County and Local government?"

I already have a very much jaundiced perspective on local councillors and their "Expenses", from personal knowledge and experience.

How come total UK government spending has risen from £433 to £580 billion between 2001-02 and 2007-08? When Government's own statement on inflation year-on-year tables circa 2.5% throughout that period?

And since we are now in a period of deflation, how come most estimates agree a sort of median value for 2008-09 of £ 640 billion? (Bank support excepted since this is "Off Balance Sheet", insofar as the Annual Budget be concerned.

Now, if we all drove new Ferraris and the pavements were gold plated, then..............................

 

[blink]

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Frederick Newbie

Frederick

Posted
Posted

  Good point the County Councilllor expenses Gluestick...........Anybody who took the time  to search their County Council web pages for a list of councillors and then followed it through to their total expenses claimed year on year and what they can claim for will get their eyes opened !...Over 20 grand a year for a retired person attending committees as a County Councillor is not bad is it ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Weedon Newbie

Weedon

Posted
Posted

[quote user="Russethouse"]Any one watch Question Time last night ?[/quote]

It's just about the only programme I look forward to nowadays, so I was more interested than usual to watch last nights and I wasn't disappointed, as the Grimsby (I think) audience gave the MPs a nice verbal kick in the wotsits.

I ended up feeling a little sorry for Ming Campbell who was only guilty of pocketing relatively little, or at least that is what it seems, for re-decorating a one bedroomed flat for the first time in 15 years.

Margaret Beckett however shattered one myth, that is that ladies don't sweat, only glow.  I imagine that the McDonalds executive couldn't believe his luck as he got applause after applause for giving the knife a twist, it had to be the first time everybody liked him.  Mrs Beckett is not going to repay the £72,000 though and it seemed almost irrelevent as to how she got it and why she wasn't giving it back as I could only focus on her sweaty face.

What I would like to see some news of is, who are the MPs who recognised the system was being abused and acted responsibly about expenses, there has to be quite a few hasn't there? They can't all have been up to scumbaggery!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Quillan Newbie

Quillan

Posted
  • Author
Posted
[quote user="Gluestick"]

Thus this demands the question: "What else is going on right through Central, Regional, County and Local government?"

[/quote]

Well I saw on the news that local councils have been told to take their money out of Building Societies as they are unsafe, The only exception is Nationwide. I have trawled the ITN website but can't find it but I did find THIS which is not the whole story. Kent County Council on the news said they were withdrawing £15M from one building society. The question is of course why are not the public told if there is a problem (silly question I suspect)? Does this tie in with Egg stopping people from taking money out via cash machines (more HERE). Is there a much bigger problem on the horizon and is all this a smoke and mirror job?

Trouble is this puts one in the position of not trusting the government. It would seem to me that the logical thing to do is to have a vote on the governments confidence in the HOC.

I take the point about the MEP's but the HOC is much nearer to home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Clair Newbie

Clair

Posted
Posted
(I knew this would be of some use one day...)

[quote]The Message - 1 Corinthians 6:12

 Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.[/quote]

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Frederick Newbie

Frederick

Posted
Posted

What sort of idiot tries to claim £8,800 for a telly ?  What sort of telly costs  over eight grand ? New Sony 32 inch in makro is £ 399.99 good enough for any MP. ..Why do we taxpayers have to buy TV's for them... an awful lot of second home TV's seem to have been claimed for . A lot of new faces will be in parliament after the next election probably independents most of them  as a hell of a lot of them there today will certainly not be returned now ..

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Quillan Newbie

Quillan

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Even though it MAY be connected to HOC TV system and tells them whats going on in the House and when to run back and vote and which way to vote I still can't work out why so expensive.

I was wondering if I could get my old company to pay all the mortgage interest I had on my old house in London all those years ago? Perhaps I could carry on claiming and add the money to my pension fund to make up for all the money GB stole from it. [:D]

I hear (BBC Breakfast News) that quite a few MEP's have given up canvasing homes, they keep getting shouted at and worse, I can't possibly think why [;-)].

I see GB has said that Labour MP's MAY (he likes the word MAY almost as much as PRUDENT - something his MP's didn't think of with regards to morals and their expenses it seems) be deselected at the next general election if they have been up do dodgy things, well thats 99.9% of them out then. Mind you MAY is only a word isn't it. I was wondering, can criminals be selected and run for parliament?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gluestick Collaborator

Gluestick

Posted
Posted

[quote user="Frederick"]
 A lot of new faces will be in parliament after the next election probably independents most of them  as a hell of a lot of them there today will certainly not be returned now ..
[/quote]

I wish I had your confidence, Frederick.

Harold Wilson stated that "A week is a long time in politics!"

Thatcher proved a DAY is a long time in the average elector's attention span and thought processes.

By the time the next election rolls around, with more critical celebs antics, football drama and some exciting new soap opera plots, it will be forgotten.

When did an elector, or more critically the "Meeja" for example, castigate Call Me Dave, as the representative of the party which blew its street cred through excessive sleeze?

And created the biggest Boom-Bust then in British socio-economic history?.

All forgotten.

More and more now hail dear old Dave as their saviour.

Which for cynical old me, merely demonstrates how gullible the majority of electors really are......................

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Russethouse Rookie

Russethouse

Posted
Posted

When did an elector, or more critically the "Meeja" for example, castigate Call Me Dave, as the representative of the party which blew its street cred through excessive sleeze?

And created the biggest Boom-Bust then in British socio-economic history?.

All forgotten.

I suspect the ' antics and boom and bust of the current government have dimmed memories somehow.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Quillan Newbie

Quillan

Posted
  • Author
Posted
[quote user="Quillan"][quote user="Clarkkent"]

 

Sinn Fein has, I think, two elected Members of Parliament. Although elected they refuse to attend the Westminster parliament but claim for the rent of London accommodation.

[/quote]

You are right the two 'people' concerned have never entered the HOC although they are elected MP's and are entitled to do so. I am sure I saw a figure of £500k in one of the papers that they have claimed in total over the years. What the breakdown of this amount is I do not know, I am sure if you 'googled' around a bit you can find out. I wonder if they also use the £7k for HOC headed letters and prepaid envelopes?

[/quote]

I found the article HERE I was right it was £500k.

I was wondering how Scottish MP's got on. That could be a nice little earner, constituency office, flat near Scottish Assembly and of course another near the HOC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Frederick Newbie

Frederick

Posted
Posted

"I object to your decision not to reimburse me for the costs

of purchasing a baby's cot for use in my London home...Perhaps you

might write to me explaining where my son should sleep next time he

visits me in London?" – letter from Labour MP in Nov 2004

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...