Jacqui Smith expenses - the thieving SLAG

[Easy 10]

So lets get this straight.
Jacqui Smith, the then Home Secretary, has been found to have wilfully broke the rules by designating the single bedroom she was renting from her sisters house in London as her "main residence", when police evidence contradicted the number of nights she claimed to have stayed there.

This then enabled her to claim £116,000 in expenses for her family £300,000 5-bedroom home in Redditch. In addition to maxing out the mortgage interest claims, she also had the bathroom done out, spent over £1,000 on having an antique fireplace installed AND claimed on the coal to burn on it, £460 on a dining room table, £1,100 on two Samsung plasmas, DVD players and digital set-top boxes. Oh, and we also paid about a tenner for her old mans skin-flicks he ordered while she was staying at her sisters in London (although I think she's now graciously paid this back).

None of the other expenses are being paid back though. The Committee of Standards and Privilges (for this hearing made up of 5 Labour MP's, 1 Conservative) instead simply ordered her to apologise in the Commons. They look after their own then.

Unreal. This scavenging parasite should be paying back every penny of the cash she effectively embezzled from the taxpayer. HOW she has got away with this, when other MP's are having to pay back on their own inflated and unnecessary claims I honestly have no idea. The man on the street would be locked up for this.
The whole thing absolutely REEKS.

 

[Titanic]

Some of the stuff you make up is simply unbelievable... you have to try harder next time, Easy

 

[Easy 10]

Sorry Titanic.
It was a bit of a daft wind-up, on reflection. Nobody was going to fall for it.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Virtually all politicians are thieving scum so I don't really understand why anyone is surprised by this stuff. The situation has always (well for ages anyway) been that MPs pretty much had the key to a room full of money that they were allowed to take from under the proviso that they filled in certain forms. So frikkin what. The total "claimed" by these t**ts is still a drop in the ocean in comparison to how we've been fleeced by the banks. Perspective and common sense is required I think.

 

[Stoo82]

The worst offender for me is Brown. Why does he need a second home in London? I thought he lived at no 10.

 

[itszamora]

The worst offender for me is Brown. Why does he need a second home in London? I thought he lived at no 10.

To be fair, the actual living private living quarters at No. 10 are tiny and he does have a young family to bring up.

 

[Storer68]

Actually, whie he was a youndg and single Chancellor, he lived at Number 10 and the Blairs, with their ever expanding family, lived in the more spacious accodation of Number 11

 

[Easy 10]

Virtually all politicians are thieving scum so I don't really understand why anyone is surprised by this stuff. The situation has always (well for ages anyway) been that MPs pretty much had the key to a room full of money that they were allowed to take from under the proviso that they filled in certain forms. So frikkin what. The total "claimed" by these t**ts is still a drop in the ocean in comparison to how we've been fleeced by the banks. Perspective and common sense is required I think.

"So frikkin what" ?
So it really doesn't bother you in the slightest that money we have paid to HMRC has been systematically abused and dipped into by self-serving politicians who are feathering their own nests at OUR expense ? These people are supposed to be public servants, but a large proportion of them are just milking the system (ie us) for all they can get. Its borderline theft in some cases, and in Smiths case I'd say its OUTRIGHT theft.

The fact that we've all been shafted by the bankers gambling and bonus culture is also dispicable, but it doesn't make the MP's expenses scandal any less revolting.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I didn't say it didn't bother me in the slightest just that a few million quid paid in "expenses" to MPs does not affect the state of the country. What the banks did has directly caused hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs and now we have a ridiculous budget deficit which will be paid for by us for years to come in taxes and ruined public services.

It is all money out of the same pot and if you want to get angry about something then it makes sense to be angry at the main offender.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whistleblower to the Telegraph had been slipped a backhander by someone at Lloyds TSB as the expenses fuss has taken the heat off them nicely.

As I originally said, I knew most MP were avaricious, thieving scum already.

I do agree that if it can be proven that a crime's been committed (tax fraud etc) then they should be prosecuted obviously.

 

[Easy 10]

Its all just SHIT isn't it.

 

[LlcoolJ]

Basically a big pile of SHIT. Yeah.

 

[Perry Milkins]

It has been said that they 'only' get a basic salary of £62K although I am sure that members of the cabinet get a whack more etc.

Aside from the principle of dipping in to taxpayers hard earned funds on expenses - would the debate be froma different angles if they were to earn more and thuis be able to 'feather nests' from their salary instaed of expenses?

