Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

You've mixed up the Cs (Carews and Crackpot) there, I think, blandy.

Edited April 4, 2014 by snowychap

[snowychap]

As a London MP she had no business claiming second home allowance in the first place.

Isn't she Basingstoke?

[Eames]

I thought I heard she was SW London but I may have made it up.

[snowychap]

I think her 'second home' (i.e. the one for which she claimed over £45k in dodgy expenses - she's dipped in to her back pocket and got away with paying back £5k) was in Wimbledon.

Edited April 4, 2014 by snowychap

[peterms]

 

As a London MP she had no business claiming second home allowance in the first place.

Isn't she Basingstoke?

 

 

Yes, commuterland.

 

Hang on, does that mean she could, er, go home each night, like everyone else?  Because Basingstoke was her main home, wasn't it?  Not the house in Wimbledon, where "she accepted her parents' offer that they should move into the family home in south London and look after her three children".

 

So, accommodating her parents at our expense (unambiguously against the rules, for which Tony McNulty had to resign); lying about which was her main home; threatening newspapers which were investigating this, by having her assistant phone them and remind them that she was currently attending meetings to decide about the Leveson recommendations; obstructing the Parliamentary enquiry; and giving a token charade of a plainly unmeant apology.

 

Yes, clearly she should carry on as a Cabinet Minister.

[colhint]

Can't agree with that Peter, she should be sacked  

 

Actually if the want to have the title honourable, she should resign.

[snowychap]

Yes, commuterland.

 

Hang on, does that mean she could, er, go home each night, like everyone else?

Quite possibly but I'm not as het up on the second home bit (i.e. that MPs have them or that they have allowances for them) as a lot.

Where does 'commuterland' end, for instance?

Some much clearer and much tougher rules are needed (but would probably be bypassed anyway as in this Miller case): on what allowances are permitted; what a second home ought to entail - perhaps the residence in the constituency should be the only one that can be deemed the 'main home' and, if that main home is rented, an 'owned' second home in the capital should be excluded from consideration for allowances; whether the taxpayer ought to take a proportionate interest in the ownership of any second home for which they are making contributions by way of allowances; perhaps some sort of means testing such that the point of a second home in the capital is to provide assistance to representatives of a constituency when they may otherwise find it difficult to fully represent their constituents in Parliament.

Some/most of the above paragraph is just thinking aloud so there is probably plenty to pick at, pull apart and throw away.

[peterms]

 

Yes, commuterland.

 

Hang on, does that mean she could, er, go home each night, like everyone else?

Quite possibly but I'm not as het up on the second home bit (i.e. that MPs have them or that they have allowances for them) as a lot.

Where does 'commuterland' end, for instance?

Some much clearer and much tougher rules are needed (but would probably be bypassed anyway as in this Miller case): on what allowances are permitted; what a second home ought to entail - perhaps the residence in the constituency should be the only one that can be deemed the 'main home' and, if that main home is rented, an 'owned' second home in the capital should be excluded from consideration for allowances; whether the taxpayer ought to take a proportionate interest in the ownership of any second home for which they are making contributions by way of allowances; perhaps some sort of means testing such that the point of a second home in the capital is to provide assistance to representatives of a constituency when they may otherwise find it difficult to fully represent their constituents in Parliament.

Some/most of the above paragraph is just thinking aloud so there is probably plenty to pick at, pull apart and throw away.

 

 

The second home thing dates from a period when parliament sat at all hours, so people clearly couldn't get home easily even if living relatively close.

 

Along the way, when there was pressure on keeping MPs' salaries down for PR purposes, the whips of all parties were letting it be known that the expenses system should be used as a backdoor way of supplementing income.  Combining that with higher house price inflation and the prospect of capital gains helped develop a culture of using apparently necessary accommodation as a means of acquiring wealth from the role without it being as visible as high pay.

 

It's pretty clear we need a rethink of the system, to identify what is needed to do the job and remove the scope for the kind of fiddling which discredits the whole system.  At the moment, it's just an invitation for the weak and the venal to rip us off.  Like putting an alcoholic in charge of a bar.  A heavily subsidised bar, in fact...

[snowychap]

The second home thing dates from a period when parliament sat at all hours, so people clearly couldn't get home easily even if living relatively close.

