According to the Telegraph, MPs accused of abusing the unreformed expenses system will
escape official investigation because the House of Commons authorities destroyed
all records of their claims.
John Bercow is accused of covering up a new MPs' expenses scandal after tens of thousands of pieces of
paperwork relating to claims made before 2010 were
shredded.
There can be no investigation, we are informed, due to lack of evidence.
How handy.
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If the public wanted to be very very charitable it might be possible for the Home Secretary to get away with appointing a judge to look into a case where that judge was closely related to someone implicated in the investigations, and just be thought bit incompetent.
Theresa May would certainly fit that description and it is possible, I suppose, to see that in her busy life the fact that there was a sibling relationship between Mrs Butler Sloss and Michael Havers, fellow Tories, might have escaped her notice.
But having made a fool of oneself over that, at the very least, you would have thought that May might have made doubly, if not triply, sure that the next person she put up for the job had absolutely nothing, NOTHING WHATSOEVER, to do with anyone that they might be investigating.
But lo and behold a second chairwoman Mrs Woolf, has been obliged to stand down when her links with someone else who will undoubtedly be obliged to give evidence in the case became known.
To be more than fair to Tessy, neither Mrs Butler Sloss nor Mrs Woolf, the Lord Mayor of London (who apparently insisted that she was not an establishment figure) thought it might be a good idea to refuse the job on the basis of personal knowledge of people who have connections to the business in hand.
I wonder if Mr Cameron has every confidence in Mrs May?
Damned sure the rest of us don't.
Whilst I can understand that people in the establishment would rather this would all just go away, I'd like to suggest to them that they take on board that we are not all idiots and we won't let it go away, regardless of who it affects!
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Alistair Darling has announced that he is to resign his Westminster seat at the end of this parliament. The probable future Lord Darling is apparently cross about the fact that he/they won the referendum and yet appear to have dismally lost the aftermath. He also appears to blame Scots for this.
I'd suggest that he might like to remember that his Project Fear won the day because, at the 11th hour, it promised what a majority of Scots had appeared to want all along... although it seems that it may have been the Daily Record which actually did most of the promising ... or as they put it...vowing.
Whatever, we were promised devo-super-max, explained by Lord Darling's arch enemy Gordon Brown, who had to come and save the day from Alistair's disastrous UKOK leadership, as "as near federalism as you can get in a state where one country is 85% of the population"....
...But, at the moment, the best that his party can do is come up with an extension to the right to add something to, or take something away from, the British level of income tax, something that we have been able to do since day one, and none of the three parties which have formed governments have ever used.
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Jim Murphy, London's and the BBC's choice for the leadership of the branch office that calls itself Scottish Labour, reckons that if he becomes leader he will be the big boss!
He says that he wants to open up new revenue streams so that he isn't dependent on London for his funding in the form of a block grant.
I know it's a bit clichéd but...you really couldn't make it up.
'new revenue streams' for himself, no doubt - leopards do not change their spots. Very suspicious about the expenses. It is not as if you go into the accounts offices and say "Here is a receipt for my duck-pond" and they say "Righty ho, he is your money from the cash-box and we'll put your receipt in the shredder" or is it?
ReplyDeleteNew revenue streams... ? What, for example?
DeleteThey are funded by membership fees, fund-raising activities of the membership, coffee mornings; bring and buy, and presumably, in some of the leafier areas, tennis parties.
London presumably shares the trades unions' contributions to the "accounting units", which is what Slab is. Pooling and sharing, we were told, is always a good thing.
With the exception of the jumble sales, I would imagine that they are all diminishing streams.
They have already had a £200 a plate dinner. There's only so often you can do that kind of thing.
I would imagine that selling honours is something only the big boys in London can do.
So, what they gonna start? A chip shop? Bingo?
And yes, I doubt Mr Murphy will be able to wangle expenses half the size of the London ones. Where's the alternative income stream for that?
I understand that you could, and probably still can, put in ridiculous expenses, and then pull rank. Do you know who you are talking to? I'm dubious that any of them would pull the duck house one again, but staff in the Commons are often treated like muck by our servants.
