MP's - disgusted

[Sneds]

I'd fill the House of Commons and blow the whole bloody lot of them up.

This comment is actually ridiculous. Do you ever think before you type?

I don't understand all the fuss to be honest. If your employer told you that you could claim for a bunch of stuff, would you politely decline?

Homer is absolutely right, it's the system that is the problem. Not the MPs. Why they would chose to not claim for expenses just because they're in the public eye is beyond me.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I was Expenses Supervisor for Oracle a few years ago and part of my remit was to look at the consultancy division and their claims. Although the expenses were eventually billed back to the customer, there had been little auditing going on and so they had all got in the habit of racking up bar bills, dodgy movies in hotels etc. I wasn't the most popular bloke when I introduced a get tough policy but in the end everyone knew where they stood (especially when claims were bounced) and customers were happier knowing that they weren't being fleeced either.

Before that I was expenses manager for part of General Electric and even had a hand in writing an updated expenses policy. There were a lot of guys who were taking the mickey especially in regards taxi costs and a few had very strange exchange rates. Its not an easy thing to police even in a small (relatively speaking) private organistation and so there are many potential flaws in getting the right people to vet these claims on a regular basis.

 

[viscount17]

one of the latest in this saga is that sinn fein MP's have been claiming the second home allowance despite their not attending Westminster.

this surely must be out and out fraud not just playing the system.

 

[mono217]

2 words A JOKE

 

[Tommo21]

So we’ve now got Cameron trying to get the moral high ground by saying sorry while distancing himself from any other tory MP by saying each politician will need to answer for themselves. Rubbish, he and every one of then all know fine well they were filling their boots, food, furnishings, gardens, renovations, loo roll.

If you can’t see through Cameron and his nicey nicey approach then god help us all.

 

[KeefG]

I can only say i'm well & truly disgusted at what I am seeing & hearing coming out of the Houses of Parliament over these expenses.

The "expense" that annoys me the most is Hazel Blears not paying Capital Gains Tax when she sold her 2nd home in London, but also the way she has fiddled the expenses by claiming for her original home as her 2nd home and claiming expenses on it and then changing her 2nd home via the taxman to her 2 new ones in London, and then claiming yet more expenses on those:

"The news emerged after receipts leaked to the Telegraph suggested that Ms Blears received expenses towards three properties in a single year.

In March 2004 she designated her second home as a house in her Salford constituency, which she has owned with her husband since June 1997.

During that month she bought an £850 television and video recorder and a £651 mattress for this home.

The following month she changed to declare the Kennington flat as her second home.

After selling it four months later she apparently claimed for nights in hotels in London, including the Zetter in Clerkenwell, where rooms cost £211 a night.

In December 2004 Ms Blears purchased another London flat with a mortgage of more than £1,000 a month and declared it as her second home.

Over the next four months, she claimed for groceries, furniture worth £4,874, a bed at £899 - and another new TV costing £913."

So, she swaps her 2nd home with the taxman, claims a shed load of expenses for new TV & mattress, then she swaps her 2nd home to the London home, sells it for a tidy profit of £45,000, doesnt pay capital gains tax and claims expenses for nights in a very nice hotel (whats wrong with £56 rooms at Premier Inn?) and then buys another new flat which we pay for and then buys yet more furniture, a bed & another TV, which begs the question where did the stuff go from the 2nd home she sold?????????

It stinks to high heaven and whole lot of them should be forced to pay back every single penny.