MP Claims and Expenses

[jimsleftfoot]

In my opinion, it is both a little problem and a great problem. Little because as part of the whole big picture, when you measure it against Sri Lanka, Swat Valley, Darfur, Iraq, etc etc, it is very small. However, the reason why all the above can not be applied to the UK is that we are an efficient democracy which works on people buying into the hopes, dreams, terms and conditions of the democracy and TRUST that it will work. If the people who run this democracy and who are supposed to be the most accountable undermine it, then trust will fail and who knows where it will stop.

 

For example, there may not be that many MP’s but if they can’t get their expense claims right, then how can we expect the average brickie to get theirs right, who of course are much more numerous.

 

Therefore in principal, this is a very very important issue which needs to be sorted out quickly.

 

[beag_teeets]

Therefore in principal, this is a very very important issue which needs to be sorted out quickly.

 

It is a very important issue, if our elected representatives are more bothered about claiming for their moat to be cleaned or for a £6000+ telly to be fitted than serving their constituents sorting out a workable expenses system will achieve dillysquat. This is a perfect examlpe of what is wrong with politics today we have an event, the papers make it front page for a few days, the government issue stern words and promise immediate action, cobble something together and rush it through parliament before the next "crisis" occurs and the whole sorry cycle is repeated.

 

This has been going on for ages, look at the reaction to Dunblane, raves, the poll tax protest, Hillsborough, dangerous dogs..etc.. There is no long term strategy anymore, this country used to have big ideas, the NHS, free education, getting kids out of mills and chimneys and stopping slavery. What do we get these days? The cones hotline, knock-off Nigel campaigns.. It is no wonder that the electorate have turned their back on it all.

[monkeykieran]

Am I the only person who isn't bothered about this at all?! It is about 0.0000001% of the money squandered by those in power in this country on things I don't approve of.

[beag_teeets]

Am I the only person who isn't bothered about this at all?! It is about 0.0000001% of the money squandered by those in power in this country on things I don't approve of.

 

Fair point, the value of the money involved is minuscule compared to the total budget but the principal involved shows that currently there are a lot of people in control of that money who are rotten to the core. If they are willing to mess around with this money it is little wonder that bigger projects fail, take the NHS IT system, who gets the contracts for that? The company that can do the work well for a cheap price or the one who throws in a bottle of 150 year old single malt or a 2 week stay in the company owned villa in Tuscany?

 

This scandal is really about whether the people currently doing the job are upto it.

[monkeykieran]

The answer to that is very clear to me

[jimsleftfoot]

Am I the only person who isn't bothered about this at all?! It is about 0.0000001% of the money squandered by those in power in this country on things I don't approve of.

 

As per my post above, its not about value its about principal. It's also about our MP's being consistenly transparent, honest and accountable. We get the small things wrong in can bring into question our whole way of governance.

[monkeykieran]

I appreciate what you say but to me I already question our whole way of governance, this just adds to it so to me this story has got to the irritatingly irrelevant and unimportant stage now.

[oafcprozac]

It is a very important issue, if our elected representatives are more bothered about claiming for their moat to be cleaned or for a £6000+ telly to be fitted than serving their constituents sorting out a workable expenses system will achieve dillysquat. This is a perfect examlpe of what is wrong with politics today we have an event, the papers make it front page for a few days, the government issue stern words and promise immediate action, cobble something together and rush it through parliament before the next "crisis" occurs and the whole sorry cycle is repeated.

 

This has been going on for ages, look at the reaction to Dunblane, raves, the poll tax protest, Hillsborough, dangerous dogs..etc.. There is no long term strategy anymore, this country used to have big ideas, the NHS, free education, getting kids out of mills and chimneys and stopping slavery. What do we get these days? The cones hotline, knock-off Nigel campaigns.. It is no wonder that the electorate have turned their back on it all.

 

Yet another moral panic that will soon be forgotten about until the next time the papers decide what we need to read about...and then as you say the whole cycle begins again.

[mikejh45]

It may well be small money in the bigger macro-economic picture but to put it in some sort of context, we have lost several brave men and women in this dodgy conflict/war for the lack of equipment that should be provided and these amoral bastards voted to send them to fight.

[leeslover]

There is no long term strategy anymore, this country used to have big ideas, the NHS

 

And Health is the worst sector in the economy. You get faster service and better hygiene from a fast food delivery firm

 

free education,

Which doesn't appear to teach a great many kids anything

 

getting kids out of mills and chimneys and stopping slavery.

They can't mug a granny from the inside of a chimney or beneath a spinning jenny

 

 

stopping slavery.

 

I am in favour of this initiative

 

[beag_teeets]

And Health is the worst sector in the economy. You get faster service and better hygiene from a fast food delivery firm

 

Part of the problem there, health shouldn't be treated as a business, how can you make a profit out of wrapping someone in bandages? The market doesn't work in the health sector, even Bupa don't make a profit, the largest non-profit making company in the country, granted their shareholders don't go without...

