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MPs and Expenses
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
I'm surprised there hasn't been a topic on this yet!
We've all seen the stories, and I'm guessing there will be near universal contempt for them.
I can't help thinking that if I'd claimed £16,000 of expenses from my work fraudulently and then offered to pay it back when found out, I'd be looking up at a magistrate trying to explain myself.
I mean ffs, I claim petrol money and I make sure that if anything I underclaim because I know the job would fuck me over if I overclaimed.
We've all seen the stories, and I'm guessing there will be near universal contempt for them.
I can't help thinking that if I'd claimed £16,000 of expenses from my work fraudulently and then offered to pay it back when found out, I'd be looking up at a magistrate trying to explain myself.
I mean ffs, I claim petrol money and I make sure that if anything I underclaim because I know the job would fuck me over if I overclaimed.
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Our "psychologically flawed" Prime Mentalist - he who feels the need to charge me for a Sky Sports subscription so that he can invite Mail on Sunday journalists to No 10 to watch him pretend to support the England team on the football - is completely tarnished by it. Call Me Dave's apologies mean absolute jack shit, and don't even get me started on that useless tit they call the Speaker. The only person to come out of this relatively well is Nick Clegg. People often complain that I give politicians too hard a time, my reply is that they bring it on themselves. The last week has proven me right again. And what do the Commons authorities do? Ah yes, they call in the cops to try and find out who leaked the disc full of information to the newspapers? Useless, the bloody lot of them.
In defence of politicians, however - not a sentence I thought I'd write in a million years - there are some expenses which are justified in their jobs. You can't expect MPs from rural Scotland to commute to London each day, can you? Reasonable second home expenses should be paid for - rent, council tax and so forth. What has really pissed me off in the past week are politicians claiming for furniture, claiming for patios, claiming to have their moats dredged, claming for fucking horse shit, for God's sake. And what do they do each time they're caught? They pathetically bleat about it all being "within the rules". The rules mean bugger all if you're the ones who set them, you morons! Allegedly in the case of Phil Woolas, a grade A cocktrumpet if ever there was one, he made a claim for tampons and women's clothes. He (or should that be she?) denied this, but it makes you wonder. Some of them have been claiming for bloody Kit Kats and Maltesers!
It's going to get even more interesting tomorrow. Apparently, the Telegraph are going to be revealing the expenses claims of couples in Parliament. There are rumours doing the rounds that the Education Secretary Ed Cunt and his ghastly wife Yvette Cooper are shitting themselves right now. That would certainly explain why Cunt, a man who laughably has an ambition to lead the Labour Party one day and Cooper, a woman who loses Labour a few thousand votes each time she breathes, have been so quiet this past week.
The only thing they're sorry about is the fact they got found out.
Should be interesting.
Most of what has been revealed is within the rules.
To object to MPs setting the rules makes no sense to me.
If people are so incompetent in making decisions on running their own lives that they need to appoint a guardian in the form of a MP then why would they object to those same MPs making decisions about themselves.
If people started taking control of their own lives, I doubt they would be concerned about what a bunch of criminals got up to in their den of iniquity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8047205.stm
I'm not sure what made me cringe the most
1) His desperate attempt to shoot the messenger - I'm sure once the Telegraph stop laughing at him they'll not loose any sleep over his lack of respect for them
2) He was so deep in mourning that six months later he's using his brother death as an excuse for incompetence - God knows what legislation went through the Commons at that time where he was unable to concentrate.
3) the default position of Libs and Lab when caught with your hands in the till - blame Thatcher. Fuck, it's been eighteen years since she's gone it takes a special stupidity to try and blame her for the problems with MP's expenses.
Keep digging Eric :thumb:
Tbh I don't object to that, or reasonable food, travel and staff expenses. I do object to cleaning of moats, paying fines and continually swapping and selling of houses to make a quick buck.
Most people usually ask the first time and assume from then on that the answer applies. It's either okay to make personal calls at work or it isn't. If your company's phone bill is a monthly subscription rather than a charge per call, then it's not an issue. If it is a per call charge, then it's usually so small that it's the equivalent of bending a paper clip out of shape rather than using it. But since everyone now has a mobile phone, I wouldn't be surprised if most people have never made a personal call from work. I haven't.
