MPs expenses

[wangi]

Watched the sham that was Michael Martin's statement to Parliament this afternoon. Disgusting, sheer Incompetence and clearly just doesn't get it. He should be booted out, as should the rest of the MPs who have been shown to be corrupt. Any other place of work they'd be hung out for the police long ago.

First time I've written to my MP...

[Pal of Porty]

I think this is absolutely disgraceful too. The individual scenarios seem to range from 'milking' an extremely ambiguous system to out and out fraud. I despise this sort of white collar crime where they are falling over themselves to pay money back and apologising for "lapses in their accounting procedures". If they were un-educated, sink estate dwellers, they would be banged up before they could blink.

Many cases are certainly immoral and I hope they severely punish the criminal.

[Bob Jefferson]

It's just pure greed. These people are already living very comfortably. They now have zero credibility. If they had any decency they would resign but no doubt they will keep their noses in the trough until they are booted out en masse at the next election. No wonder so many people have lost faith in politicians.

[SoupDragon]

Heard a newsflash that Speaker to resign
Wonder if he gets a golden handshake/ extra pension.

It seems to be that most of the MPs had been milking situation for a while, all parties, so who do we vote for given that they all seem to be untrustworthy.
Oooops sorry silly me, they ARE politicians.

[wangi]

If they were un-educated, sink estate dwellers, they would be banged up before they could blink.

Indeed. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/benefit-thieves/

[SoupDragon]

I'll peer into my crystal ball to see where the Speaker may go next.

Hmm wonder what the House of Lords expenses look like.

[portocat]

It is a total shocker, it's no wonder the country has been in such financial ruin. I wonder what the total amount comes to, when you add up all the claims for cleaning, curtains, dry rot treatment and so on and so forth. Maybe they could all pay it back, and we would be out of the recession.

[Grunk]

remember it's a doubly whammy too.

Normal folk have to buy stuff out of their earning which have already been taxed.

But expenses are tax free, so for every £1000 an MP spends he/she is essentially taking £2000 out of the public's pocket.

[Porty]

remember it's a doubly whammy too.

Normal folk have to buy stuff out of their earning which have already been taxed.

But expenses are tax free, so for every £1000 an MP spends he/she is essentially taking £2000 out of the public's pocket.

I don´t follow you can you explain?

[Porty]

I agree with the bile and anger against the worst abuses of the expenses system by MP´s but do suspect that it is a minority.

An MP is paid roughly 2/3 of an average London Headteachers salary. Many of them work away from home for mutiple nights a year, many have families. The salary alone is not enough.A good MP works very hard and is effectively "on duty" 24/7:

I don´t know what the answer is but I´m wary of this idea of building an accomodation block for them. I suspect the security bill alone would dwarf the current expenses budget.

[Pal of Porty]

An MP is paid roughly 2/3 of an average London Headteachers salary. Many of them work away from home for mutiple nights a year, many have families. The salary alone is not enough.A good MP works very hard and is effectively "on duty" 24/7:

..............and not entitled to screw their expenses. Furthermore their salaries are almost 2.75 the national average and members of the Cabinet, who earn approx £145k per annum are also guilty. Get out the sun now!

[Maria]

I'm bored and irritated with the way 'The Telegraph' has been allowed to dictate the media headlines for what feels like weeks now. How many more individual accounts of MP expenses are going to be revealed? They must have enough material to bore us for months.

Seems fairly clear to me that yes, some MPs were screwing the system, but others were just claiming the extra £s they were told they were entitled to (even if that meant producing receipts for weird and wonderful items). It was Thatcher's way of awarding a pay increase through the back door.

Yes, by all means reform the system, but at the same time increase their salaries. Running the country is a hugely important job and the salary should reflect this.

[Bob Jefferson]

Well, they are obviously going to tease the story out for as long as possible to maximise their circulation figures.

I'm not sure that awarding MPs larger salaries is going to make them any more honest or hard-working. People choose to become politicians just as people choose to become teachers, each for their own reasons. In fact, there is a very good argument that politicians' salaries should be kept (relatively) low, so that those who enter public service do so through a sense of duty and/or political commitment and not primarily for financial reward.

I have no sympathy for those who have been caught out and it is important that they are brought to justice and dealt with in the same manner as any other thief or fraudster.

[Grunk]

remember it's a doubly whammy too.

Normal folk have to buy stuff out of their earning which have already been taxed.

But expenses are tax free, so for every £1000 an MP spends he/she is essentially taking £2000 out of the public's pocket.

I don´t follow you can you explain?

Lets say you wanted to furnish one of your homes and you were in the upper tax bracket.

A new 3 peice suite, tables, chairs etc. could cost up to £10,000 easily.
So £10,000, comes out of your bank account.

However for that £10,000 to go into your bank account you've had to pay the taxman another ~£10,000 in tax, natinal insurance, VAT (in fact it probably works out as more).

So £20,000 of your actual salary goes towards paying for the furnishings, half for you, half for the government to lose down a hole.

Now imagine that you could claim it on expenses. that means that you personally don't have to pay any money towards it, and therefore you don't have to pay any tax on it, so it's adding an extra £20,000 to your base salary.
Not very much really, so you'd better flip your home to your second home and do it again.

I agree that perhaps good politicians* maybe get paid too little or that they should have expenses, and I believe that reason the expenses rules were so broad was to ensure that there would be little problem with claiming back actual expenses.
But to claim that the expenses were in "the spirit of rules" is smoke and mirrors really. The spirit of the rules should be to only claim for items that are essential to the job, not to manage the rules in such a way as to claim the largest sum possible.

One solution would be to abolish all the rules, but have MPs publish all their claims. That way they need to remember every time what their job is and whom they are serving.

*perhaps when we get good politicians we could pay them more. Just now we should probably let them take a pay bonus out of the country's spare capital in the treasury.

[Pal of Porty]

I'm bored and irritated with the way 'The Telegraph' has been allowed to dictate the media headlines for what feels like weeks now.

Couldn't agree more.