Results tagged “MP's expenses” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

With all the oversights, accounting errors, genuine mistakes and the like our MPs happily admit to when it comes to something simple, like filling in exes - the mistakes always in their favour by the way - you do have to wonder if they are the right people for the job.

If they can make mistakes of that sort of magnitude without batting an eyelid it does explain some the dog's dinners we have ended up with when it comes to the legislation they have happily nodded through.

Anyone else get the feeling the Parliament is just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic?

This new proposed independent commission, delivery unit, compliance directorate or whatever grand sounding name is eventually nailed on it's door will be fully independent because it will be appointed by . . . Parliament or, to be more accurate, the Government with the usual suspects no doubt already being lined up to head it.

No doubt consultants will be brought in and we will end up paying millions a year in fees to one of the Government's favourite accountancy firms to look after the expenses of just 646 people.

Second homes expenses will be trimmed to a loose imitation of what could be claimed by senior managers and directors in a very generous firm in the private sector and the other £160,000 in allowances, with wives and hubbies on the payroll, will probably be business as usual.

It is the whole system that needs changing, not just the music. For a start it would be nice to see MPs coming from the communities they represent and representing them properly rather than party favourites being dumped on areas they have never even previously visited to bag a cushy job and career move in return for making up party votes in the house.

You have to admire the brass neck of our political classes after the latest revelations in the great expenses rip-off.

Caught with their snouts so deep in the taxpayer funded trough they must be using a snorkel to breath (£5.99 - receipt attached) with claims that give spurious a bad name do we get any hint of contrition, shame or perhaps even a glimmer of an apology?

Don't be silly, this is MPs we are talking about. Their first reaction is puff out their chests in apoplexic indignation at any suggestion they have done anything wrong followed by spending even more taxpayer's cash by calling in the police to find out who grassed them up.

Somewhere there must be a special college where all MPs, senior civil servants and management consultants are sent to learn how to speak complete and utter cobblers - a somewhat more polite word than the one I was about to use.

MPs have done everything but torch the office where the records are kept in an attempt to prevent any information about their expenses and second home details being revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. The latest lame excuse in what is a three year battle to avoid any scrutiny is that to reveal details of their homes could compromise their security.

I would suspect that your average terrorist or angry constituent, as long as they had an IQ running into double figures, would be able to track down an MP with some ease without having to rely on a photocopy of their train fare receipts and decorating bills - so that suggests that much more likely to be compromised is their integrity.

In any case as we appear to be paying for these second homes it seems only fair that we see what we are getting for our money. I am sure that not all MPs are taking the system for a ride but the more they protest the more we are likely to believe that some of them, at least, would rather we did not find out what we have been paying for while our own income is eroded by the endless stream of corrosive taxes and rising prices.

As a final irony we, the taxpayers, will be picking up the entire bill for the MP's High Court appeal to prevent us, the old taxpayers again, seeing how they are spending our money on big screen tellies and toasters. Guy Fawkes might have had the right idea after all.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. It seems our MPs are not just on a gravy train but a whole Bisto-soaked transport system - no wonder there was a reluctance to release their expenses guidelines for second homes under a Freedom of Information request. The reason for wanting to keep it secret apparently, according to Andrew Walker, the Commons director of resources, was that it would encourage MPs to take advantage by claiming at the upper limit. Do we really appear that stupid Mr Walker? Or is it just that you think we are?

Anyone who has had anything approaching a proper job, i.e. nowhere near Whitehall, and has come within 100 yards of an expense form knows to the penny what can and cannot be claimed. So, unless MPs are a particularly stupid breed, they are probably already claiming at the upper limit for their second homes which, incidentally, we are also paying for along with their coffee machines, nests of tables, food mixers, £35 a square metre carpets and anything else they fancy.

And, just to make you really splutter into your beer before the price goes up, when you consider that the MEP's trough in Europe makes Westminster's freebies look like a budgie seed feeder, I hate to think what can be claimed there - not that we will ever find out, of course, as the EU prides itself on being just about as transparent as tar.