CHAYTOR THE CHEATER: WOOLAS THE....WOOL ASS

It’s not been a good day for our MPs.

It’s official, David Chaytor has admitted being a thief, or as the CPS (the Procurator Fiscal in England) put it, he admitted ‘dishonesty’.

Earlier this week Chaytor was told that he, along with two other Labour ex-MPs, that he had lost an appeal against being tried by a court like ordinary people. The “Supreme Court” ruled that parliamentary privilege does not cover ordinary common or garden crimes like stealing.

Apparently he has been granted unconditional bail and so was free to go home. Either the prisons must be full or we are already seeing preferential treatment.

Chaytor stole £1,950 claiming for IT services; he also claimed £1,175 a month to rent a flat in Regency Street, London, which he owned. That theft came to a total of £12,925; additionally he rented a cottage from his mother and illegally charged us £5,425.

An investigation by the Telegraph showed Chaytor to be a serial flipper having changed the designation of his second home six times, including to houses owned by his son, his mother and himself and claiming mortgage or rental for them.

Although he had originally complained that he was being unfairly treated (that’s a bloody laugh), he must have realized that ‘the ba’ was in the slates’ and admitted that he had acted “stupidly and inexplicably”. “There has been an unforgivable error in my accounting procedures for which I apologize unreservedly,” he is reported to have said. I’ll say there has David, it’s called greed.

Chaytor was one of these MPs who claimed the maximum he could for everything. It seems that his whole family was to benefit from him being an MP. He had his wife working for him; he claimed food allowances, stamp duty and bought new furniture when he flipped and moved home. He managed to use every allowance to the max. He even had a new door for one of the properties which cost £881.

The maximum he can serve for this crime is 7 years, however, I will bet that he gets a far lighter sentence and that he serves most of it in a nice comfy open prison.

In other criminal ex-MPs stories today Phil Woolarse has had his appeal against the ruling that he is barred from standing as an MP, overturned. He was found guilty of lying on his election material.

It’s just as well that’s not a criminal offence per se, otherwise the English Prison Service would have to find a vast number of spare cells.

In a way it’s a pity. The wool-brained, witless joke of a minister was always amusing to watch as he made a complete mess of everything he touched. My particular favorite is him standing in front of the cameras like a naughty boy agreeing with every word that Joanna Lumley was saying, whilst looking down at his shoes and swaying. Government minister , ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

Pratt more like.

REJOICE AT THAT NEWS: A MODICUM OF JUSTICE AT LAST FOR ONE OF OUR (NOW EX) MPS

The Liberal Democrats are, I suspect, about to find out that success can be a double edge sword.

Phil “Lumley” Woolas, a former Labour minister has lost the case brought against him by his Liberal opponent in the last UK General Election.

He is to be barred from the Commons for three years and the election contest for his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat re-run. Woolas, however has said that he will fight the ruling and will seek a judicial review.

The judgement says that he broke electoral law with a "toxic" dirty tricks campaign against Elywn Watkins. Basically he lied through his teeth about Watkins and his association with and funding by Muslim fanatics. Lying to the public becomes such a habit that he must have imagined he could get away with whoppers like this. His team hoped to bring out the white Sun-reading vote by exploiting the racial divide in Oldham.

His win, by 103 votes, has been declared void. He was ordered to pay £5,000 to Mr Watkins, whose costs he will also have to pay.

Woolas apparently feared that he would lose his seat following disclosures about his expense claims which included submitting receipts for items including tampons and women's clothing.

He had also bought himself a deal of derision with his mishandling of Gurkha resettlement rights and was lampooned over his hapless confrontation with Joanna Lumley who tanked him despite her complete lack of political experience.

However, whilst, if Woolas hadn’t lied and cheated his way to his seat the Liberal Democrat would now be sitting in parliament, the situation for Liberals all over the country has changed dramatically since last May.

Recently clocking an amazing 9% in a YouGov poll, the Liberals are not half, or even a third of the party they were only 7 short months ago when they were polling 29-32% following poster boy Nick Clegg’s appearance in the leaders’ (or a least “some” leaders’) debates. They may find, therefore, that they face a very different situation on the streets today.

I wonder by how much Labour will win the seat now...

Interesting irony here that the Shadow Immigration Minister played a race card to cheat his way into his seat. A racist ex-Immigration Minister, now ex-Shadow Immigration Minister...tsk tsk....

MARGARET MORAN MAY FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES

Oh Joy.....

At last the police are to investigate the behaviour of Margaret Moran, surely one of the worst offenders when it came to expenses.

Of course when the Telegraph released some details of how she had been fiddling, she was tout de suite on the telly saying that she would sue. That bravado (like Phil Woolas’s) disappeared when someone a bit brighter than her pointed out that...well, as she was guilty of all the Telegraph had printed and a good deal more, it might be better to shut up and hope it would go away.

It didn’t.

So today the Telegraph gets its own back on Mrs Moran for her little outburst by celebrating the fact that she is likely to be the 5th MP to be charged with abuse of taxpayer funded expenses. And in a lengthy article goes back over all of her little misdemeanours, including her most recent one, which unfortunately was caught on camera by undercover reporters working for a television programme.

