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The MP's still miss the point. They go on about moving the goalposts but their logic is flawed. It is precisely because the "goalposts" as they were at the time they abused the trust placed in them were so bad that the only thing that can be done now to remedy the situation is to move them to where they should have been and then to apply them. To do otherwise means no action to cause repayment of excesses. Also, don't let me hear them talk about chanaing rules retrospectively when that is what they frequently do with legislation and what the Inland Revenue practices at a whim - if you doubt this ask any solicitor who practices in inheritance planning and he will expalin that that including one instance where the IR is changing what has existed since about 1983. It does this under a pretence of "clarifying" interpretation but the bottom line is that conduct that was previously approved or acquiesced in is now not so with retrospective effect. Hippocrites, the lot of them!!!

Maybe I'm being cynical but how did the Telegraph obtain this information? Did they contact Conservative HQ to discuss before they printed it? Why was there a deafening silence from David Cameron? Could it be the miscreant is another bedblocker, and his seat is required for a younger, modernising Cameroon. Maybe his history regarding Section 28 doesn't fit in with the new Tory all things to all people persona. It all seems very convenient, pretty much like the list of proposed elevations to the Lords that is doing the rounds. This appears to be DCs method of dispensing with those MPs who are not totally on message.

David Cameron's outlined his position on expenses quite clearly earlier this week. Mr Wilshire can stand as an independent if the outcome is such that he cannot stand as a Conservative Party candidate. What's the fuss? Come on Nick - let's get back to the economy.

There is a simple way for MPs to put this expenses thing to bed and that is to actually do something about banker's pay (and other absurd remuneration packages). Apart from that, and as they haven't the guts to do it, they will stagger along until the next election and be re-elected. However re-election will NOT make the problems go away. Sooner or later the absurd inequalities built up under both Tory and Labour governments will have to be tackled and until they are, the most despised people in the country will be MPs.

We need Maximum Wage Legislation and that is the only way for MPs to become popular again and reconnect with the people who elect them!!!

This whole shambles about MPs expenses is descending into the realms of the ridiculous.
It is becoming fairly obvious that no MP is going to take his hand out of the cookie jar until he/she is forced to. Even then they will hang onto as many crumbs as possible.
They know they have done wrong. We know they have done wrong.
The difference being that they won't admit it.
For 'Green Book' read 'Bottomless Pit- Help Yourself'
I would like to think that come the Election, people would put aside party allegiance and vote out any MP who has the gall to stand, if they have not repaid their unwarranted expenses.
Won't happen of course, but it should

trouble is, Mortimax himself has set the bar so low (high?) as regards resigning over this type of thing

should have done and didn't ... hence:

Zero Moral Authority

(a shame because I quite like him)

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Any comment Nick on Legg extending his review to include tax evading Flippers (like the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Speaker)?

Sorry David Wilshire needs to go

Nick

The 2006 Green Book, under which these claims were presumably made, states terms that:

"You must ensure that arrangements for your ACA claims are above reproach and that there can be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money. Members should bear in mind the need to obtain value for money from accommodation, goods or services funded from the allowances."

It carries on:

"You must avoid any arrangement which may give rise to an accusation that you are, or someone close to you is, obtaining an immediate benefit or subsidy from public funds..."

Could you or one of your colleagues ask Mr Wilshire (and Jacqui Smith and Harriet Harman and the others whole keep parroting that it was all within the rules, or that the Fees Office approved it, etc.) what part of that wording they don't understand?

are we as voters only seeing the tip of the iceberg that is the expenses scandal,how many others will be destined to leave the house in disgrace.
wouldnt it be cheaper to just deselect all sitting mp's and re elect at a snap general election.
mp's looking for re election should be willing to face those whom they represent and answer truthfully and openly any questions reguarding expenses etc.
due to the seemingly corrupt system and poor judgment of sitting mp's those wanting to become an mp needs to show those whom will vote for them they can firstly be trusted, and they will work firstly for the good of the country before all else.

If he wants to pay his expenses to an offshore company and its all legal then that's fine.

The question is whether the £100k was justifiable expenses, not where he channelled the money. Thats a question for Legg.

The scandal is that the man who presided over a corrupt system that blithely ignore the test of "Wholly Exclusively And Necessarily In Relation To Parliamentary Duties" has been promoted to the House of Lords. I wonder what happens if you screw up.

6. At 7:11pm on 15 Oct 2009, sagamix wrote:
trouble is, Mortimax himself has set the bar so low (high?) as regards resigning over this type of thing

should have done and didn't ... hence:

Zero Moral Authority

Why should he resign? You know very well that claiming mortgage interest is entirely within the rules, unlike claiming for a mortgage that you don't actually have.

I think that Zero Moral Authority applies more to Harriet-Double Standards-Harman today, don't you?

This constituent of his is very annoyed.

