Nothing fishy here
- 7 Feb 08, 12:48 PM
I went to a hearing of the Information Tribunal this morning where the Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke and a couple of Sunday newspaper journalists were trying to get the House of Commons authorities to release more details about what MPs can claim on their additional costs allowance.
This is the money they get for having to occupy a second home, either in London or in their constituencies. They are reimbursed not just for rental or mortgage interest costs on their second home but also a general household expenditure, including items of furniture.
We heard from Andrew Walker, Director General of Finance and Administration, who argued that providing more detail would be an invasion of MPs personal privacy.
A well known Oxford Street store will no doubt be delighted to learn that that the Commons finance department keeps what Mr Walker calls a 鈥淛ohn Lewis list鈥 of reasonably priced items. TV sets for instance, which are neither luxury/top of the range nor 鈥渢he bottom end of the market鈥.
So Mr Walker鈥檚 department would be unlikely to accept a claim for a plasma TV, he told the tribunal, and claims for iPods are rejected on the grounds that iPods are regarded as a personal items, but he said fish tanks 鈥渕ay be claimable鈥. Although he did know of one case where a claim for a fish tank had been rejected.
If only the 91热爆 accounts were as understanding as this.
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POLITICS (noun)
The dictionary definitions of the word 鈥減olitics鈥 are 鈥済overnment鈥 and 鈥渄evious鈥. Clearly a truth that has established itself 鈥 over time - in the very language we speak.
Why not ask every politician to comment on this? If nothing else we would get a laugh. And the range of devious avoidance of the all-too-valid inference would be rare entertainment.
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HONOUR KILLING
If I caught 鈥淲esminster Disease鈥
I be vague on the concept of 鈥渟leaze鈥
But if MPs are 鈥渉onourable鈥
Reality鈥檚 vulnerable
Might as well let 鈥榚m claim what they please.
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Nice to see even the site owners can have trouble posting, and/or (not) knowing if they have or not.
3 duplicates of this at time of my post. If it survives.
Attempt 2, and now 3:
There's a surprise
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Text only
502
Service not available.
Unfortunately a server error occured whilst trying to retrieve this page:
/cgi-perl/mt/mt-comments.cgi
We are currently working to correct this
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And at attempt 4, a day later, I note 2 postings listed on the main page, but still only one actually up and visible here.
Not the easiest system to engage with, nor the most satisfactory, really.
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