Do As We Say…Not As We Do….

Morning,

I cannot help but think that the above tagline pretty much sums up where we are in the expenses scandal this morning, after even more lurid allegations were released by the Telegraph last night.  Out of the nine MPs that the Telegraph said were going to named and shamed last night, only five of them have been up to now, been named.  Leaving the best (in the worse sense) to last, I can only presume…

The most recent allegations which have been release include as I mentioned last night, Fabian Hamilton, the aforementioned MP for Leeds North-East, who was accused by the Telegraph of continuing to claim on a mortgage for his constituency home, even though at the time, his main home was named as a property owned by their now-deceased mother, who had a property in London. 

He spent thousands of pounds decorating and furnishing the “second home” where his wife and children lived in Leeds, before “flipping” his designation to a new London flat, which he then also did up at the taxpayer’s expense.

When he was challenged by the newspaper, the backbench MP said he had made a genuine mistake, but could not be certain whether or not he had also over-claimed for previous years.

And I thought that, that in itself was bad enough…oh no, it gets far worse than that…

For those of you at the back who are not aware who Mr Morley was/is, he is the former agriculture minister – and it seems that he will be remembered as someone who will (hopefully) do some serious jail time, I don’t know about you but this would be seen in the real world as theft.

And to that extent - Lawyers last night said that the claims could constitute a criminal offence under the 2006 Fraud Act and the 1968 Theft Act.

The paper says that it is the most serious revelation to come out so far, but I cannot help but think that there is still something out there, waiting to thrown in.  

In other developments, this morning it has also been revealed that John Maples, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, declared that a room in his private members’ club in Pall Mall, London, was his main home. This allowed him to spend money on his family’s Oxfordshire home.

Stephen Crabb, a Conservative MP, claimed his “main home” was a room in a flat rented by another MP, after buying a new house for his family in Wales and claiming £9,300 in stamp duty. He had previously “flipped” his second home to the family house from another London flat that was sold for a profit after more than £8,000 in taxpayer-funded refurbishments.  Mr Crabb was in the spotlight last week for crucifying Chairman Brown during PMQs.  The video has subsequently gone viral…I am not going to post it, as I don’t want to give the oik anymore publicity…

More than 20 MPs have said they will pay back claims totalling nearly £130,000, amid public anger after days of revelations from leaked receipts.  This follows the Parliamentary Labour Party chairman Tony Lloyd writing to all the party's MPs, urging them to publish their expenses themselves instead of waiting for House of Commons authorities to release them.  Hmmm…as if that’s going to calm the public’s anger about their theft…

Seriously, what would happen to a member of the public, if they tried to pull off any of the tricks that our elected leaders have been able to wrangle off the public purse.  Any chance of making room for 647 prison places?

In related news, that no confidence motion in House of Commons Speaker Michael Martin is to be tabled by a Conservative backbencher.  Douglas Carswell, who has written an appalling book with that Conservative Maverick, Daniel Hannah (him of Brown Humiliation fame) is to make the move following a furore over Mr Martin's handling of leaks of MPs' expenses. 

What must be of concern to Chairman Brown is that there are several Labour MPs who are going to back this motion, and it has been reported this morning that although Nick Clegg has said publically that he will not call on the Speaker to go, he has said to his MPs, that he would have no problems with any of them doing it for him.  That is very ominous for Mr Martin, and considering the furore regarding his own expense claims, could we see something happening to him?  Shame really, I always have enjoyed the way he pisses off the Daily Fascist…

Today is also Tax Freedom Day, the day that we begin working for ourselves and not for the state…actually that’s a pretty depressing thought…

Rob :(