 

I grant you that it is a shocking state of affairs when contract cleaners can't even clean a hospital properly and fulfil the requirements of their contract, further proof that the market approach doesn't work in healthcare and if we insist in sticking all sick people in the same building you are bound to get all sorts of bugs and nasties mutating and becoming impervious to drugs.

 

Bloke I work with has been off with Leukaemia for the best part of 18 months, we went to visit him in Christies last week, shat me right up, took me about 3 or 4 days to get over it, the people working down there and the rest of the NHS get too much knocking and nowhere near enough respect or celebrating. I certainly couldn't do it seeing all that suffering and death day in day out.

 

Then you have the A&E departments who spend their weekends patching up morons who can't handle their drink or can't go out without getting into a fight - how can that make a profit?

 

Which doesn't appear to teach a great many kids anything

 

I would presume your masters, degree, A-levels and gcse appear out of thin air just like my degree and the intelligence and thirst for knowledge that go hand in hand with it? And the kids that my wife, brother in law, both parents and parents in law all teach/taught, none of them ever learned or will ever learn anything either

 

They can't mug a granny from the inside of a chimney or beneath a spinning jenny

 

True, perhaps for some kids it could be an option?

 

I am in favour of this initiative

 

Lets just hope we don't go back there when the BNP get an extra £1 million release to them in funding as a result of winning a seat in the upcoming Euro elections.

 

[leeslover]

Part of the problem there, health shouldn't be treated as a business, how can you make a profit out of wrapping someone in bandages? The market doesn't work in the health sector, even Bupa don't make a profit, the largest non-profit making company in the country, granted their shareholders don't go without...

 

It’s no more fair to blame, “the market,” for the state of the Health Service than it is socialism. It’s a hotch potch of old school central planning, the eternally doomed attempts to replicate market forces through artificial means (hence the need for a vast bureaucracy and checks on checks on checks) and private companies making a profit through a none-private tendering system. It would be better to have either an entirely planned system or an entirely free one, at the moment it discredits both systems. Talking about markets misses the point in another way though – the NHS didn’t invent hospitals, and didn’t actually open a new one until 12 years after it was created. Most of the ones it took over were not-for-profit organisations of one type or another.

 

I grant you that it is a shocking state of affairs when contract cleaners can't even clean a hospital properly and fulfil the requirements of their contract, further proof that the market approach doesn't work in healthcare and if we insist in sticking all sick people in the same building you are bound to get all sorts of bugs and nasties mutating and becoming impervious to drugs.

 

Bloke I work with has been off with Leukaemia for the best part of 18 months, we went to visit him in Christies last week, shat me right up, took me about 3 or 4 days to get over it, the people working down there and the rest of the NHS get too much knocking and nowhere near enough respect or celebrating. I certainly couldn't do it seeing all that suffering and death day in day out.

 

Then you have the A&E departments who spend their weekends patching up morons who can't handle their drink or can't go out without getting into a fight - how can that make a profit?

 

 

 

I would presume your masters, degree, A-levels and gcse appear out of thin air just like my degree and the intelligence and thirst for knowledge that go hand in hand with it? And the kids that my wife, brother in law, both parents and parents in law all teach/taught, none of them ever learned or will ever learn anything either

 

The fact that me and you did OK out of the system doesn’t make it untrue that a great many children are getting next to nothing out of it. A massive spending increase hasn’t shown any tangible improvements, which is a serious failure in any organisation. The numbers of kids in some areas who are functionally illiterate is scary, and their kids won’t learn to read either, whilst yours, and should I ever find a woman keen to breed with me, mine, most likely will.

 

True, perhaps for some kids it could be an option?

 

It is an option, I think taking it’s place in between the birch and the noose in the sliding scale of appropriate sentencing.

 

Lets just hope we don't go back there when the BNP get an extra £1 million release to them in funding as a result of winning a seat in the upcoming Euro elections.

 

I predicted they would win a Euro seat after the, “British jobs for British Workers,” guff came out. The disaffection with mainstream politicians could well hand it to them on a plate.

 

[Diego_Sideburns]

If anyone enjoys seeing MPs get a roasting from the public, watch 'Question Time' on BBC1 at 10:40pm.

 

I say bring back the stocks!

 

P.S. Don't forget to vote on 4th June.

[Diego_Sideburns]

If anyone enjoys seeing MPs get a roasting from the public, watch 'Question Time' on BBC1 at 10:40pm.

 

I say bring back the stocks!

 

P.S. Don't forget to vote on 4th June.

 

Blimey, what's the world coming to? Although scheduled for 10:40pm I find that it was brought forward to 9:00pm! Why? Who knows?

 

Last week's programme, which was a cracker, can be seen on BBC iPlayer, where this week's programme will be available in due course.

[OldhamSheridan]

Blimey, what's the world coming to? Although scheduled for 10:40pm I find that it was brought forward to 9:00pm! Why? Who knows?

 

Last week's programme, which was a cracker, can be seen on BBC iPlayer, where this week's programme will be available in due course.

 

This week was no where near as good as last weeks heckling cracking belter. Sadly, this time they had MP's that hadn't fiddled and acquited themselves rather well (speshully the labour bloke).

