MP's expenses released

[CaseyV9]

No, it's from all party's...

Ah, saw that link. I remember ages ago hearing people say MP's don't get payed much :shocked:
They are only sorry they got exposed.

I am glad this has come to light though. As it shows quite clearly that all parties are going to screw us over.
Of course, some say they are going to pay back the money. But still, what else do we not know about?

[Lanky123]

I remember ages ago hearing people say MP's don't get payed much

Well to be fair their main salary is just a paltry £64,766, hence the need for substantial expenses.

[Saracen]

Just to add a little perspective to the thread, I don't believe all MPs are "at it". Certainly, many are, but not all.

But we we can't just blame individual MPs, even those that have most outrageously taken advantage. There has been a culture, for quite a while now, of treating several expense "allowances" as exactly that ... an "allowance" to be claimed (in full, by many MPs) rather than a reimbursement of legitimate expenses.

Nor can we blame any individual party. This process started under the Tories, and then got a lot worse under Labour. I rather suspect that the LibDems are least culpable for the culture, not least because they haven't been in power for a very long time. But it started as a deliberate way of increasing MPs pay by the back door, since a salary rise was deemed as politically unacceptable. Given that it was intended to be a back-door kind of pay rise that wouldn't wake sleeping dogs (us, the electorate, I mean), it's hardly surprising when MPs treat it as such.

And finally, some MPs do incur very substantial expenses, quite legitimately. Anyone taken a hard look a rail fares recently? If you live at one end of the country and are commuting to London every week, it's going to cost an absolute packet in fares.

Then there's staffing. MPs have to do a job in Westminster, ranging from attending debates, voting and sitting on committees, but they also have a constituency job to do. They take up matters on our behalf, and that implies meeting us or reading letters, researching issues, making phone calls and having meetings, writing letters, and so forth. That requires a staff, be they secretarial and office, or researchers.

So yes, staffing costs are quite possibly fully legitimate. However, I can see no reason why such staff should be paid by the MP, and not paid directly by the House of Commons, without an MP ever getting his hands on the money.

It also might be quite legitimate for a spouse to be on that staff. If a lot of this work is done from a constituency home, then a spouse may be best placed, and best suited to do it. And providing they are competent, qualified and doing a fair day's work for their money, I don't see a problem with that .... other than the fact of recent abuses making it very hard indeed to trust that those that are doing it fairly actually are.

It's also quite possible for things to not actually be quite as they seem, and let's not forget that the Telegraph has a vested interest in making all this seem as juicy and salacious as possible ..... not that they appear to need much help, as some MPs have done a sterling job of that for them.


So let's not assume they're all bent as hell.


Having got that out of the way, the antics that a good many have been up to are absolutely outrageous. One especially obnoxious example, in my opinion, was Ms Moran. How on earth anyone can think claiming maintenance costs for a house on the south coast, 100+ miles from your constituency, is legitimate absolutely beats me. And the excuse that that's where her partner lives and that she has to visit him is fatuous. Visit him by all means, Spend as much of your spare time down there as you like. But don't expect the taxpayer to pay for the house. But if you can't mix your job and his, then you either need to change partner or change job, just like the rest of us.

What I REALLY resent, personally, is the way in which MPs tend to lord it over the rest of us. They're so very fond of their Parliamentary privileges, and the notion that they're "honourable" this or that, when it's now been made blatantly clear to us all that a large number of them are anything but honourable.


And I just can't see what's so damn hard about getting this expense system sorted out. Surely, most of the problems could be solved by :-

- absolutely NO buying of property with the taxpayer funding any part of the mortgage. Rent, don't buy.
- ALL expenses are to be receipted
- ALL expenses are to be published in detail
- the whole system is audited and overseen by independent auditors
- no special privileges or tax breaks for MPs
- all staff are directly employed by the authorities, and family only get the job if they pass an independent interview and stack up as the best candidate.
- the system enforces existing rules requiring expenses to be "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" incurred in doing the job.


Let's remember what the Green Book says
[QUOTE-Speaker';s Introduction]Members themselves are responsible for ensuring that their use of allowances is above reproach. [/QUOTE]"Above reproach"? Hah. What a joke.

It is your responsibility to satisfy yourself when you submit a claim, or authorise payments from your staffing allowance, that any expenditure claimed from the allowances has been wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the purpose of performing your Parliamentary duties.

When some of these MPs have been submitting the claims for some of the things we've found out about, I'd love to know how they can conceivably claim them as meeting that requirement. Yet, the authorities have gone along with them.

"Honourable members"? Horse manure!

[TAKTAK]

Elliott Morley has been suspended and his house is being protected by police ATM

Serves him right... claiming £16k+ for a mortgage that didn't even exist...

[badass]

Elliott Morley has been suspended and his house is being protected by police ATM

Serves him right... claiming £16k+ for a mortgage that didn't even exist...

Presumably his house should currently be a prison cell since he has committed fraud?

