Full story here.
Cliffs notes: The Daily Telegraph has got hold of the expenses of our Parliamentary representatives and found that many of them have been claiming for things which seem rather dodgy. Like Margaret Moran, my MP, claiming for a house on the south coast, a long way from both here and Westminster.
Off with their heads.
I hadn’t heard anything about it except for Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary?) apparently claiming a couple of porno flicks on an expense report (it was in TIME’s new “pop culture tree” feature thingy last week).
To be perfectly honest, UK (or any foreign) news is barely discussed here; I remember reading about the BAe Systems bribery scandal on Wikipedia and wondering how the hell I’d managed to miss a story of that magnitude.
Anyway, having read up a bit using your link: meh. Politicians skimming public funds? Color me unsurprised.
Yeah, I haven’t seen any coverage at all. We get very little political news from elsewhere unless it’s something like mass demonstrations in Burma or a major earthquake in China or something like that.
The evidence that UK politicans have their snouts firmly in the ludicrous expenses trough arrives just as they are claiming that Gurkhas who have won medals of valour fighting for the UK must be deported because otherwise it would ‘cost too much’.
Bstrds!
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. It shouldn’t happen, but it’s not out of the ordinary.
I thought this was going
Oops, I meant to edit that last line out. Anyway, at first I thought it was going to be about that businessman who donated a large sum of money to the Labour party anonymously.
Caught a fair bit of coverage on this via BBC World on NPR. In a nutshell the MPs are allowed to expense a home because many of them don’t live near enough to Parliment. So they can have a place in the city where they can live during sessions. This seems fair enough because only the very wealthy(who could afford a flat in central London) would be able to be MPs otherwise. Now the rules are apparently not very strict on how you must maintain or select this place or where it can be. So you’ve got people claiming expenses on beach homes when they already have flats in London. Also people claiming their yard care and home improvement expenses, even for vacation homes. The merits of any individual claim could probably be argued, such as the guy who had a water pipe burst under his tennis court and expensed the repair. Is this fair? Well, if he’s allowed to expense the house, I’d think he should be able to expense maintenance/repair. Kind of like expecting them to pay for the gas in a company car. If the only reason you’re there at all is because of work, then you shouldn’t have to eat the costs of being there. The situation gets murkier when you see what looks like outrageous sums(6,000 pounds for a lawnmower repair IIRC) and you think “that could buy one hell of a [whatever], where did that money really go?”
On the one hand it smacks of people who will take advantage of the system for personal gain and enriching their cronies and that reflects badly on them as trusted representatives. On the other hand, it’s not like they were taking favors from lobbyists or something which could be considered quid pro quo.
So, I’d say throw out the bums who did things like expense vacation homes or outrageous sums for trivial accounts, but the talk of dissolving Parliment over it is just stupid.
Enjoy,
Steven
I agree. If they have to live in the city (and I live here. I know how bloody expensive it is) plus maintain a home in their constituency, I have no problem with MPs claiming expenses on their London home. It’s defining those expenses that is so murky and because the abuses are being paraded across the front pages of the newspapers, the right for MPs to claim expenses at all is being questioned.
Today the big thing is MPs who will no longer be in office after the next election (ie most of the Labour party) will probably enjoy huge capital gains on these properties that have been maintained on public money. I actually don’t really have a problem with it per se. The value of property is what it is. Perhaps they will have to derive some formula of paying back expenses that have contributed to the increased value of the property. Which of course will result in yet more creative interpretation of the rules.
The other solution of course is to pay them more, and I don’t really see them as being overpaid, and let them sort out their own living arrangements.
[Jim Hacker] How can they be underpaid, when there are 50 applicants for every vacancy? [/JH]
Didn’t get much notice here in Germany - perhaps because the issue a bit difficult to explain to readers used to the German model where members of parliament get a fixed salary (which they pay their Berlin flat with) plus a fixed office allowance, plus free rail travel/free air travel on official business, so the perennial issue of criticism is whether their salary/allowance is too high, not about them claiming dodgy expenses.
In Scotland, iirc, all the expense claims for the members of the Scottish Parliament (as distinct from Scottish members of the Westminster parliament) were made public online, starting a few years ago.
Initially there were howls of outrage (both from the MSPs (because it was happening) and the public (because of similar scams as the current stuff being revealed)) but after a year or two everyone calmed down and the MSPs, knowing their receipts would be made public, only claimed for sensible stuff and the public generally now ignore the issue except for when the press notice the odd chancer at it again.
I would hope that the same sort of thing would happen now, although it does look like more stringent rules will have to be thought of as public outrage may not be enough on it’s own.
This seems an eminently sensible start.
It’s been suggested that an old cruise liner be moored on the Thames near Parliament and that all the out-of-town MPs live there while they are in London. Its would also reduce the security bill as some MPs (especially those who have had associations with Northern Ireland) are entitled to round-the clock police protection.
The way it’s been reported here in Spain, it sounds like it’s been more a matter of “they took some money which was for their use but didn’t have to be approved and they used it for whatever they felt like” than “they stole money that should have been used for other stuff.”
My brother’s theory is that the politicians will close that loophole and then proceed to give to themselves a raise equivalent to the (former) expense accounts. That’s the brother who’s currently studying political science and who works in international finance…
Today’s Daily Mash take on the story:-
@Nava: No, it’s very much MPs taking money that could have been used for other purposes. If it were money that they were allowed to use, then there wouldn’t be such huge discrepancies between how much individual MPs have spent.
I thought the Daily Mash made things up, exaggerating real stories? The MP claiming money for having his moat cleaned is true.
It’s very appropriate that one of the MPs claimed for a load of manure . That sums the whole thing up neatly.
In India we have seen worst cases of behaviour by politicians . Ploiticians are the same everywhere !
This may be my favorite political scandal ever. I mean, who even has a moat these days?