Goodness, doesn’t time fly when the blogosphere is falling down around you. It hardly seems seven days since we outed another little piggy peer with his snout deep in the trough that we have to keep refilling from our taxes.This week I’d like to present to you His Nobleness, The Baron Taylor of Warwick, who has been caught using someone else’s home address to claim thousands of pounds in expenses. The Noble Lord told the House of Lords that his main home was a terraced house in Oxford in which he did not actually live (well, he didn’t tell them that bit, obviously). He also neglected to tell them that he didn’t own it either.
Worse still, he never bothered to mention his “arrangement” to the person who actually owns the house. Right, I know it’s complicated but I’ll try to explain. Watch out for the tricky bit... there’s a Mr Taylor and a Lord Taylor; they are not one and the same:
The house belongs to a certain Tristram Wyatt who is an academic at the university. Mr Wyatt’s companion, Mr Robert Taylor, is the step-nephew of the Noble Lord. Mr Taylor has said that Lord Taylor does not live there and has never lived there. Mr Wyatt was not aware that his address was being used. The neighbours have confirmed that the only people who live there are Mr Wyatt and Mr Taylor.
Lord Taylor, on the other hand, lives in Ealing with his family. However, but telling the House of Lords that his main residence was outside of the capital he has been able to claim expenses to the tune of £70,000, between 2001 and 2007. Expenses to which, needless to say, he was not entitled.
When confronted with this earlier in the year Lord Taylor said that he lived with his mother in the Midlands (of England). His Lordship seemingly has a short memory, for his mother died in 2001. Presumably he knew about this, but it slipped his mind.
Sometimes you wonder at the arrogance of these people. First the man uses his dead mother’s address and then his step-nephew’s address, and it never occurs to him that he will be caught. The worst of it is that Lord Taylor is a barrister (not just noble, but learned as well). In short, you'd think he'd know better
One a week... sometimes more, and yet, I heard someone on the radio this morning telling us that there were just a few bad apples in the barrel.
I wonder when it will occur to them that it might be an idea to drop all this nonsense about Rt Hon and Noble when they address each other. They are not honourable, they are dishonourable; they are not noble, they are ignoble. In turns we laugh at them or are spitting mad at them. They have disgraced our parliament. They are making us a laughing stock.
I do not wish to defame Baron Taylor, but from the evidence presented in The Times, it does seem that the man is both a liar and a thief. Why he is not locked up?
" ... man is both a liar and a thief. Why he is not locked up?"
ReplyDeleteUm??? Is this a trick question?
Would I try to trick you guys....?
ReplyDeleteNo. I'm looking for a serious answer, and there's points. And points mean prizes. So thinking caps on. Why is he not locked up?
Could it be because he's black? Just sayin, can't think of any other reason he shouldn't be a guest of her Majesties pleasure (and I don't mean the House of Lords)
ReplyDeletetris,
ReplyDeleteIn my work contract it says that any expenses occurred must be receipted and any abuse of the system will result in disciplinary action. I would suggest that if I fiddled my expenses to the tune of £1000, far less the figure you mention, this disciplinary action would involve a dawn raid by the police.
QM:
ReplyDeleteWell, it could be, but then that wouldn't explain why Lord Brooke, Viscount Falkland, Lord Morris, Baron Rosser, Baroness Goudie... and numerous others who have filled thse pages over the weeks aren't in pokey, eating porrige and enjoying all the comforts of Her Majesty's hospitality. They are all white but seem, despite having lied and cheated, are still enjoying the fruits of their... nah, OUR labour.
I think, that the common denominator has nothing to do with colour, or political allegiance, or whether they are hereditary or life... it all has to do with that horrible, undemocratic, expensive, overpopulated mausoleum that we call the House of Lords. Yes, this one is black, and there are a couple from the sub continent, but I don't think that that is the main contributing factor to their continued freedoms.
We manage perfectly well in Scotland without our laws being looked at by a load of overpaid, self important "aristocrats". I remember reading when the police were thinking about looking into some abuse of privilege last year that the rules of that place made any kind of investigation next to impossible. It's like some sort of ghetto for upper class low life.
I suggest that we get rid of it and them, preferably by the end of next week. You'd never notice another 750 useless wastes of space on the dole queue.
brownlie:
ReplyDeleteLike your workplace, mine demands that a receipt be produced for every last penny spent. The number of time that I have pressed the wrong button in a car park and failed to get a receipt for my £1.50 and so failed to be able to claim, despite the boss being with me, and seeing me pay for the damned thing. It's about auditors!
When I worked (for a very short time)for Jobcentre, the claiming of expenses was so complicated that it was much easier just to forget it... Cost of parking, £2.00; time wasted completing expenses form 1/2 hour @ £15 per hour.
Like you, if I ever ever tried to fiddle any money at all, it would be police prosecution, regardless of the amount involved. A matter of principle.
It's "one rule for them and one for us".
Just as well we're happy being of the serf class.
Seriously, it's one of the big problems in Britian, this class thing. And it really is just amazing that in the 21st century we have a House of Peers with real power. We, who go around the world preaching democracy and indeed going to war to enforce it.
There is a lot of talk about lack of democracy in the EU, and lack of finacnial accountablilty. They say that the Commission's accounts haven't been signed off by auditors for years. I presume that the House of Lords' accounts HAVE been signed off.... but without anyone ever seeing a receipt. There's signing off and there's signing off!
"Oh, of course we signed them orf" said the auditors. "They are all jolly good chaps, what."
Oh so hard not to defame these good peoples names. And I should point out that in Scots law defamation occurs when you either write or speak (to some person other than the one defamed) about somebody and say something that is untrue or brings them into disrepute. However if the Times implies that he stole money then he is as far as I am concerned a thief and should therfore be in jail.
ReplyDeleteWell, the Times is pretty definate on this. Their headline reads:
ReplyDelete'Lord Taylor of Warwick lied in house dodge'
I guess they will ahve checked their stuff before they printed that!
Tris
ReplyDeleteit was trick when I briefly Glanced I thought it started with a 'D' Phew! couldn't believe my eyes for a moment
Hi comedian.... welcome to you from across the sea.
ReplyDeleteNever any tricks here... lots of mispellings though, so you always have to be a bit wary. LOL....