 

Still voting for UKIP in the Europeans myself though.

[Diego_Sideburns]

Still voting for UKIP in the Europeans myself though.

 

Rustie Lee is a UKIP candidate in the West Midlands.

[jimsleftfoot]

This week was no where near as good as last weeks heckling cracking belter. Sadly, this time they had MP's that hadn't fiddled and acquited themselves rather well (speshully the labour bloke).

 

Still voting for UKIP in the Europeans myself though.

 

Why you voting UKIP out of interest? Do you want us to withdraw from the EU. In my own personal opinion, the anti immigration stuff that they go on about is a little flawed considering all the reports of so many eastern Europeans leaving. Their policies say little else about anything else.

[Diego_Sideburns]

As the European elections are held under a system of proportional representation, it's easier for smaller parties to gain seats than the first-past-the-post method used in local elections.

 

The BNP needs only 8.5 per cent of the votes cast to gain a seat in the North-West England constituency of the European Parliament, so if the turnout is low fewer actual votes will be needed to reach the 8.5 per cent. If the BNP wins a seat, it will then be able to link up with extremist parties from other countries.

 

You might want to withhold your vote as a protest against those MPs who have had more than their share from the trough. If you feel that the far right BNP is campaigning to dismantle, disrupt and fragment our society, and you don't want the BNP to gain a big advantage, then use your vote on 4th June - you know it makes sense.

[Ackey]

As the European elections are held under a system of proportional representation, it's easier for smaller parties to gain seats than the first-past-the-post method used in local elections.

 

The BNP needs only 8.5 per cent of the votes cast to gain a seat in the North-West England constituency of the European Parliament, so if the turnout is low fewer actual votes will be needed to reach the 8.5 per cent. If the BNP wins a seat, it will then be able to link up with extremist parties from other countries.

 

You might want to withhold your vote as a protest against those MPs who have had more than their share from the trough. If you feel that the far right BNP is campaigning to dismantle, disrupt and fragment our society, and you don't want the BNP to gain a big advantage, then use your vote on 4th June - you know it makes sense.

D_S, do you know - if you are registered to vote in national elections will you automatically be eligible to vote in the upcoming elections?

 

I've had a poke around the aboutmyvote website but can't find anything.

 

Cheers,

Ack

[opinions4u]

I will vote.

 

I don't know who for yet as I depsise the lot of them.

 

I despise the BNP most of all.

 

I favour withdrawing from the EU which nudges me towards UKIP (who partly fund their party with the generous expenses claims that the European Parliament pay) but on the whole their candidates seem to be somewhat eccentric and their wider policies non-existant.

 

I find the Lib Dems to be a non-entity party packed with conflicting views on the same subject (the view that best suits a local constituency is used without fail, even though in another part of the country they have no shame is offering a completely polarised policy to try and get elected).

 

Labour are the party that Orwell warned us against in Animal Farm. Four legs good and two legs better and all that. They have become the crooks they claimed to replace when they got elected.

 

Tories? Run by a marketing man but ultimately a case of rich Etonians on the take.

 

The nation needs two coherent and new parties offering valid but different policies.

 

At the moment the mainstream choice is the same. Only the colour of the rosette is different.

[Ackey]

BNP's Facism: http://issuu.com/bristolantifa/docs/election_leaflet

BNP's idiocy: http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/200...dont-exist.html

[Ackey]

I will vote.

 

I don't know who for yet as I depsise the lot of them.

 

I despise the BNP most of all.

 

I favour withdrawing from the EU which nudges me towards UKIP (who partly fund their party with the generous expenses claims that the European Parliament pay) but on the whole their candidates seem to be somewhat eccentric and their wider policies non-existant.

 

I find the Lib Dems to be a non-entity party packed with conflicting views on the same subject (the view that best suits a local constituency is used without fail, even though in another part of the country they have no shame is offering a completely polarised policy to try and get elected).

 

Labour are the party that Orwell warned us against in Animal Farm. Four legs good and two legs better and all that. They have become the crooks they claimed to replace when they got elected.

 

Tories? Run by a marketing man but ultimately a case of rich Etonians on the take.

 

The nation needs two coherent and new parties offering valid but different policies.

 

At the moment the mainstream choice is the same. Only the colour of the rosette is different.

UKIP? Really? Come on!

[opinions4u]

UKIP? Really? Come on!

Nah, as I said: "but on the whole their candidates seem to be somewhat eccentric and their wider policies non-existant." and I can't be doing with the Green Party either ... I hate gardening lol!

[Ackey]

Nah, as I said: "but on the whole their candidates seem to be somewhat eccentric and their wider policies non-existant." and I can't be doing with the Green Party either ... I hate gardening lol!

Eccentric is one way to describe them I suppose.

[OldhamSheridan]

To be fair, I'd say me voting UKIP would be a complete protest vote.

 

I don't want to be any closer to Europe deciding everything (or passing further legislation to that extent without promised referendum). I want the main parties to know this, so can only really do it in one way.