UK MP and MEPs in expenses row

Over the past week or so three representatives have been involved in rows over expenses.

Caroline Spelman
Conservative Party Chairwoman and Member for Meriden has allegedly used her expenses to pay for a nanny for her children.

Conservative Party chairman Caroline Spelman has admitted using her MP's parliamentary allowance for payments to her children's former nanny.

Ms Spelman told BBC's Newsnight that the money, paid in 1997 and 1998, was for secretarial work the nanny did.

A Labour MP, Kevan Jones, has called for the matter to be referred to the Parliamentary standards commissioner.

BBC News


Den Dover

Conservative MEP for the North West of England and Tory Chief Whip at Brussels. Alleged to have paid his wife and daughter £750,000 in expenses over work they have done for him. He's been sacked and the Conservative Party are claiming he was removed for unrelated reasons.

One of the Tory MEPs at the centre of a row over expenses has been replaced as the party's chief whip in Brussels.

Den Dover denies breaking any rules in paying his wife and daughter a reported £750,000 for work over nine years.

The Tories say the move is unrelated to the issue of expenses and was normal after a change of leader.

BBC News


Giles Chichester

Leader of the Conservative Party in Brussels and MEP for the South West of England. Admitted to paying thousands of pounds of expenses to a firm of which he is a paid director.

The leader of the Conservative Party's MEPs has quit that role after he admitted breaking expenses rules.

Giles Chichester paid thousands of pounds in staff allowances to a firm of which he is a paid director.

The South West England MEP said he had made a "technical" breach of the rules and had always acted "in good faith".

BBC News



After Derek Conway, Peter Hain and numerous others you'd think our elected representatives might learn a thing or two about 'misappropriating' our money for their own purposes, but apparently not. The two MEPs have been sacked and, unless Spelman can convince the public that she didn't do anything wrong (and let's face it, the public will be VERY sceptical, especially given that MPs have tried to hide their expenses) her position will become untenable.

Personally I find the only things interesting about these cases are

(1) the medias haste to drop the stories,
in stark contrast to the months of microscopic speculation of anything even hinting at the Gov doing anything 'thought' to be dodgy (even when it was within the letter of the rules) and

(2) Cameron's relative silence about the conduct & the expected conduct of his MPs, including front-benchers .