As for the other points, one has to remember at all times when discussing Lord George Foulkes, his comments* must be viewed in the context that he is a little turd with all the intellect and charisma of a lump of dog shit. Lembit Opik, meantime, is just a twat. The LibDems must be delighted that they never elected that fool as their leader.
* Although I must point out that, if £92,000 per year is the average salary for BBC newsreaders, where do I apply for a job there? It's a job that you could train a skeleton to do, for crying out loud - and she gets £92k per year?!
Seeing as benefit cheats are often jailed, I am sure criminal proseuctions and convictions will shortly follow...
Yeah, right :rolleyes:
Don't be silly. If one of use overclaimed a few quid at work for petrol we'd be screwed. These guys, all this stuff was already known about and they're still here. Like cockroaches.
Due to unforseen service circumstances beyond my control, I didnt make it back to the scoff house in time for tea. So claimed back last nights burger king on JPA, and should once approved get my money back in a few days.
Well I do.
He only worked those long hours for a month. Lots of people have to work long hours and spend ages commuting, not everyone can have a second home.
That wasnt my point though. What suprises me most is Eric Pickles thinks only parliament works by clock work. Welcome to the real world Eric :thumb:
If you do expenses have massively improved since my time...
without wishing to defend MPs, the evidence so far only suggests one or two criminal acts (Elliot Morley and possibly Clare Short). Unless you advocate banging people up without them actually committing a crime of course...
However there's a difference between legality and wrong doing, in my mind they have being doing the latter...
My thoughts exactly Skive!
No I'm not advocating banging people up without motive, but a few of the cases seem very similar to me from a legal point of view to some benefit cheats.
I'm not lawyer but in my view claiming mortage expenses after it's been paid out in full and then sayiing didn't realise it'd been paid in full already is akin to getting unemployment benefts while being employed and then say you hadn't realised the benefits were still being paid out.
Some other cases, like the Labour lord who declared a flat as a main residence that by all accounts was empty and unoccupied for years, look like straight fraud and deceit to me.
I'm not a fan of jailing people unless there are serious circumstances but I would expect the same criminal prosecution for some of these MPs as ordinary benefit cheats face.
Granted the great majority do not qualify as crimes- just plain greed.
As I said only a few are illegal, it doesn't make the rest right...
It seems that way to me too. Of course more could surface.
Very similar does not mean the same in the legal world. One thing to consider is that the rules regarding benefits are specific (probably on purpose) whereas these rules allow more "wiggle room" (highly probable that is on purpose). After all these are the legislators so it makes perfect sense.
From a fundamental legal sense Parliament,in and of itself, is a criminal enterprise.
To get an idea of how low this woman's stock has fallen, consider this. Last weekend, Alistair Graham, a former standards commissioner at the Commons, claimed that Jacqboot's expenses were "near fraudulent". She bleated meekly afterwards she was considering taking "legal action" against him for saying this. Funnily enough, she didn't say anything after this piece by Peter Oborne appeared in the Daily Mail in February saying that she was a thief. I wonder why not? I was working last night, but thanks for reminding me. Rest assured I shall be laughing along to it later this evening!
Do you actually read anything or does the red mist blot out comprehension? I've stated there is a diffrence between legality and right - and it does look like there have only been a couple of cases which could be characterised as fraud...
But it serves them right, they tried to pull one over and got caught red handed and now they're just blowing a lot of hot air with David Cameron typically taking centre stage and making it out as if he's horrified and turning it into a way of making his party look more accountable.
What makes me laugh about the whole thing is all parties bleating on about a 'transparent system' being needed - tacitly admitting that they can't be trusted when they system isn't see-through. It reminds me a little of Chris Jackson, the Crafty Cockney: "The system's gotta be transparent or I'll have my hand in the till - I'm like that you see, I'm a little bit werrrr, a little bit weyyyyyy..."
Just pay the MP's a wage that is in line with the important role they have and let them pay for everything out of those wages.
All this expense checing that goes on must cost the taxpayer millions as it is.
petitio principii