MP's Expenses (UK politics)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news.../mps-expenses/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...Telegraph.html Its XXXXing outragous - only in politics where the gross misconduct need not apply. any other profession it would be P45 time if not criminal proceedings. if someone on the social screws the system they get a court appearence... whilst fking jokers like micheal martin get a golden parachute. all the more reason why positions of privilege should be externally audited. thoughts / comments ? |
Re: MP's Expenses (UK politics)
1. We can't sack them because they're elected. You wouldn't want a system where they could be sacked because that's called a dictatorship
2. Spinning this as MPs are people of privilege is pretty implausible given that they are elected from the people - they are hardly the aristocracy 3. The aristocracy would have behaved more honourably 4. People should pay more attention to the type of people they elect. |
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Total nonissue. Pretty much everyone in the corporate world will try to score extra expenses when they can. Youre talking about a few million pound, its literally not even worth discussing when you compare it to the billions spent on Iraq or bank bailouts.
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It does not matter how much money it is, it matters that they created the expenses system, abused it, then altered the expenses system to allow for more abuse (2nd home flipping), then abused it some more, then with the freedom of information act.. they then tried to hide the fact that they abused the system. |
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MPs (like the people who vote for them) are ultimately employees. There are probably a large percentage of voters (and this is just one example) who claim driving mileage on expenses and either claim excessive mileage, or drive under the company's travel expenses at a significant profit and don't give a toss. Many of the people aiming potshots over expenses are total hypocrites in the extreme, and while that doesn't validate what MPs do, it shows that they're missing the point on the real issues of which Nod has pointed out a couple.
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Let's not forget, this isn't actually news. It's long been known that MPs, like most people in any sort of institutional or corporate environment, claim just about anything they can on expenses. The actual rules that govern this have long been public knowledge. We just didn't care until the newspapers told us to. So what if they abused the system? Nobody even considered it to be wrong until the recession hit - now the media is just using it to stir up doubt in the entire political system. Billions and billions of pounds of public money ends up in private pockets, most of it wastefully, but we turn a blind eye to it because we're not told to be up in arms about it. The expenses "scandal" is a tiny drop in a very big ocean.
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The really interesting thing about the scandal is not that MPs were exploiting expenses for personal gain, but that despite the fact that this was happening across the board, the Tory supporting press has managed to convince the public that it is only really Labour who are to blame for this. |
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Labour are to blame for creating a system where, instead of giving MPs pay rises like everyone else in the world has had over the last decade, they used expenses as a 'salary top up'.
This has lead to an awful lot of resulting silliness and it is right that the government who instituted such a stupid syste get the blame. |
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I am extremely doubtful personally. |
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The data is all public - google is your friend |
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Wtf i didnt post this.
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Everything seems to be about the current scandal (not too surprising really). Any chance you can help me out as you seem to have done some research? In any case, even if the claims which lead to the current scandal were inflated as a result of a pay freeze, I don't believe that this provides any evidence whatsoever that the pay freeze was a bad idea in and of itself. Except perhaps that there should have been a tightening of the claims procedure alongside the pay freeze - something that I suspect would have had a great deal of cross party resistance. My main objection to the MPs expense scandal is not the incompetence shown by Labour in their administration of parliamentary rules and regulations regarding pay and expenses, but the greed and avarice shown by MPs of ALL parties. And I f**king object to the Telegraph trying to con me into thinking that the greed and avarice was some unfortunate result of that incompetence, and more importantly successfully conning less intelligent voters... |
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Secondly it wasn't a 'pay freeze'. You make it sound like the labour government bravely sought to reduce MP pay. Such an idea is best described as bollocks. New Labour deliberately instituted a system whereby expenses were used to top up wages. They did this because they hoped to avoid adverse publicity from a pay rise. I happen to feel that having done this - basically "tried to hide something in order to avoid being criticised for it but allowing it to go on anyway" that there is some justice in it now exploding in the governments face. I have this hunch that you may fly off the handle but let's see. |
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That's as may be, but members from all sides abused the system equally. The coverage has been 90% Labour abuses, 10% everyone else, and no mention has been made of who instituted the system, just who abused it.
