Greedy MP's with snout in trough again

[Abarbarian]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5999287.ece

Jacqui Smith’s future in the Cabinet was in doubt last night after her husband claimed the cost of two pornographic films from her parliamentary expenses budget.

The Home Secretary, who is already under investigation over her housing arrangements, was “mortified and furious” after it emerged that her expenses claims included two 18-rated films, each costing £5, viewed on April 1 and April 6 last year.

The Times has learnt that MPs are expected to call in the police today over how a copy of an invoice from her Virgin TV and internet account, submitted to the Commons as part of an expenses claim, came to be published in a Sunday newspaper.




At best this shows gross incompetence by the Home Secretary.
I am “mortified and furious” that our Home Secretary can sign ANY papers without atleast a very basic glance to see what they contain.
The sooner she resigns, NO is sacked, the better.


Norman Pitkin, London, UK



An investigation into a breach of her privacy, the same person who is prepared to pry into every individual’s e-mails, phone calls and movements. Our leaders are hypocrits of the highest order and this mind set of one rule for me and another for the rest is common across all our major institutions

Leon de Graff, christchurch, nz




If she's furious about 2 adult movies imagine how we must feel about £116000 for a 'second home'!!! Why exactly are MP entitled to expenses - do they not get paid enough already? God forbid they pay their OWN bills
Disgusting

Jenny, Edinburgh,




They should send all these greedy cheating MP's to the Tower , behead them and pop their heads on a spike for public display just like the good old days.

 

[Madxgraphics]

I just hink the whole thing of MP's claiming for expenses and the like is stupid....Yes claim for expenses that are related to the job but all this crap about grant or what ever for second houses is bollox...If you choose to go into a job that is 100 miles away from your home, do like the rest of us..Sell up and move closer..Or find another bloody job...
And why do they need to claim expenses..? Its not like they are on crap pay..And a good few of them made decent money in law before they became MP's or have wives/husbands that are in high powered jobs.......grrrrr.....Count to 10.....

 

[Ian]

If you choose to go into a job that is 100 miles away from your home, do like the rest of us..Sell up and move closer

The problem is, then they'll be away from their constituency. Seems to me they should be given a fixed wage depending on their job (probably a little more than their technical base salary now - yes, an unpopular move, especially at the moment... but head teachers and council heads of dept earn more.) Then give them an allowance to rent a 2nd home in London if they live too far outside... Also, make "assistants" have a proper wage structure and job role - not just employing family members to make cups of tea in some cases.

Claiming for train tickets and other normal items is fair enough. But plasma screens, cleaning gardens of a primary residence, etc... just takes the biscuit. MPs are civil servants at the end of the day, so why don't they just stick to the same rules that apply to other council workers (plenty of people have to commute far in the week).

 

[Anon_F]

I think people are missing the point a bit, the more important info is what films was he watching!

 

[nivrip]

Greedy MP's with snout in trough again

Nothing ever changes.

 

[Nosht]

DOUBLE STANDARDS.
THIS FROM THE HUSBAND OF THE PERSON THAT WANTS TO BAN lap dancing clubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards,

N.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Why is everybody so surprised?

The whole human race is corrupt and those who are't taking backhanders are only annoyed because they lack the means to do so.

This is human nature.

The fault is not so much with the MP's involved but with their salary and expenses structure set up as it is.

An MP's base wage for what they do is actually quite modest. They work long hours and their career will often only span 4 years if their constituencie's voting habits are volatile.

Given the oppurtunity the majority of people would claim money they knew they could get away with.

This is not to say I'm fond of politicians, I'm not, self-centred egotistical greedy buggers the majority of them.

Ian also pointed out the salary/expenses structure needs changing - it does.

In my life I'm only aware of two politicians for whom I had the slightest respect - Tony Benn and Michael Heseltine.

But that's another story...

 

[floppybootstomp]

I think people are missing the point a bit, the more important info is what films was he watching!

This is a very pertinent point.

Most members of the house would agree it's a worthy subject for a mass debate.

But when the suggestion was put to MP's, they all said they were tied up one way or another trying to make the hard decision on expenses structure.

 

[Madxgraphics]

This is a very pertinent point.

Most members of the house would agree it's a worthy subject for a mass debate.

But when the suggestion was put to MP's, they all said they were tied up one way or another trying to make the hard decision on expenses structure.

Excellent..Took me a second or two to get it.....

 

[Anon_F]

This is a very pertinent point.

Most members of the house would agree it's a worthy subject for a mass debate.