Taking the debate on a tangent whilst £62K pa is an appareciable salary (to me) it pales into insignificance to that which is earned bu Rio and his mates never mind the city whizzers? So are we saying that someone entrusted to govern our country should be paid less.

 

[cunning fergus]

I didn't say it didn't bother me in the slightest just that a few million quid paid in "expenses" to MPs does not affect the state of the country. What the banks did has directly caused hundreds of thousands of people to lose their jobs and now we have a ridiculous budget deficit which will be paid for by us for years to come in taxes and ruined public services.

It is all money out of the same pot and if you want to get angry about something then it makes sense to be angry at the main offender.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whistleblower to the Telegraph had been slipped a backhander by someone at Lloyds TSB as the expenses fuss has taken the heat off them nicely.

As I originally said, I knew most MP were avaricious, thieving scum already.

I do agree that if it can be proven that a crime's been committed (tax fraud etc) then they should be prosecuted obviously.

Maybe if it wasn't so easy for the political classes to benefit as well as they from their time in Government we would get better law and regulation.

Quite how any MP (with their Pension package) would be able to empathise with someone on the State Pension is laughable....................if they did have to provide their own fund as many of their constiuents do then maybe we wouldn't have had a Financial Regulator with their eye off the ball.

Yes the banks are to blame, but the Government are not blameless either.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Jacqui Smith ia ODIOUS. No wonder her old man resorted to skin flicks. Her gaffes about trying to ban prostituation is , maybe comendable although everyone knows they serve a purpose and role in society and have done for thousands of years but her recent trying to ban punternet has resulted in its membership and traffic rocketing so much so that the owner of the site has done a letter thanking her for trying to ban it and directly thousands of people to his site who would not otherwise have known about it, don't believe me see for yourself, however the site is NSFW. She is just clueless.

 

[LlcoolJ]

I think MPs should be paid more as a salary, there should be no expenses (other than the usual type that employees can claim) and (most importantly) they should be banned from doing any job other than that of being an MP.

No directorships, no consultancy fees, nothing other than serving their constituents. Otherwise all you have is lobbyists, cronyism and corruption. There are a million other things that need changing but this is one of the most important.

As for the "financial regulator", do you really think they didn't know what was going on? They didn't take their eye off the ball they were told to keep schtum. Powerful people were making serious money. See above.

f*** it, I'm just a cynic........ but I'm right.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Actually its Harriert Harman but still amusing in that its good intentions back fire time and time again.

 

[pork pie]

To be fair, the actual living private living quarters at No. 10 are tiny and he does have a young family to bring up.

Hang on.... I thought he had been given extra space when he was at No 11, to deal with that?

 

[Easy 10]

It has been said that they 'only' get a basic salary of £62K although I am sure that members of the cabinet get a whack more etc.

Aside from the principle of dipping in to taxpayers hard earned funds on expenses - would the debate be froma different angles if they were to earn more and thuis be able to 'feather nests' from their salary instaed of expenses?

Taking the debate on a tangent whilst £62K pa is an appareciable salary (to me) it pales into insignificance to that which is earned bu Rio and his mates never mind the city whizzers? So are we saying that someone entrusted to govern our country should be paid less.

1. They know what the salary is before they become MP's. Nobody forces them into office, they actively pursue it through chasing our votes. And bear in mind, a number of MP's also manage to supplement their MP salary through taking up non-executive "advisory" roles in the private sector. So they do alright.

2. Comparing footballers salary with those of MP's, or most other people on the planet for that matter, is something of a futile exercise because they have been inflated to such mind-boggling lunacy levels, that they really cannot logically be compared with anything in the real world.

Lets be clear, I have no problem with MP's claiming expenses per-sé. Plenty of other professions allow this, and people shouldn't be expected to pay out of their own pocket in order to carry out their job. But regardless what salary MP's are paid, they have used and abused the system to supplement their salary at our expense for stuff that bears NO relation to them doing their job, and has everything to do with them feathering their nests and generally taking the piss out of us.

 

[itszamora]

Hang on.... I thought he had been given extra space when he was at No 11, to deal with that?

I was fortunate enough to visit no.10 recently (he wasn't there) and the impression given was that he lived in the flat there. However you may be right, as has been said above he used number 10 whilst the Blairs lived in 11. However, I've no idea of Alistair Darling's family situation.

 

[Dave the OAP]

It wouldn't surprise me if the whistleblower to the Telegraph had been slipped a backhander by someone at Lloyds TSB as the expenses fuss has taken the heat off them nicely.

.

Can I just ask if you are making an allegation of that?