After the decorating...cough 'issues', the large travel claims (because you don't live within 100 miles in the borough) and now this?

Make public the accounts and account for every penny.

Or go.

Do it Now.

sagamix 6

But, surely "Mortimax" has nothing to resign over?

(I say this because experience tells me, the more you are cornered into fleshing out this particular canard, the less convincing it gets.)

Anyway, your "lack of moral authority" line seems to have died as you wrote it. According to the news strap on the home page, Wilshire is on his way.

Bloggers of all party colours and hues, let's not get too hung up on the tribal differences.

If DW is found to be guilty, he should be sacked.

If not, he should stay.

For any Tory, waiting to mount the defence only because he is and they are a Tory, don't live by double standards; you do yourselves, your party and your country a disservice.

Leave the double standards to GB, Mandy, HH and the rest of the immoral motley crew going down with the great ship, HMS Broken Britain.

Wilshire has to go, full stop.
Now Nick are you going to question Gordon Brown about his stand on the champion trougher Jackie Smith, from what I can see she had a good idea she was not going to retain her seat at the next election, so her and her husband thought best make hay while the sun shines.

Interesting to watch Leader-in-Waiting Hattie this afternoon.
Telling her fellow troughes that they had her support in their battle to hang on to their ill-gotten gains, in complete opposition to Gordon's stance.
Nothing like joined up Government!!

Good post Nick because there is silence on the terraces.

None of the tribal fanatics will come forward because all their representatives are deep in the brown stuff (pun intended).

Maybe your next post will ask why the majority of this country who don't vote for any of the current lot don't rise up, have a revolution and turf every MP and peer out of their privileged position which they have gained not as of right but of patronage.

Perhaps then, only then will we have proper change that is fair for all, not the few.

And I'm a Tory!

People of all parties should be kicked out for taking advantage - is there not one innocent MP in that darn place who hasn't claimed - these people are so two-faced they want us to thrust them... and a minister that can't afford a bath plug come off it!

Who exactly cleared these payments and why weren't they checked?


It would be really interesting to delve back and look at ALL the claims from past governments - that would tell a story and would make present ministers run to their rat hole... and it just might throw light on how it all started.

As posted inanother blog, MPs have no ides how the rest of us live. We have had retrospective legislation on huge issues... my penion is rubbish because the present government changed the rules twice so I am not covered for the years I was bringing up my children.
The cleaning and gardening bills are inconsequential in comparrison to the amount salted away by 'flipping ', a great way to make money, we pay their mortgage, maintain the property, and then they flip and sell on pocketing hundreds of thousands in profit. Fantastic. Thats what makes me angry. It is a total b...sup that this has not been clocked. Glegg is the only one aksin that it be redressed.

When "expenses" made the headlines early summer, "balls" Cameron
waded in to be tough and to clean up Tory till-dippers !!!

Look at what he missed !
All the big monies !!!

Is Cameron forcing Wilshire to return £100k ?
If not,call the police !!!

22

Derek, wind your neck in. So long as Jackboots isnt returning her ill-gotten 116k, there is no precedent for Wilshire to do the same.

I have no sympathy for him whatsoever, his position is morally untenable and it looks like today (Friday) that the right decision has been made.

Shame the same couldnt be said of Gorbals Mick and Jackboots though. As some one else said, leave the troughing and the double standards to New Labour. One thing they can make a good job of.

Election, soon. then we can clear out the whole rotten lot of scammmers, thieves, charlatans, hypocrites, useless parasites, and then start on the tories.

"Zydeco wrote:
Interesting to watch Leader-in-Waiting Hattie this afternoon.
Telling her fellow troughes that they had her support in their battle to hang on to their ill-gotten gains, in complete opposition to Gordon's stance.
Nothing like joined up Government!!"

Do you think anyone has told her that many of the troughers she is currently trying to win over could lose their seats at the next election and not be part of the PLP to vote for her?

No one cares what happens to these crims and it will be years and years before they will be forgiven if ever, they should be seen to be dealt with not moan and scream about how unfair that they have been caught , P49 all round those who have not done this should replace them and that would cut down the PMs in the house of common thieves as for the Lords well it should be closed men in tights and all this the right hons well that should end as they are not honorable along with the ermine and giving gongs for what? Parliament need a good clear out and the laws need changing now not next year. Brown is not PM he was not voted in because it would not have happened, and Lord Mandleson now rules well not in my book as for Cameron well we are going down the wrong road there and Clegg who is he as a voter I believe that we should chose the leader not some bunch of Freemasons with their medieval claptrap this is our lives they are messing with I know that Governments are formed to protect the have to much from those whom they steal from. So bankers get no bonuses I worked for years in low paid hard jobs I did not get any extra and now live on a pittance called a state pension is the PMs pension indexed linked by any chance all 90 million off it.

No more this country has lived of the back of the poor for years and their ignorance times are changing and the New World Order is not taking over.