But when the suggestion was put to MP's, they all said they were tied up one way or another trying to make the hard decision on expenses structure.

 

[historian]

I think the worring thing about this is, who gave the press the info as to what films Jackie Smiths husband was viewing. Surly what one does in the privacy of the home should be private--no?
historian

 

[floppybootstomp]

I think the worring thing about this is, who gave the press the info as to what films Jackie Smiths husband was viewing. Surly what one does in the privacy of the home should be private--no?
historian

The thread title possibly sums that up.

Somebody with access to the information that made the headlines obviously has a grievance, either against MP's per se or more likely against that MP's political persuasion.

If you take a post in public office it seems obvious to me that all the time you're 'serving the public' (ha-bloody-ha) then you have to live a squeaky clean life. Sometimes the naivety of these people astounds me.

One would assume to be an MP you'd have to be bright. It seems not.

But yes, whatever an individual gets up to in the privacy of their own home should be their business, providing no parties involved are hurt against their will.

As it happens, any MP, particularly a female MP, who likes to get their jollies watching naughties with their chosen partner is quite ok by me

 

[Nosht]

"Surely what one does in the privacy of the home should be private--no?"

historian.

No, that's exactly the point. If the Home Secretary wants to pass laws to allow civil servants to spy on our emails, text messages &c. surely we must be allowed to see what our hard earned taxes are spent on?
We are paying for this porn (& all the other "household expenses") & must be entitled to see what OUR money has been spent on.
Now we know why M.P.s wanted to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act.

Regards,

N.

 

[Abarbarian]

I agree that what folk do in their own homes should be kept private if it is legal.

However renting porno dvd's with MP expenses for private viewing is an ilegal act and no matter where the information came from it should be made public.

As to "expenses" Why should I and you all be buying this money grabbing Home Secretary Two televisions and two freeview boxes, does she need one for each eye An how much does a sink cost £550

Sack the incompetent woman and all the other MP's that cheat us.

It is interesting to note that the Liberal MP's do not clain any expeses.

 

[itsme]

"Different day same bullshyte"

 

[floppybootstomp]

You see, my friends, the real crime is not the few quid some MP wasted on a few home comforts at 'our' expense but rather the fact she was stupid enough to know she ran the risk of getting caught apropriating those funds. Add to that the word pornography and you have a recipe to stir the ire of every Daily Mail reader in the UK (and probably Luxembourg as well) and a good slice of a gullible population.

The powers that be in this country - the real ones - love headlines like this. Stir up the great British public, get them foaming at the mouth over something that is distinctly small beans and their attention is drawn from the many other irregularities and obscenties commited regularly by our Goverment.

It's called divide and rule. We're in the middle of a recession, unemployment figures are going up and our youngsters are being shipped home in body bags from the middle east.

The spooks figure that throwing one lowly idiotic public figure to the wolves is a really good tactic, it diverts attention. And we can always rely on the Daily Mail to further the cause by regular stories on Social Security fraud, local council waste and stupidity, unmarried mothers and those damned immigrants.

Keep the average Joe fuming over that kind of petty rubbish and they will conveniently forget how much of 'our' money is squandered fighting wars we can't afford, wasting millions on dodgy building contracts and back-handers and through sheer imcompetence regularly losing money on the stock exchange and intermonetary affairs.

The real shockers are there, they're not secret but the uk population loves to moan and fume about the petty things. Look, there's Sandra Smith, she has a young mixed race child, she is 'scrounging' off of social security and getting subsidised rent from a housing association. And she has a TV and her child has an X-Box. Disgusting eh? Sandra is barely living and she's one step from prostitution. Sandra's pet hate is when people accuse her of getting pregnant on purpose just to get subsidised public housing.

And today a roadside bomb in Iraq claimed the life of Lance Corporal James Higgins from Worthing, he served with the East Sussex regiment.

Whilst I'm on the subject, the invasion of Iraq was to some degree 'justified' by the toppling of Sadam Hussein's regime which led to his eventual barbaric execution. Yes, he was a tyrant and a despot and he deserved to die, but at the UK's expense?

If the UK and the USA are so righteous and they claimed to be acting for good invading Iraq, then why don't they turn their attentions to any one of a dozen African States where atrocities are carried out daily by self-proclaimed dictators and tribal leaders far worse than Sadam ever was.

I'll tell you why, it's simple - they don't have any oil and there's no financial gain for us, that's why.