The litany of alleged crimes for which she may be charged would make a lifer at H M Prison Barlinnie blush. False invoices, nonexistent companies, invented VAT numbers, work transferred from one address to another, some in houses which were not even hers, invoices for work which was never done, rejected claims re-presented with different wording...

...And of course turning up on a tv programme, being secretly filmed applying for a job as a lobbyist where she could use her influence (all girls together with Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell) to help a private organisation seeking to have influence with the government. And all this, if you please, when she was signing off long term sick from parliament on full salary (having supposedly had a nervous breakdown over the expenses affair)...

Ho Hum... I can’t wait for this trial. I wonder if she will wear one of these idiotic hats (she must have got a job lot on expenses, orange, red....) to impress the judge...

PHIL WOOLAS FACES COURT CASE OVER ALLEGED ELECTION MISCONDUCT

Today in England for the first time in 99 years, a court will hear a case against a sitting MP’s right to be that sitting MP.

In a case alleging “corrupt practices” but this time based on the 1983 Representation of the Peoples Act, a Liberal Democrat will contest the election to the seat in Oldham East and Saddleworth of none of other than my dear friend, female underwear purchasing, and Joanna Lumley fearing, Phil Woolas. (He has an interesting life does our Phil!)

Elwyn Watkins will allege that Woolas’s campaign literature, contained, contrary to that Act, sections that were “false statements of fact in relation to the candidate's (his) personal character or conduct”.

Woolas’s election leaflets contained allegations that his opponent received foreign donations, that he had support from Muslim extremists and that he had engaged in vote-fixing. The Liberal Democrat said two publications contained many misleading and erroneous allegations about his personal character and reputation.

Given that Woolas’s majority was just over 100, Mr Watkins’ claims of character assassination may well have had a enough of an effect to change the result.

I don’t know what would happen if the judges (there are two) were to find in favour of Mr Watkins. A by-election would hardly be a reasonable course of action given that the government is now in place and Mr Watkins’ party is a part of the ruling coalition. It’s likely that, with no hope of influencing the make-up of the government, any re-run of the election in the constituency would be unable to recreate the conditions of the General Election.

It may be that the judges have the power to overturn the election result and appoint Mr Watkins to the seat.

I have no idea what Mr Watkins is like. I’m not fond of the government that his party forms part of, but Woolas is a grinning idiot, way too pleased with himself, to cocky and self assured by half and the leaflets are certainly inflamatory.

On reflection, based on the fact that the member for this constituency will make no difference to the overall make up of government, my dislike of campaign material that berates other candidates instead of laying out what THIS candidate stands for....and, I admit, my passionate dislike for Phil Woollas, I hope the judges find for Mr Watkins.

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MPs DON'T WANT TO FUND THE "INDEPENDENT" COMMITTEE THAT TRIES TO STOP THEM FIDDLING....

Well...would you look at the expression on that little piggy’s face.

The angry and defiant look from Mr Woolas, or Wool Ass as I prefer to call him is, it seems, directed at the new parliamentary expenses agency. Perhaps they have refused him his wife’s cosmetics, blouses and underwear on his expenses.

According to the Telegraph, disgruntled MPs have threatened to bring down the new supposedly independent allowances watchdog in protest at being treated like ordinary human beings and not the gods they think they are.

Now when I say it is independent, I use the word loosely because the MPs have to vote for its funding. They have already had some of the rules changed because it took time for them to get their money..... and they are not like ordinary people and have to make arrangements to suit when public bodies mess them around.

So members of the Speaker’s committee refused to sign off on the budget for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) and demanded officials provide new information before they would agreed to fund the body, raising the prospect that it will not be able to continue.

That’s the way to do it guys. I wish I could just refuse to fund the Revenue or Jobcentre Plus or DVLA or TV Licencing.... or whoever happens to be making a mess of my finances this week. Come to that I wish I could stop financing the Royal Bank!

MPs crowded the committee room and shouted and barracked the staff of the IPSA as they answered questions. (It’s nice to know that they can get really worked up about something, isn’t it?) and one was heard to shout “Bastards”, perhaps after a particularly liquid lunch, possibly on expenses, so it’s good to know that our representatives are showing our kids a good example on the behaviour front.

Presumably they will be fighting with equal vigour the next time that one of their constituents gets done over by some public body. Or maybe they’ll just yawn and pass the letter over to some clerk to deal with.

Bob Russell, LibDem, called the organization the most inefficient he had known in 40 years of public office. He should get out more. Really!

Nick Brown, Labour Chief Whip, indicated that there were no satisfied MPs... Well of course there aren’t, you balloon. No one who has had an open cheque book for years and years is ever happy with being kept in check! People like Winterton resigned because of it.

Charles Walker, Conservative, accused IPSA of wasting money after a compliance officer was appointed to investigate questionable claims. Erm, Charlie, don’t we have the same sort of thing on TV Licences, Tax, Social Security? Aren’t there snoopers all over the country making sure that we stump up and don’t cheat? Why would you be different?

