'We were told: Go and spend it, boys,' says MP who claimed £310,000 for his holiday home

'We were told: Go and spend it, boys,' says MP who claimed £310,000 for his holiday home

www.dailymail.co.uk

The Labour politician with the highest expenses claim of any London MP has denied that he was cheating taxpayers by claiming a second-home allowance while maintaining that his main home is a single-bedroom schoolhouse and seaside caravan 70 miles from his constituency.

Defiant Left-winger Harry Cohen said: 'When MPs were given this allowance they were told "Go and spend it, boys" and that is what I have done. It is my right.'

His comments come as The Mail on Sunday launches a petition to demand a full enquiry into MPs' expenses, to report within three months and NOT after the general election as is currently suggested.

(visit the link for the full news article)

These scum are as bad as the bankers who keep them in power.

Our taxes pay these guys as do our taxes bail out the banks and it is these guys who do the 'hard work' of organising the bailing bucket.

And this just after another MP was accused of a similar thing just the other week.

The amount they claim, what they do with the money - and whether it's justified - has become a hardy perennial of the Westminster working week.

This time it's the employment minister, Tony McNulty, who is in the firing line.

Questions are being asked about whether, since 2002, he was entitled to claim a figure, believed to be around £60,000, for a house which he owns, but is used by his parents, in his Harrow East constituency.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Why the heck are we not allowed to claim expenses?
It coss us to go to work, it costs us to get things fixed, it costs us to send our kids to school....the only time we are allowed to claim anything is in the unemployment queue.

A list detailing how MPs can spend £22,000 of taxpayers' money on household goods has been revealed.

It was disclosed they can claim up to £10,000 for a kitchen, buy televisions and music systems worth £750 apiece and pay £6,335 for a bathroom out of their parliamentary allowances.

The amounts MPs can claim under their controversial expenses regime were disclosed by the House of Commons after a Freedom of Information Act request from the Press Association.

www.epolitix.com...

It's just sickening.. this is another thing we gotta stop..

The bankers and their puppet MP's (or should we really be calling them Muppets?) have got to stop or get out and leave us all in peace.. I'm sure we cou;ld all work out a way of handling things with far less trouble, far less cost and we might even get somewhere...

www.dailymail.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I hope his "seaside caravan" gets rolled into the sea. Preferably with him locked in it.

The thing that's always angered me about MPs and second and even third homes is the sheer gut-wrenching irony behind Norman Tebbit's 'get on your bike' bull# about moving to where the employment was. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had an employer that would not only pay for the commute but also give you somewhere to live for when you were 'at work'?

Who gives a flying fudge about this bastard anyway?

Originally posted by SphinxMontreal
Who gives a flying fudge about this bastard anyway?

Everyone should because he typifies everything that's wrong with politicians.

Not only is he on the make, he refuses to see any wrong-doing in his actions.

[edit on 28-3-2009 by Merriman Weir]

This has been going on for decades in Parliament on all sides.

Not sure if any of you saw This Week last Thursday, but Michael Portillo was discussing his experiences when he was first elected as an MP in the 1980s; he was basically told to use his expenses as an extension of his wage, and if he didn't he'd be "letting the side down."

You might also have seen Question Time, in which Eric Pickles (the Conservative Party Chairman) admitted having a second home in London for which he claimed expenses despite having a London constituency. If you missed it, you can see it here.

There's no excuse any more. MPs cannot be trusted to manage their own expenses. They have to be fully audited by an independent body.

A Freedom of Information request about MPs' expenses is due to be released in the next few weeks, giving details about the expenses of all MPs. I imagine there's going to be an absolutely massive mudslide of corruption and sleaze from a sizeable chunk of our elected representatives.

I know not all MPs are doing this kind of thing. There are some thoroughly decent people in Parliament, but there are also a significant number who don't deserve to be there.

[edit on 28/3/09 by Ste2652]

Originally posted by Ste2652
This has been going on for decades in Parliament on all sides.

And yet, sadly, there's still many people who go out of their way to try and justify wrong doings in whatever party they happen to support and do their best to rail against members of other parties when they're guilty of it. I don't understand why people aren't actually more angry when it's perpetrated by politicians they've aligned themselves with, rather than angry when it's one of the 'other sides'.

I know not all MPs are doing this kind of thing. There are some thoroughly decent people in Parliament, but there are also a significant number who don't deserve to be there.

I think this actually accounts for the majority of politicians now. I'm certain that for many, it's a gravy train opportunity whilst they're in office and an opportunity to network and make contacts with industries and firms for when they leave office. For many it's a win-win situation.

It happens here in the US too. Even among non-politicians, just your regular old public servants.

I worked in a fine dining establishment while in college, and I can remember several times certain groups whom I will leave nameless coming in at the end of the fiscal year and blowing thousands of dollars on meals, including $300 glasses of Cognac. (Which caused me to raise an eyebrow or two, trust me.)

All in the name of spending every dime of money they got in order that their budget not be cut the next year.

They dont see anything wrong with it at all. Its pure self interest with no real thought about where else that money could have gone, and how it could have added value to the nation itself.

The money they would spend on that one dinner could have easily put someone through two or three semesters of college. I know, I considered that as I was watching them waste it.

Yeah and they blame us for making the economy go the way it is. Why we spent to much and now we can not make our payments!