Which to my mind makes the goverments of the UK and the USA hypocrites with blood on their hands. And all this from somebody who was broadly in favour of the invasion of Iraq as at the time I thought they were harbouring them there big weapons and Sadam was definitely not one of the good guys.

I am neither right wing nor left wing btw, I have come this far in life to be totally disillusioned by the whole rotten bunch and have become apolitical. But I do care for human beings and I wring my hands in despair at this mob mentality, this huge grumble, from thousands of people I can only describe as blinkered.

Go on, rant and rave over some stupid MP's lack of discretion and petty fraud and maybe feel better. Yes, she does deserve the sack, as do most of those fools in Westminster and your local town hall.

[rant]...[/rant]

 

[Abarbarian]

However you could look at this a different way.

Folk have been very busy over the last decade or so looking out for number one. This " recession" has given folk pause for thought. Now if they are focusing on Ministerial expenses that may be a fortuitous occurrence.
There is no reason why "expenses" should not be tightly and correctly and openly audited. A decent person would have no objection to the public viewing "expense".
Now the MP's have a chance to stand up and do the right thing and quickly too. If they did they could look folk straight in the eye and say "we did the decent thing by the country, will you" They could use this incident to help draw the country together to build a decent country to live in.
Will they ?


Yes the world is still a crazy place to live in with folk doing all sorts of crap things to each other. You may not change the world alone, but you can choose to live in a decent fashion in the hope that others will do the same and that eventually the good guys will prevail.

Poking someone in the ribs may not hurt or inconvenience them at all. 10,000 people poking someone in the ribs can produce some startling results.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Sorry, but I'm quite content looking at it in my way.

Dodgy bent MP's - small fry.

I sincerely couldn't care less.

I also couldn't care less about benefit scroungers.

There are some things that get my goat, however (hey, I ain't perfect).

African dictators who hack off the limbs of children, they annoy me somewhat.

In the UK, racial equality unit heads who tell me that 'the black population is seriously under-represented in this particular area'

Total crap. I live in the real world and I see a lot of black guys doing quite ok. There are less black folk than white folk, this is one major reason they appear under-represented.

There are lesser gifted white folk and there are lesser gifted black folk. I'm white, I accept some of my brethren will be not that bright. The sooner these racial equality peeps realise that some human beings, although they're black, will not be Einstein, the better.

Another reason for this situation is that the schools are strangled with discipline restrictions. In inner London, let's say Peckham, any kid seeing a weak point will go for the jugular. Result? They don't learn anything cos they're too busy taking the mick rather than learning.

I have observed black kids in particular love to act the gangsta and take the mickey.

It's my view that if we could discipline all kids, black, white, asian, eastern european, whatever, with more discipline (yes, I'm talking about caning them) we would see so-called ethnic minorities better represented in the work force.

On the positive side, me black mates are doing bloody well better than me atm, lol

Oh well, I'm ranting again, hehe

I still think some daft bint of an MP using public funds to rent a porno DVD is more laughable than something to busta bloodvessel over.

 

[Madxgraphics]

It's my view that if we could discipline all kids, black, white, asian, eastern european, whatever, with more discipline (yes, I'm talking about caning them) we would see so-called ethnic minorities better represented in the work force.

Did me no harm at school..Step out of line or not conform and we got caned..Sometimes I think the head masters cane kept me in line..And got me where I am today..Compulsery ilitary sevice to...

 

[nivrip]

Dodgy bent MP's - small fry.

They may be "small fry" but they are our representatives and I expect them to set an example. People seeing them getting away with our (yours and mine) taxes are hardly likely to become paragons of virtue themselves. Leading by example, IMO, is very important - think of parents, hopefully, guiding their kids by doing the same.

I also couldn't care less about benefit scroungers.

Well, I could.

It's obscene that people are given money (again, our taxes) for doing NOTHING. State benefits are an important part of any civilised society but were set up as a TEMPORARY safety net to help people through hard times. The disabled and one or two other groups who CANNOT work should be supported on a permanent basis.

However, we now have hundreds of thousands of benefit scroungers who WILL NOT work even when jobs are offered to them. And we end up with the jobs being taken by immigrants. In many cities in the UK there are families who are now onto their third generation of benefits and the kids know no other way of life and EXPECT to be kept by the people who do the real work.

IMO, anyone who will not take the offer of a job should have their benefits reduced, with a view to having them stopped eventually. Even if there are no jobs then some sort of community activity should be compulsory.

NO-ONE (other than the genuine severely disabled) should get INDEFINITE state handouts and not put back something, however small.



Rant.....rant......