 

Along the way, when there was pressure on keeping MPs' salaries down for PR purposes, the whips of all parties were letting it be known that the expenses system should be used as a backdoor way of supplementing income.  Combining that with higher house price inflation and the prospect of capital gains helped develop a culture of using apparently necessary accommodation as a means of acquiring wealth from the role without it being as visible as high pay.

Thanks, Peter, but I'm not sure I require the lesson about recent political history or a recap of the well worn comments about how the 'system' came in to being and its subsequent (and inherent) problems.

It's pretty clear we need a rethink of the system, to identify what is needed to do the job and remove the scope for the kind of fiddling which discredits the whole system.

This, to me, is the point.

At the moment, it's just an invitation for the weak and the venal to rip us off.  Like putting an alcoholic in charge of a bar.  A heavily subsidised bar, in fact...

This, however, is a real problem for a discussion of the point above (i.e. a rethink) as, unfortunately, it always appears to be too much to the fore.

Edited April 4, 2014 by snowychap

[peterms]

Thanks, Peter, but I'm not sure I require the lesson about recent political history or a recap of the well worn comments about how the 'system' came in to being and its subsequent (and inherent) problems.

It's a comment in a discussion where not everyone does know about that, not a lesson directed at you. 

 

Most comment I see in newspapers, here, and from all sorts of people, doesn't recognise that MPs were actively encouraged to use expenses as an income supplement.  Which is not to excuse it, but to recognise that it's a systemic issue and not just individual misconduct.  It's not an original point, but it's one I think is still worth noting.

[Kingfisher]

Where's Owen Paterson been during the last week or so. Is he still on the sick? He doesn't seem to have had anything to say about the recent poor air quality over England and Wales. He probably refuses to believe it's real.

[peterms]

Guardian piece on Miller's attempts to frustrate the inquiry and bully the investigator.

Go now, it will be more embarrassing to be dragged out with your fingernails scratching lines in the carpet.

[chrisp65]

Well, the Telegraph accusation of political bullying and intimidation from the condem govt isn't going away just yet, they've released a transcript of the conversation where some political aide phones in and suggests pursuing this story whilst there are still Leverson things to be resolved, is, well, I'll just leave that there with you.....

 

For me, the tape is hardly a smoking gun, but it does underline the dilemma of who to believe in a spat between journalists and politicians.

 

Sadly, it's probably neither, as neither is capable of being straight, they always have to give an angle, a partial view of the world, an indirect answer to a question that wasn't actually asked.

 

Which leads me on to last night's Any Questions on Radio 4, Peter Hain proved particularly incapable of answering a single direct question all night or accepting a single statistic or accepting a quote of his from a previous programme. He came over as a snake oil salesman caught on camera on Watchdog. Just awful. You'd have to wonder if any Labour aides listened in on that and thought, yay, that won us a few votes.

[Kingfisher]

Guardian piece on Miller's attempts to frustrate the inquiry and bully the investigator.

Go now, it will be more embarrassing to be dragged out with your fingernails scratching lines in the carpet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10747122/Benefit-cheats-face-higher-fines-and-losing-their-homes.html

[snowychap]

Two sentences from that Torygraph article:

 

 

Ministers aim to reduce the proportion of benefits lost to fraud and error from 2.2 per cent in 2010 to 1.7 per cent by next March.

So far, the proportion of welfare spending lost to fraud has fallen to only 2.1 per cent, while more money is now lost to fraud than four years ago.

 

The dropping of the 'and error' in the second sentence is, in my view, intentional and entirely representative of the angle that politicians and the media are peddling.

Edited April 6, 2014 by snowychap

[peterms]

International Man of Mystery Grant Shapps was interviewed by Pienaar this morning, and interestingly refused to say Miller has his backing.

 

Something like:

 

Pienaar: So I've asked you two or three times now if she has your backing, but you haven't given me a direct answer..."

 

Grant Shapps/Michael Green/Sebastian Fox: "She's been through a process and made an apology..."

[chrisp65]

to be fair, he probably realises he's not the man to make moral judgements on scam artists

[Xann]

The dropping of the 'and error' in the second sentence is, in my view, intentional and entirely representative of the angle that politicians and the media are peddling.

 

We moved on from Labour's spin. These days it's omission, opacity and in IDS's case, outright lies.

[peterms]

[Jon]