Well we had plenty of money, and made our payments on time. But it is real hard to make payments after they lay you off.
Oh we have no savings. Well we did but not after a year of trying to hang on and pay our bills like we should.

But wait it is ok for them to go and spend us dry ! Why they do not have to worry, just like what is going on in the U.K , we can spend just like we want.

Guys it is the same way over here in the U.S .

Just look at the guys at the top of these company's. Some of them got more in there bonus than all there staff made the whole year working. And that goes for quite a few of the floor workers added in.

And they wonder why we would be angry at what they do!

The scandal of MPs' second homes wouldn't be that difficult to rectify, but I doubt they would agree to my suggestion.

Just have serviced blocks of apartments near Parliament and each MP that needed it could be allocated one.

Same (minimal) expenses for everyone as the apartments would be identical.

Oh, and if I were an MP and was encouraged to spend as much as possible, I'd send a huge amount to the animal rescue centre instead of wasting the money.

Originally posted by berenike
The scandal of MPs' second homes wouldn't be that difficult to rectify, but I doubt they would agree to my suggestion.

Just have serviced blocks of apartments near Parliament and each MP that needed it could be allocated one.

A lot of people have suggested this over the years. It's something both my partner and I have thought independently and I've heard it mentioned by a few others in response to MP's second homes in the past. There was a massive discussion about it on Talk Radio/Sport about 10 years ago and people were asking the same things.

Unfortunately whilst it kills two birds with one stone (provides temporary accommodation for MPs and minimises fraudulent activities) they're both birds that MPs like to get as big and fat as possible, like a Christmas goose stolen from the taxpayer.

I remember about two years ago, when some of the claimed expenses were first being made public, seeing our local MP's fuel expense total of just under £7.5K in the previous year.
Now, I drive a round trip of 100 miles a day to the office and it costs me about £2.5K for fuel over a year. This bozo lives less than 20 miles from London city centre yet somehow manages to use £5K more in fuel for business related travel than I do? Also consider that he does not travel into the city every day as some days are spent in his home constituency.
He's either driving a real gas-guzzler or blatantly fiddling the expenses!

That was just his fuel expenses, I wonder what other perks he picks up throughout the year that we don't yet know about?

reply to post by Merriman Weir


You can tell I don't keep up with events very well

I was thinking further that if all these apartments were furnished, every few years or so they could be upgraded and the old furniture, TVs, computers etc (in good condition) could be distributed to the needy.

Originally posted by berenike
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

You can tell I don't keep up with events very well

I was thinking further that if all these apartments were furnished, every few years or so they could be upgraded and the old furniture, TVs, computers etc (in good condition) could be distributed to the needy.

Oh no! It's more a case of 'great minds think alike!'.

It's a really good idea and I'd really like to see some MPs squirm as they try and explain exactly why it's not a good idea or in anyone's 'best interests'. They're always complaining about how hard they work and how late they work (although there's very little evidence of this for most of them), so they really don't need anything too swanky. A 'Travel Lodge' type room should be enough, which would be a lot cheaper to run non-commercially than if Travel Lodge did it themselves. How can they really justify any more than that? Double bed, TV, internet connection, en-suite, meals and so on - what else could they argue they need? I mean other than the opportunity to milk the taxpayer for all they're worth?

they focus on MP's but even at local council level they claim for everything as well..i used to work for a councilor who claimed for everything he could , he even put holidays in Europe down to fact finding trips (( with his wife and 3 daughters)?...

'We were told: Go and spend it, boys,' says MP who claimed £310,000 for his holiday home

i bet this "common purpose" is involved.
i would like to advise everyone to see how they operate...
it's scary...total change of a person over the weekend,
(48 hr)
www.cpexposed.com...

I too have often thought and brought up in conversation the idea of services apartments for MP's. It would cost the taxpayer maybe somewhere in the region of £20-40 million to build 500 half decent apartments that the rank and file MP's could use.

Ministers could have a private apartment in the Ministry itself, that way they are close to work and they feel "special" and above the others, just to sooth their ego's.

Over a period of time, the cost savings from the initial capital outlay for the construction and maintainence would be much less than paying expenses that they audit themselves every year!

Quite why they don't do it is beyond me, except for the obvious gravy train killing aspect of it. It would also provide jobs as well!

reply to post by berenike


The other expense to consider when looking at the costs of these second homes is the security detail. There are many MPs that receive a security detail when they arrive at their second home.

Having this apartment block for MPs would dramatically reduce the cost of providing security and would indeed make the act of securing MPs far more effective.

The MPs do not want this because, as has been pointed out already, they would not be able to claim the false expenses attached to a second home.

The other point to consider is that in this day and age, surely we can make far more use of internet technology to host some/most parliamentary activites.

Being able to mute the MP's juvenile barracking with the push of a button would be dream come true for the Speaker of the House I should imagine

[edit on 29/3/2009 by skibtz]

Originally posted by skibtz
Being able to mute the MP's juvenile barracking with the push of a button would be dream come true for the Speaker of the House I should imagine

That's all part of the fun of adversarial Parliamentary politics though!

It wouldn't be the same watching PM Q's on wed without watching Brown get jeered and boo'd as he makes his latest cock up and ill thought out gamble with the nations future.

reply to post by stumason




Yeah - let's keep Wally Wednesday - but the rest of it?