[MadduckUK]

presumeably the police protecting are not woking for free :|

[0iD]

What really annoys me is now all the MP's are going "look at me, i'm being good & giving it all back", when in reality, if this hadn't hit the media they'd all be hapily still skimming off the taxpayer with impunity.

[santa claus]

It stinks. The whole sorry mess is tantamount to theft in some cases.

Sport was ruined for me with all the drug-taking. It's no longer possible to know the true bounds of human physical achievement because of the pill-popping cheats who are in it for the money.

Now here we are with people in positions of trust dipping in to our pockets whilst expecting others to survive on a pittance. It's not just about the money, the integrity of the system is brought into question.

I expect to see prosecutions. That is how Joe Bloggs would be treated so the same must apply to Joe Bloggs MP.

A complete disgrace.

[Saracen]

Don't hold your breath waiting for prosecutions, Santa. I suspect they'll be very few and far between, and I think that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's going to be politically very unpopular among the powers-that-be, not least because once that ball starts rolling, it's hard to see where it'll end up. But mainly, because in the vast majority of cases, while what was done might be morally objectionable and highly unethical, it'll be hard to convict someone of doing something the rules allowed.

The problem is not that they were, for the most part, acting illegally. It's that they invented the system that allowed a cosy little 'conspiracy' of silence to develop, with the rules apparently being intended to be used in a way that made some of the "allowances" a devious form of awarding them a pay rise without us getting to know about it.


But I wonder if there's some serious regret in Common's circles over that policy now?

I mean, I don't expect to see many if any prosecutions because I suspect they just wouldn't succeed ..... but given the extraordinary and quite understandable level of public anger, I DO expect to see a bloodbath at the next General Election if some of those MPs responsible for the more outrageous claims have the effrontery to stand again.

And it begs the question .... if MPs had had their salary raised to £90k, by gradual steps, over the last couple of decades, would anyone really be making much of an issue about it? After all, with some GPs apparently on contracts worth over £100k, and with some council bosses on £200k and above, not to mention hospital chief execs, etc, would it really be that surprising if the people that are supposed to be running the country earned £90k?

Oh, there'd be moans if it was put up to that now, especially after a scandal and during a recession, but if it had all been done a year or two ago?

So .....

- £90k salary = a bit of whinging, and not much more,

but ...

- £65k salary + £25k in dodgy expenses = scandal of historic proportions.

Yet either way, they'd get £90k, and while it's a lot of money, in the scheme of things and in context with what others are paid, it's still not excessive.


So anyway, prosecutions? I doubt it, perhaps with an exception or two. But deselection before the next election, or failing that, bloodbath in election results? Oh yeah.

There MUST be an election with about the next 12 months or so, at most. Are people going to have forgotten about what these MPs have been up to by then? Not a chance. And even if they had, the media and other candidates would no doubt drag up all the gory details.

So it'll be a very thick-skinned individual indeed that puts themselves through that, and a pretty brave (or stupid) local party that puts up those individuals, because I think an angry and contemptuous electorate WILL have them for lunch if they're dumb enough to stand.

So while I doubt we'll see prosecutions, I would rather expect to see a rash of resignations, of wanting to spend more time with family, or early retirement, "ill health" and so on, and for a few, if they don't jump voluntarily, I can see them leaving with a party leader's bootprint on their butts.

If the parties don't clean out their own stables before the election, the electorate are likely to do a rather less discriminating job of cleaning stable for them. If I were, God Forbid, an MP right now and I was one of those that hadn't been caught with my fingers in the cookie jar, I'd damn sure want an example made of those that had been.

[merdat]

Housing minister Beckett just on sky trying to justify her expenses- absolutely disgusting. Clare Short also stating that £8000 claims for morgage -just a mistake also. There seems to be no end to this. Think an attempt will be made to sweep all this 'grand theft auto' under the carpet and the majority of these 'legal fraudsters' will get away with it .

[HSK]

The only way this country is going to pull itself out of the ****ter is if these people up top get delivered a well deserved slap. You got people losing their homes due to the credit crunch, and you get these lot who have basically been doing fraud. No wonder there's no good decisions being made and money is rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbished away.

[merdat]

Justice minister Malik has now 'stood down' from ministerial position after claiming to have 'done nothing wrong' -another one for the pot.

[HSK]

Yup - The truth usually comes out eventually.

[Funkstar]

Lembit Opik (or however you spell it) was on 5Live the other morning. He couldn't understand why the presenters kept going on about a £2,500 TV he was refused expenses for. The issue obviously wasn't that he was given the money, as he wasn't, the issue was that he actually tried to claim it as expenses. He really didn't think there was anything wrong with that.

[0iD]

I can see the coming election being such a voter no-show. I mean, just who do you vote for?

[HSK]

I can understand that that, just what I was thinking the other day - can I even be bothered to vote? What is the point now-a-days lol.