05/08/2009: "MP's expenses - the missing question!"

all political parties, many (but not all) MPs, "within the rules" and "we need to change the rules as they dont work!"

slogans and blather we have heard for months now, gossip and counter gossip, etc, total tosh.
ive watched BBC news Sky news, reading various websites, blogs and papers, with no real interest in this subject at all, until that is now.

in every single piece, article, accusation, excuse, etc, not a single time have i heard the only question that the public (and me) NEED an answer to:
are the MPs at fault with their claims OR are the office that pays the claims at fault?

the position all party MPs are telling us, is that "under the rules they have only claimed as they are allowed to claim."

one example (out of many):
gordon brown has claimed for plumbing work - actual cost was Ł150 - but the same work was claimed twice

this can go one of two ways:
1, did he make the claim and parliament payed it twice?
OR
2, did he claim the Ł150 (issuing a recipt) then claim it again at a later date?

if its 1 - then he has done nothing wrong at all, the rules need changing but its the office that pays out claims that needs staff changes and sackings.
if its 2 - then its fraud!
- how did he get back the recipt to provide it again to receive payment twice?
- the office that pays expenses, had noted it was a duplicate receipt, so why did they pay it to the claimant?
- im assuming the money claimed (as with all the other examples) goes directly to brown (ie, the person claiming it?) in this instance?

under UK law, a defence of ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for breaking the law!

make no mistake, this will effect ALL parties, its only that Labour expenses have been revealed first

the biggest issue (on what has been published so far) i have with jack Straw (labour mp for blackburn) and a government minister.
for a number of years, he claimed his council tax back for his second home in blackburn.
the problem i have with this is, for years, he was well aware that he didnt pay full council tax on this property, he only paid 50%!
it gets worse.... he only paid back the money he'd over claimed, AFTER it was ruled his accounts would be made public!

forgive my uneducated response, but if jack straw has submitted these claims knowingly (which means he had to produce a receipt for the full amount of council tax - how did he get that then?) then he fraudulently claimed for a number of years!

if you claim Ł100 for your expenses where you work, despite not having any expenses at all for the time period you claimed, what would happen to you? youd more than likely be sacked for gross misconduct!

so why no action like this for MPs?

"its all above board and been done under the rules" is fine if you have a legitimate claim for an expense,but if you are claiming more than once for the same expense, then it is not under the rules and is fraudulent.

it really is that simple..... MPs however, would like the public to believe otherwise!