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The Delayer
Dinosaur
United Kingdom
260 Posts |
 Posted - 13 October 2009 : 9:48:59 PM
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pay back expenses. These people seem to live in a different world. They essentialy legalised theft (So they can say they were in the rules) in regards to robbing public money and now are even thinking of taking legal action.
While the fact this civil servants enquiry was not a whitewash like they usually are makes him a target for there rage. These people are sickening.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8305327.stm
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CTL666
Invertebrate
United Kingdom
62 Posts |
Posted - 13 October 2009 : 9:57:27 PM
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The whole thing is really peeing me off.
All their whinging about how they didn't break the rules - the rules, as such, allowed them to make claims guided by their honour on the condition that the things claimed for directly helped them to carry out their jobs. It is therefore no surprise that those complete scumbags would claim for anything and everything even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with their jobs.
It also pees me off that despite the fact they are being paid huge amounts of money for very little, gaining stupidly large amounts of perks and have opportunities that most people can only dream of, they are quibbling about a few hundred quid (in most cases).
D.
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Edited by - CTL666 on 13 October 2009 9:58:34 PM |
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Stomachus Grossus
Homosapien
United Kingdom
1949 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 09:54:48 AM
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sory dont see why they should pay any of it back unless it was fraudulently claimed for ala jacqui smith. They claimed under a system, the system checked their claims, the system payed them. Are the whitehall staff going to get fiered over it?
I look at it this way. I get paid 20p a mile for using my car for work and I travel over 20000 miles a year there in. Now if my company then came to me and said we have changed our minds you and now retrospectively you can only claim 15p a mile and we want the money we have overpaid you back, I would be up i arms and they would be in breach of contract as I had claimed under the system at the time. Same with the MP
Some of the rates they have now set look a little low. £2000 for cleaning a year equates to less than 1.5 hours a day for 5 days of the week for a year on minimum wages.
Moriarty: I see that ten years in Britain have not changed your Imperial Roman outlook, Caesar.
Caesar (G): True, Moriartus, always a Roman eye.
Moriarty: Will you take wine?
Caesar: No thanks, I think I'll have a half of mild and a packet of crisps.
*the Goon Show the history of Plinny the elder
www.beatthedrum.wordpress.com |
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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 09:59:56 AM
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Rules that MPs made, rules that MPs policed and rules that MPs benefited from. They knew exactly what they were doing when they made claims for items such as Gardening for which there were no defined limits.
And still they display the arrogance they have become famous for, by whining when it is suggested they should repay these. "But they were allowed" they cry, maybe so but they were never justified, they were never fair, and they never available to the rest of us.
When will they realise that the value of these expenses pale into insignificence against the damage they are doing to Politics, Parliament and their personal reputations. They need to realise that the public will accept an amount of sleaze and excess (whether in politics, business or celebrity) but push it too far, cross the (invisible) line and there isn't any coming back.
The MPs who are whining about retrospective laws are the same MP's who over the last couple of parliaments have voted through retrospective laws that apply to the rest of us. Take the retrospective nature of the increase in Car Tax for instance.....
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Ankhsy
Homosapien
United Kingdom
7861 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 10:18:19 AM
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£2000 for cleaning a year is perfectly adequate. Cleaning once a week for 56 weeks of the year would cost approx £36/session. For someone on minimum wage, that would be 6 hours a week. That is a lot of cleaning.
(someone check my maths. I'm usually rubbish at it.)
Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus. |
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Stomachus Grossus
Homosapien
United Kingdom
1949 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 10:33:45 AM
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Actually th rules were implemented by people working at whitehall not the MP's themselves
Moriarty: I see that ten years in Britain have not changed your Imperial Roman outlook, Caesar.
Caesar (G): True, Moriartus, always a Roman eye.
Moriarty: Will you take wine?
Caesar: No thanks, I think I'll have a half of mild and a packet of crisps.
*the Goon Show the history of Plinny the elder
www.beatthedrum.wordpress.com |
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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 11:05:39 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Stomachus Grossus
Actually th rules were implemented by people working at whitehall not the MP's themselves
But the Fees Office and the MEC both work in departments that are the direct responsibility of the Speaker who is of course an MP. SO in that sense it as MP that have direct control over the implementation and ongoing management of the rules and their application. |
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Stomachus Grossus
Homosapien
United Kingdom
1949 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 12:05:43 PM
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Then everthing in government that is bad is Gordon Browns falt, lets get rid of him then....
