A position of responsibility?

Diane Abbott 'fell asleep in key Westminster debate on abortion laws'

Tory MP brands her conduct on the committee 'appalling'

She denies ‘storming off’ the committee 

  

Labour health spokesman Diane Abbott was caught up in a new row last night over claims that she fell asleep during a Westminster debate on abortion laws.

Really shows how interested our politicians are in their jobs. No doubt, she's tweeting.

Genus: Laborous Hippopotamoidea Abbutus

This is the Shadow Public Health Minister

WORDS FAIL ME!

Source : DAILY MAIL

Labour MP's granted legal aid over expense claims?

WTF!!!

When I was going through my divorce, I had to pay and I was earning 20k at the time and trying to support 2 children, even though my ex had left me for some tart and refused to help me financially with the mortgage and bills. I ended up 16k in debt and had to sell the house to pay for it.

They wouldn't give me legal aid.

Why are these rich troughers eligible for legal aid?

No wonder this country is broke.

JUST REMEMBER, THIS IS NOT GOVERNMENT MONEY, IT'S THE TAXPAYER THAT FOOTS THE BILL!!!!!

Ashok Kumar died of natural causes.

GREED!

"Prime Mentalist Gordon Brown said Mr Kumar was "a tenacious campaigner" and "a warm and incredibly generous man" - Easy to be generous when you are ripping the taxpayer off!

Greedy fuck probably died of a heart attack! A Good riddance* to another parasite! "Mr Kumar regularly claimed the maximum £400-per month for food, including during the summer recess, when MPs are in their constituencies - which also breaches Commons rules.

In total, he claimed £87,729 for accommodation and living costs between 2004 and 2008 - the maximum allowed."

"In early 2005 he kitted it out buying a sofa, a flat-screen TV and an 'easy chair' with stool, to a TV aerial with a 16ft mast , a table and chairs, a dishwasher, a microwave oven, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a dressing table and a DVD recorder.

One month later, Mr Kumar billed the taxpayer nearly £800 for repairs to his original flat, which included work to 'remove mirrors from false ceiling above bath".

* A Good riddance... only a few more crooked MP's left to go!

Meaning (I just love these British old sayings)...

An expression of pleasure on being rid of some annoyance - usually an individual.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, 1606:

THERSITES: I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.

PATROCLUS: A good riddance.

Here's a Thought!

I just read in "The Telegraph online", MP's have won the fight to keep their addresses private. Of course, everyone is up in arms about it.

"Despite repeated promises by Gordon Brown of greater transparency, there are no plans to reveal MPs’ addresses when claims relating to 2008-09 are published later this year.".

Actually, I don't blame the MP's. I wouldn't want my address readily available on the web.

Here's a thought..... why don't the fees office just give each separate property registered a unique number?

That could be shown against any payments made against it.

Extra, Extra...

The Complete MPs' Expenses Files is free inside The Daily Telegraph this Saturday.

UNCENSORED!

I don´t know if it´s legal, but they´re doing it!

MP's of Gross Misconduct pocket 1.2 million

Twelve MPs forced to quit over the expenses scandal will pocket an extra £1.2million of taxpayers' money because they refuse to go now.

By staying until an election they will qualify for 'parachute' payments of up to £129,532, depending on length of service.

What can I say, only in politics, under the current Labour and Conservative Party, both as bad as each other!

Shameful, I'm speechless. 

THEY SHOULD BE SACKED, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATE!

Stop Whinging

Why is it that the female MP's seem to be whinging about getting caught more than the men? Julie Kirkbride is the latest whinger and believe me, I'm sick of it.

Miss Kirkbride & Mr Mackay (are these people married?) have, over the last seven years claimed a grand total of £1,722,076. The figures were totalled from "They Work for You" (that's a laugh). Whether they followed the rules or not, they have both broken the primary rules of their "Code of Conduct". Nearly Two million pounds, that's without their wages and anything else they have been earning on the side.

Each MP that has been caught should read this book again.

Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends. That means Miss Kirkbride's brother and sister. A steaming great mansion and a flat in Westminster and presumably also the constituency house they share.

Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office. So, all those MP's who are trying to pass the buck, STOP!  

YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR DECISIONS AND ACTIONS, NOBODY ELSE!

Shut the f*ck up, the lot of you and take responsibility just as we have to!

Suicide Watch

As a matter of interest, did we ever find out which MP's were on suicide watch over expenses?

I wonder what Hazel Blears knows that has Brown quaking in his boots!!!

Resign in Disgrace, Become a Lord

Well, I'm gobsmacked once again. It seems a fat, greedy, lying, kniving, theving, dishonourable, thick git can become a Lord if you have friends in the right places AND get a £1.4m pension.

 The working classes must be proud of their humble representatives! 

It's immoral, NO it's thoroughly obscene.