On the basis that evidence turned up by the Daily Telegraph showed that over 50% of your number cheated on their expenses and took what was not there (in other parlance stole), I think it’s not unreasonable that you should be treated just like ordinary mortals.

A word of warning: don’t try to mess with this committee you set of conniving, dreary little cheats. We’re angry. You should know that. We haven’t forgotten. We are all suffering hardships to pay back for the incompetences of the last few years. Don’t add insult to our injury by continuing to assume that you are above it all. That would be really foolish.


Pics: Phil Woolas, Joanna Lumley's doormat, a collection of MPs, and Charles Walker who clearly has been off planet over the last year or so... out to lunch maybe (they have long lunch breaks in parliament)?

WHICH ONE DO YOU THINK IS THE BIGGER MUPPET?

Oh really! Don’t politicians make you laugh out loud?

So, who is responsible for all my mirth so late on a Sunday night? Not for the first time, it’s the hapless Phil Woolas muppet. (Remember him from his encounter with, and thorough beating by, the lovely Joanna Lumley?)

So Woolybrain has been complaining that the education of his own children has been adversely affected by immigrant children who don’t speak English properly. Now that would be weird, given that he’s a junior minister in the Labour government, but it becomes farcical when you remember that he’s actually the minister responsible for......... wait for it......

.........Immigration.

The wool-brained minister admitted that the influx of immigrants had put local authorities in England under strain. Children are being taught in multi-ethnic classes with a large number of different language speakers in each class, at all different levels of ability in the understanding, reading, writing and speaking of English. As a guy who for a short time taught languages, in both Scotland and France, I can appreciate just how incredibly difficult this must be for teachers.

Interestingly this is a far larger problem in England than it is in Scotland, where the immigration requirements are entirely different. (This is a very good reason for having a separate authority to deal with this problem in each country as Scottish needs are totally ignored in the interest of England’s greater good.)

Chris Grayling, the shadow home affairs spokesman said it was ridiculous that the minister could defend policies which had brought about this situation. Of course it is fair to say that Grayling is no stranger to controversy himself with inordinately dubious expenses claims; offensive comments about a part of Manchester; and a corker of a faux pas regarding Richard Dannett when he was critical of the general's suggested appointment as an advisor to Gordon Brown, only to find out that he had, in fact, been touted as an advisor to David Cameron, which he then thought was a splendid idea. A rather wooly-headed guy too then.

It’s quite worrying when you look at the calibre of politicians holding some sort of office in the Westminster parliament, but surely Woolhead after his encounter with Princess Joanna, and his idiotic support for bonuses for executives of the Borders Agency, which must surely be one of the least efficient organisations in the world, must be pretty near the top of the list for politicians your granny knitted, but there's not a lot to chose between them......

Pictures: Phil Woolass and Security scanner. Phil’s the one with the suit on. And Chris Grayling pretending he’s an ordinary person using some public transport. Chris is the one on the hard left (joke!)

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Ayo Gorkhali, Ayo Joanna Lumley

The government of Gordon Brown has been inept, pathetic, incompetent, and laughable in turn since about 2-3 weeks after he was elevated to Prime Minister in his ‘Buggin’s Turn’ promotion in 2007.

Although there may have been more far reaching muddles and incompetence in the last two and a half years, no other situation has quite tugged at the nation’s heartstrings like the story of the Gurkhas.

We all know the story. Most people felt that if you were good enough to risk your life fighting for Britain, not as a mercenary, but in a constituted part of the British Army, then the least the British Government could do would be to offer you a home here in retirement. Labour felt differently; it would cost a great deal of money. And, being a government with a solid majority, that was that, despite opposition from both Nick Clegg and David Cameron.

But the Government reckoned without Joanna Lumley.

The daughter of an officer in the 6th Gurkha Rifles whose life was saved during the war by one of his men, Tul Bahadur Pun, Lumley was brought up in Malaya. Her acting career in Britain started in the 60s as a “dolly bird” secret agent type in “The New Avengers” and she went on to play similar roles including in “Sapphire and Steel” with "Man from Uncle" star David McCallum. In the 90s she became the beloved drunken druggie patsy in Absolutely Fabulous (the star of the show for me). Clearly, however, there is a deal more to Ms Lumley than that.

When you followed it on tv and in the papers, it was obvious from the start that Woolas and Brown didn't stand a chance. Brown told the Commons that the Government was looking into the case of the five Gurkhas who wanted to come to Britain “as a matter of urgency”, only for the five men to receive letters of rejection the next day. (Way to go Brown... How much more incompetent can you get?)

Lumley and her fellow campaigners were set to denounce the Government at an impromptu press conference when she chanced upon Mr Woolas. Negotiations were held and the two of them addressed the cameras. “I think we are all agreed that we are going to be able to help in the formulation of new guidelines,” Lumley announced, daring Mr Woolas to contradict her. “So that will be wonderful.” The minister blathered about “proper processes”, his face a mixture of fear and wonderment at this creature who seemed to have taken every ounce of any power he ever had. Victory was inevitable.

Since then Joanna Lumley has visited Nepal where she was feted as a national hero and had a mountain named after her. Today she was named The Times’s Briton of the Year.

Congratulations Joanna. Job done!