Wasnt that excuse exposed for hat it was, no excuse, during the nurenberg trials.. i was only following orders....
Moriarty: I see that ten years in Britain have not changed your Imperial Roman outlook, Caesar.
Caesar (G): True, Moriartus, always a Roman eye.
Moriarty: Will you take wine?
Caesar: No thanks, I think I'll have a half of mild and a packet of crisps.
*the Goon Show the history of Plinny the elder
www.beatthedrum.wordpress.com |
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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 1:04:31 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Stomachus Grossus
Then everthing in government that is bad is Gordon Browns falt, lets get rid of him then....
Wasnt that excuse exposed for hat it was, no excuse, during the nurenberg trials.. i was only following orders....
Personally I would be happy to see the end of Gordon Brown, but thats another conversation entirely 
The fact is that both the operation and scrunity of the expenses system is under the direct control of an MP who benefits from the system, and is implemented based on rules devised by and voted on by MPs, and until now has been entirely without external scrutiny.
This is entirely different to the implmentation of Government policy in a number of ways. The civil service is (supposedly apolitical and operates independent of the executive) responsible for the implementation of government policy. This is policy that has been subject to scrutiny by both houses, and is usually reviewed by review organisations such as the National Audit Office.
In addition to all of this, when it comes to an expenses regime for the rest of the population there are clear rules from HMRC that all expenses must be incurred "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" in connection to the business and would therefore exclude many of the classifications of expenses claimed by MPs. HMRC also have very clear rules around defining first / second properties for capital gains tax purposes and concepts such as flipping are not available to the public at large.
None of this applies to the setup, management or scrutiny of the system for MPs expenses, and on that basis they shouldn't be surrpised that the public is so angry at the apparent double standards at play here.
Don't get me wrong, there are a number of allowances and expenses including accomodation costs for those MPs who do not live in commuting distance of London, as they are fairly unique in having two distinct locations of work. |
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Mace
Small mammal
United Kingdom
738 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 1:14:04 PM
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Heard Headdown Hermun on the radio this morning. Every time she was asked if Jackie Smith should be prosecuted for breaking the rules, she replied with 'the rules were poor, and we are now changing them'. Sorry, but I'm willing to accept that the rules did allow for most of these excessive claims. But in Smith's case, where went beyond taking advantage of poor rulse and actually broke them, there has to be some real punsishment. She's still got her job, FFS.
"My Mom says I'm cool"
Millhouse. |
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Ankhsy
Homosapien
United Kingdom
7861 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 2:34:36 PM
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Wasn't that the Nuremberg defense? "Just following the rules, guv".
Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus. |
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Simon Scarrow
Ape
Uruguay
1048 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 6:20:51 PM
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| The rule book which the MPs allude to so assiduosly in justifying their fraud actually says that an MP must not claim for anything that might bring the House of Commons into disrepute. In a recent documentary on expenses claim a senior QC was asked to anaylse the rule book and concluded that the MPs had committed fraud and should be prosecuted accordingly. So the excuse being offered up by the members simply holds no water, legal, moral or otherwise. Let's see them up in front of the beak pdq. |
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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 7:03:53 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Simon Scarrow
The rule book which the MPs allude to so assiduosly in justifying their fraud actually says that an MP must not claim for anything that might bring the House of Commons into disrepute. In a recent documentary on expenses claim a senior QC was asked to anaylse the rule book and concluded that the MPs had committed fraud and should be prosecuted accordingly. So the excuse being offered up by the members simply holds no water, legal, moral or otherwise. Let's see them up in front of the beak pdq.
We may need to build a bigger court room - gonna be a lot of defendants in that trial  - lets also hope its one of the televised court cases  |
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John Prigent
Homosapien
United Kingdom
8794 Posts |
Posted - 14 October 2009 : 7:26:16 PM
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The ex-Speaker is now a Lord and he should be the first one prosecuted, not just for his own dodgy claims but for telling the Fees Office people to shut up when they took obvious misclaims to him. Not much chance of that.
Cheers
John
Sum, ergo cogito |
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Ankhsy
Homosapien
United Kingdom
7861 Posts |
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They still dont get it MP's angry over having to