Expenses clerks have been left in tears and even their boss resigned because of the way he was treated. They always have the speak on their side and inside the Palace of Westminster, he's a god.
I thought that Darling, tainted by the applause and hugs from the Tories, was doing the Labour party a favour by retiring but then he came out and supported Murphy..................
ReplyDeleteWell, he was also a pretty awful chancellor. He didn't see the disaster bit it bit his backside, then, in my opinion, he did all the wrong things.
DeleteHis guarantee of people's money wasn't actually HIS. The EU set that amount.
He's pretty right wing though, so I can imagine why he wants Murphy there, cheering for wars and WMDs and Britain being great and death to Palestine.
Just the kind of right-wing neo-Liberal stuff he and his Tory mates like.
Well considering that Mr Murphy and much of the Establishment front benches, note benches have all been to the States, had the indoctrination and are members of the New American Century ( call it what you want). I imagine if we just could look at his bank account he wouldn't be where he is today but in the pokey.
ReplyDeleteJust as well the Party is everything for those people who inhabit the lower reaches of the Party in Scotland, the likes of Sarah Boyack and Neil Findlay, they will put up with any amount of shit and lose with grace as Jim Murphy is pushed to the front.
Cannot say I am much bothered, if they aren't. Just another bum on a seat spouting the same rubbish.
What I can't understand, Helena, is why Margrit Curran is going around telling anyone who will listen that they have listened to the people and they are moving back to socialism in Scotland. Then they choose one of the most right wing MPs, a war monger, nuclear weapons loving, anti-Palestinian, benefits cap supporting Tory as their man for leadership.
DeleteIt's just like... if you though Lamont was bad, wait for it. Murphy is to the right of Milibars by a mile.
He'll have Scotland hosting more nuclear weapons, building nuclear electricity plants in your back garden, fighting in any war that is going to make money for the British armaments business.
He's a Thatcherite.
He might be a bit sharper than Lamont when it comes to FMQs (but remember he'll wont be doing that for a while, and if he does do it he will be up against NS, whose no one's push over.
How is he going to appeal to the people in the estates that they lost to the YES campaign and SNP/Green/SSP memberships?
Tris
ReplyDeleteAll of the above just highlights the desperate need for change that has to take place in this country, and that of course will not be delivered by the main parties because they do not want any change that effects their millions.
It is a sorry state of affairs and one that we have known from the start will come back to haunt NO voters for a long time. Even though we are nearly 7 weeks in I just can't help but feel that we have to be the most stupid race of people ever brought upon the earth for messing up a real chance to do things differently, do treat people with respect and to make a start on the gravy train. Still the fight goes on.
Bruce
I think there will be a change Bruce.
DeleteI was just reading a post over in Wings about the dramatic change in people's voting intentions.
It seems to me that Cameron-Clegg-Miliband has done the same sort of thing fore us as Thatcher did.
Scotland used to vote Tory in fair numbers till she sickened us of Conservatives. Now people are beginning to see that Labour in Scotland is just another Tory Party uninterested in us, because they can depend on us to always vote for them, and instead chasing the rich people's votes in Surrey and Hants.
And as Stuarty points out, the rise of Ukip in England in particular is changing the political situation there. The return of the Liberals to the rump party they were in the 60s has also had an effect.
His post is worth reading. The days of the dominance of the Tories and labour may be coming to an end, and not a moment too soon for me.
Darling is indeed a rat deserting a sinking ship, "We won the referendum" he said meaning Labour and not his country.
ReplyDeleteWhere is Murphy getting his "new revenue streams"? With a deminishing membership?
Is he going to do " spot the ball" ?; only it'll be spot the truism, every time he opens his mouth.
You really couldn't make it up.
I love the idea of spot the ball.
DeleteLoved playing that in the Sporting Post when DC Thomson used to publish it.
I think they should bring that back.
We could have spot the future aristocrat.
We can't have "future aristocrat", the plebs may twig to what's going on.
DeleteFrom J. Murphy ESC.
The problem is...we have!
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