The Times

The Daily Mail

Political Betting.com

Political Classes

It's beginning to irritate me now. "The Political Classes". Since when did politicians get their own class status? 

Is this a new class between middle and upper? It's very pretentious and very annoying!

Police Investigation into leak : not in public interest.

"Scotland Yard will not investigate the leaking of details of MPs' allowances and expenses to the Daily Telegraph, the Metropolitan police said today.

While the police began assessing allegations of misuse of parliamentary expenses by individual MPs, the source of the leaked information that has rocked parliament was off the hook after senior officers ruled that a criminal investigation into the matter would not be in the public interest.

However, MPs who have attracted the most controversy over the use of their expenses have yet to hear whether they face charges of fraud or other criminal offences".

Thank goodness for some sense at last!

Full article The Guardian Online

MP's Expenses

I've been speaking to alot of my friends today about the expenses story. I have come to the following conclusion.

The "legal" expenses would not be begrudged by ordinary people if they felt that the government was actually representing them. It seems they are more pissed off with the fact that the taxpayer is funding a government and shadow cabinet that are not listening to them. With Labour in power, the taxpayer is funding it's own totalitarian state and with the Conservatives, they feel their money is being wasted on a party that will actually be no different to the Labour Party.

All the people I have spoken to want less to do with the EU. Infact, many of them want OUT altogether basically because they feel we get nothing in return except a ridiculous human rights policy.

Many of them feel that considering 80% of our policies, laws and legislation are made in Brussels that we shouldn't even have so many civil servants.

All of them are fed up with their money being squandered on making their lives a misery. ID Cards, NHS Database and paying for Immigrants, illegal wars etc. They are fed up with the amount of crime and sick to death of being told what they can and can't do, in particular the no smoking ban (the list is endless, but you get the picture).

There you have it..

If Mr Hollobone can do it......

Full article in the Telegraph online

Minister for Justice, don't make me laugh

Shahid Malik, the "Justice Minister", who ran up the highest expenses claim of any MP, has defended himself and insisted he will not pay the money back to Parliamentary authorities.

Speaking from his home in Dewsbury, West Yorks, he insisted he was "as straight as they come" and blamed the controversy on the system of allowances being "in complete tatters". 

Not his fault, it's the systems fault.......That's why he milked the system to the enth degree! He really maxed out.

During the first year as an MP, he made 13 separate claims for different items of furniture or electrical appliances totalling more than £7,000. The fees office blocked several items and he eventually received £6,147. He also regularly claimed the maximum allowable £400 a month for food. The most contentious item was a £2,600 home cinema system including a 40in flat-screen television. The fees office paid half, after initially rejecting the claim. It blocked claims for a portable DVD player and an iPod during the same year.The spending on the Peckham house continued during 2007-08, with 24 separate claims for furniture, decorating and electrical goods. These included a £671 fireplace, a leather daybed sofa and a £510 fitted wardrobe.Mr Malik was also reimbursed for a £730 “massage chair”. Last night, the MP said he had a “back problem”.The Justice Minister said he would repay the £65 he claimed for his non-payment of council tax courts summons. In total, in three years, Mr Malik claimed £66,827 for the property - £18,173 less than the original cost of the house.

Justice Minister? No wonder our country is in such a state, even the Justice Minister is a greedy, troughing politician. Is it too much to ask that our Justice Minister has a sense of what's right and wrong or am I being naive?

I hope your constituents get rid of you. Infact, I hope all the MP's that have taken advantage of the system are ousted by their constituents.

People are angry!

Public anger over MPs' expenses boiled over yesterday when the office of Andrew MacKay's Tory MP wife was attacked by an angry constituent.

Windows at the front of Julie Kirkbride's Worcestershire offices were smashed by a brick as her husband resigned over the scale of his excessive claims. 

The attack last night raised fears that their shocking abuse of taxpayers' money is putting the safety of MPs at risk.

They're all at it!

Hank - a good guy!

A whistleblower teacher who faced the sack after exposing a state school head's allegedly unlawful bonuses of £200,000 is expected to be allowed back to work. Sir Alan Davies, head of Copland Community College in Wembley was suspended yesteday while auditors investigate claims that senior staff received almost £1 million in "unlawful" bonus payments over seven years at the school.

What is our country coming to? Being a politician and public servant was always such a respected profession, don't they have any scruples or morals anymore and they're teaching our kids?. I'm sure their wages are  pretty good compared to the average factory worker!

Hank Roberts, Head of Geography spoke out against the payments but Sir Alan suspended him using another reason as an excuse to get rid of him and shut him up.

However, he was supported by two colleagues.  "Shane Johnschwager, a history teacher, said: “I did not become a teacher to get rich. I chose a career which is a public service and anyone who is in education for personal enrichment has utterly missed the point".

“I fully expect to be reinstated and all charges dropped,” he said.