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The truth and facts are "as may be" because you, you have something that needs saying. |
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Is "abuse" abusing the system that was totally inadequate? I'd say that with certainty at least. Is "abuse" making claims within the system that some people don't like? Is "abuse" the fact that MPs are allowed to make claims for expenses out of tax payers money however reasonable they may seem when you look at the facts? One thing that amuses me about all this is that people seem to pick their own version of "abuse" as it suits them. It's as if the way this stuff is reported/commentated upon is far more interesting than any duck house. Until people decide what "abuse" actually is then we're (and by "we" I don't mean you specifically) not going to get very far here. |
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Yahwe: I won't fly off the handle, particularly as you were gracious enough to imply that you consider me be to be rational!
However, I dispute that I am the only person that believes that the sole reason for the leaks was to further the Barclay brothers aims of toppling the current government. Yep, we are in a tiny minority - I am happy to accept that. You may see reportage of duck islands and moat cleaning as examples of journalistic balance, but there is only one party that will be winning the next election and they have safe warm ducks and very clean moats. The bulk of the electorate are incapable of understanding that the root of this problem is not confined to any one party, they think it is solely down to Labour, and the Barclay brothers understood this very well. And just for the record, in case anyone is in any doubt, I absolutely f**king hate Labour due to the fact that I believe they are essentially war criminals and illegal invaders of sovereign states, totally off topic, but I don't want my thoughts about this expenses scandal to portray me as some sort of Blair/Brown-ite sympathizer. |
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Some would say "collaborator". You sir, are a traitor to your country. Come to mine?
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In the North, for example, which has traditionally been a labour stronghold for decades, we hated (hate) Mrs Thatcher for the systematic destruction of our industries, rail networks, and lives in general. Many people looked on labout as "their" party, who would step in to save them against the evil tories. Of course, New Labour proved to be more of the same, and proceded to scrap student funding, introduce tuition fees and then top-up fees, continue the privatisation of public sector services and ramp up taxes to the point nobody can afford anything... unless you happen to be working in e.g. banking IN THE CITY OF LONDON. So now, they feel betrayed by the party they've always supported and are basically given the choice of voting for the ppl who are happy to admit they'll screw them over (again), or the people who promise the Earth while stabbing you in the back... or the nationalists. Happily, most choose not to vote - though I'd prefer to see more independents standing as a big FU to the established parties, it's better than a new nazi regime. |
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The problem is essentially that all the parties seem to be rotten, and while my natural inclination is for openness in government, the fact that these revelations about expenses have been made public has obviously damaged British politics very heavily indeed. @ Mz: yep. I'm a traitor on many levels. You should have heard me ranting yesterday when I read how much that parasitic leach Charlie is costing the public. I bet a few moat cleaners were green with envy at what he gets out of the tax payer, and yeah, collaborator seems reasonable. |
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You see I have more faith in the electorate and fewer irrational obsessions about the barclay brothers |
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If anyone in any private company was found to be claiming expenses to do up their 2nd home, then switching their 2nd home and doing up that, then selling one for personal profit, they would be sacked on the spot. it's a huge issue - the 'elected officials' seem to have committed vast amounts of fraud with taxpayers money. |
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they seem to but it is not the same. Anyone working in a private company got a pay rise, or moved jobs. Expenses were used as wage top up. We all know this yet instead the country is being spun this ridiculous idea that somehow the MPs 'hood winked' the entire system. MPs are NOT master criminals. They are not brilliant fraudsters. Most of them can barely spell and I've yet to meet one who I would trust to add up ... You need to understand that everything that happened was known What is known and persists is sanctioned The public (mob) are being willfully diverted down an entirely misleading path - and gleefully mislead because it sells more papers. |
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I'm not buying into the "all MPs are as bad as each other" stuff that's being spread about, and I have nothing against the expenses system including the second home allowance in general.
And I agree that they should be paid more. However, the system was pretty ridiculous and some MPs have completely taken the piss and personally I think the 'flipping' of 1st/2nd houses is some of the worst parts of it. |
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Perhaps we should cut the mps and bbc some slack and go after this bunch of parasitic leeches next:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8124022.stm ? I would be in favor. |
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treason!
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At least the queen bring over the tourists.... who wants to go MP spotting when you're on holiday / sightseeing?
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We'd make more money that way. |
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Pay toilets are an anathema to Americans. Thanks to a successful grass roots campaign, most pay toilets in the US were removed years ago. :) |
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