Dave Kubenk, a science teacher at Copland, said he believed the three would have been sacked had Sir Alan remained in charge for much longer.

Sir Alan and his chair of governors have robustly defended the bonus payments and insisted that he was “worth every penny”. The school has confirmed that Sir Alan received £130,000 in bonuses over the last two years alone. Separate documents seen by the Standard suggest he received at least another £65,000 in previous years.

"Worth every penny?", is that the same as "I kept within the rules?

Yesterday Brent Council suspended Sir Alan, deputy head Dr Richard Evans and bursar Columbus Udokoro, and stripped the governors of their powers over the school's budget.

That'll be it I expect, keeps his bonuses, gets a fine pension and remains "Sir" Alan.... this country is going to the dogs! It does make you wonder how the government have the cheek to fine us for smoking in pubs and putting our litter in the wrong bins doesn't it?

from the London Evening Standard

Gobsmacked!

I ran down to our local English newsagents this morning to buy A Daily Telegraph. I NEVER buy English newspapers normally but this one was special. 

I am still too speechless to write a post on the whole scandalous mess. They cannot continue to use the defence that it was within the rules.

One paragraph springs to mind that was not adhered to by these charlatans : It comes from the Parliamentarians Code of Conduct.

They betrayed the public's trust placed in them. They took the fucking piss!

BBC Reporting Stuff!

Cabinet Expenses to be published

Gordon Brown claimed back £6,000 after paying his brother for cleaning at his Westminster flat, it has been reported.

It is among details of expenses claims made by Cabinet ministers which are to be published by the Daily Telegraph.

No 10 said Mr Brown reimbursed his brother for the share of the cost and did not profit at all from it.

The paper also says Jack Straw used his expenses to claim back the entire council tax on his second home despite already having a 50% discount on it.

Mr Straw said all his claims were within the rules and that he spotted errors himself and repaid the money.

The newspaper has obtained details of receipts for claims made by the prime minister, Mr Straw, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears and other senior Labour party figures.

SHIT HIT FAN TIME!!!

Porkie Uddin

The baroness, who denies any wrongdoing, said she welcomed the investigation and would co-operate fully. The peer was reported by the Sunday Times to have registered a two-bedroom flat in Maidstone, Kent, as her main home, even though she lived just a few miles away from Westminster in a house in Wapping, east London. That arrangement meant she was able to claim the controversial parliamentary second home allowance on the property in Wapping, the newspaper said.Neighbours of the Maidstone flat told the newspaper that no one lived there and it was not even furnished but the peer insisted she "regularly" stayed at the property, which she owned, while the Wapping home was rented.Lady Uddin said: "I understand that the Clerk of Parliament, as accounting officer, has been asked to review my expenses claims."I welcome this review and will co-operate fully with him in the hope of a speedy resolution and clarity that I did not break the rules of the House." Skynews

Are they that sure they are going to get off with a "sorry?".

The Baroness, who became Britain's first woman Muslim peer in 1998, said she would make no further comment until the investigation was concluded. In a statement from her solicitors to the Sunday Times, she said: "I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or breached any House of Lords rules. "The Wapping house is rented, while I own the property in Maidstone. The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it."

Yes, the Wapping House is rented from a Housing Association meant to help poor people while you are a rich bitch! You are also meant to be a Lady (which you certainly are not). I did look on the net to see why you were given the title of Baroness, but I can't for the life of me find what you did that was so special to deserve it. The Blairs "first woman muslim peer" no doubt, didn't really matter who, did it? 

The line that really got me was : " Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it"

Now, convince me. What on earth would you be doing in a 2 bedroomed flat in Maidstone while your husband and FIVE children are living in their Housing Association property in Wapping, a few miles away from where you work and where you are registered to vote?

UPDATE FROM OH

You're going to love this :)

Ungulate Flu

I can't believe the fuss, IT'S FLU!!!

We only have one swine problem as far as I can see! 

"Resign Petition" at Number 1 Spot - (3.30pm GMT)

Asked for the Prime Minister's response to the petition today, Mr Brown's spokesman said: "What he is doing is focusing on addressing the needs of the people of the country and the big issues we face in terms of the global economic downturn." Belfast Telegraph 

MP's Get Three Month Holiday!

MPs have awarded themselves a three-month summer holiday - that's one week longer than last year.

Politicians, who only returned to work today after a two-week break over Easter, will leave Westminster once again on July 22. Their summer holiday alone is more than double the average British allowance of five weeks per year.

MPs, who earn £64,700 a year, are already battling growing claims of sleaze after a series of expense scandals and an e-mail smear campaign row.

The long summer break has been described by some MPs as a symptom of the lack of purpose in the House of Commons.

This is now only a part-time position. We already know that 80% of our laws come from the EU, so MP's are obviously sitting doing nothing, twiddling their thumbs. 

I vote they are on half wages from now on!