Tag Archives: mps expenses

Mark Pack

The one who got away: David Lammy and his expenses

By Mark Pack | Mon 28th September 2009 - 11:45 am

David Lammy's second home claimsLondon MP, with a constituency only 28 minutes away by Tube from Parliament, claims £12,041 for a second home. Sounds a straight-forward case in the long line of London MPs who had their expense claims widely publicised and heavily criticised during earlier this year? Except this time, there’s one difference.

The expense claim was published back in October 2004, got a bit of local media coverage and that was that.

Lucky man, that David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham.

From the …

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Stephen Tall

LDV readers say: pay MPs more!

By Stephen Tall | Fri 25th September 2009 - 2:45 pm

A month ago, Lib Dem Voice set up a new poll for readers asking the simple question, MPs are currently paid £65k per annum. Do you think they should be paid more than this, the same, or less in the future?

Here’s what you told us:

44% (234 votes) – More than £65k
35% (187) – The same as now
21% (115) – Less than £65k
Total Votes: 536. Poll ran 24 Aug – 13 Sept 2009.

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Posted in Voice polls | Also tagged | 3 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 25 September 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 25th September 2009 - 10:12 am

Loyal readers, I’d like to start this morning with a quick reminder to complete this online survey – it’s designed to explore the views and activities of the users of four UK Party-related websites – LabourHome, Labour List, ConservativeHome and Lib Dem Voice. The overall goal of the project is “to better understand how and why party members, supporters and voters in general are using the web and blogs to engage with politics and political organisations.”

It’s being conducted by the Hansard Society in association with researchers at the University of Manchester and University of Salford.

To do your good …

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Stephen Tall

So, what do we make of #ldconf so far, then?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 22nd September 2009 - 3:53 pm

I’ve just come from speaking at the ippr fringe event, The end of politics as we know it?, alongside Ming Campbell, Shirley Williams and Charles Clarke.

In my introductory remarks, I looked at the two big crises of the last 12 months – the economic crisis of recession, and the political crisis of MPs’ expenses scandals – and their impact on the Lib Dems, with special reference to this week’s conference. I approached the topic as (I hope) a constructively critical friend; harsh but fair was the reaction I was (I guess) looking for. Here’s more or less what I said – see if you think I got the balance right …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged , , , and | 6 Comments
Mark Pack

Nick Clegg’s blogger interviews

By Mark Pack | Sat 19th September 2009 - 11:33 am

This morning a group of 10 bloggers interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The questions ranged over a wide area and here are a few selected highlights:

MPs’ expenses: Nick eloquently made the link between safe seats and good behaviour by MPs: “if you want to keep MPs honest, don’t give them safe seats for life … safe seats corrupt public life”. He said his one real regret over how he had handled the issue was not making the point more forcefully that whilst the party was not free of “blemishes”, no Liberal Democrat MP had been involved in the serious …

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Posted in Blogger Interviews | Also tagged , and | 5 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 18 September 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 18th September 2009 - 8:42 am

2 big stories

Star Wars – the end?
The Guardian and the Times both lead with the news that President Barack Obama has decided to scrap US plans to build missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is seen by Republicans as an attempt to “appease” the Kremlin, which had objected that a missile shield so close to Russia’s borders would threaten its own defences.

President Obama justified the change of plan by citing new intelligence that shows Iran’s long-range missile programme to be far less advanced than previously thought. Instead of being close to developing missiles capable of

…

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Helen Duffett

Boris Johnson’s attitude to breaches of expense rules

By Helen Duffett | Fri 4th September 2009 - 5:34 pm

Seems that the Mayor of London has a talent for picking the “wonderful”, “brilliant” and scandal-prone when it comes to expenses.

The BBC reports that Boris Johnson claimed on his MP expenses for a website which promoted his mayoral campaign and the sale of his books:

Mr Johnson claimed the £500 from his MP’s communications allowance for redesigning his website homepage in December 2007.

In a letter obtained by BBC London under the Freedom of Information Act, a parliamentary official told Mr Johnson that his claim was rejected because his website fell “significantly outside” the allowance guidelines.

The House of Commons guidance on the Communications Allowance couldn’t be any clearer –

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Posted in London and News | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
Mark Pack

How is public opinion playing out over MPs’ expenses?

By Mark Pack | Wed 2nd September 2009 - 2:20 pm

At the weekend, I saw a presentation of the June polling findings from the British Election Study. The BES is a collaborative academic exercise run before and at each general election. It is designed to gather some of the key raw material about the public’s opinions which will then be available to anyone who subsequently pours over the election, trying to explain why it turned out as it did.

The June results including some striking figures on the public’s reaction to the MPs’ expenses scandal:

  • Have you heard reports and MPs’ expenses? Yes: 95%
  • Do you think the scandal proves most MPs are

…

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Posted in Polls | Also tagged and | 7 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Harvey: MPs should be able to profit from second homes’

By Stephen Tall | Tue 1st September 2009 - 12:59 pm

The south-west’s Western Morning News has the report:

A WESTCOUNTRY MP has told an official inquiry into the Parliamentary expenses scandal that politicians should be able to profit from their taxpayer-funded second homes. North Devon Lib-Dem MP Nick Harvey made the case in a six-page letter to the Committee on Standards in Public Life which has received more than 700 submissions.

Mr Harvey, who claimed up to £1,250 a month mortgage interest for his house in London, argued: “If making a capital gain is seen by some as a ‘crime’, then it is a ‘victimless crime’ because it does not add in any way to the taxpayer’s burden: it is simply a function of market movement.

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Stephen Tall

Clegg: expenses reform is being “swept under the carpet” #mpsexpenses

By Stephen Tall | Thu 27th August 2009 - 9:45 am

Nick Clegg has today penned an article for The Daily Telegraph urging the Labour and Tory parties to take action to reform Parliament in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Here’s an excerpt:

The new political season is beginning. Spring and early summer were defined by the expenses scandal, but what will the autumn be like? Will demand for change continue or will the political establishment succeed in sweeping it under the carpet? …

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Stephen Tall

NEW POLL: What should we pay our MPs?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 24th August 2009 - 8:57 pm

Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack – the grandees’ grandee – isn’t alone in thinking MPs are under-paid. Today’s Times reports (under the oh-so-impartial headline, MPs hijack expenses inquiry with complaints and demands for pay rise – do you remember the days when newspapers reported facts, and let us form our own opinions?) that Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life inquiry into Parliamentary standards has been

bombarded by MPs’ complaints about their miserable lifestyles, media intrusion, the inadequacy of existing allowances — along with repeated demands for a hefty pay rise. … A detailed analysis by The Times of hundreds of submissions shows that such views are far from exceptional, particularly among Conservative MPs who believe that they would be earning far more if they had never entered politics.

The debate has been well-rehearsed. Gone are the days of amateur MPs, men with means who could afford to regard being elected to Parliament as their public duty and/or an amusing hobby. Paying members of Parliament is an essential pre-requisite of a democracy of all the talents. How much they should be paid inevitably plunges you into the murky realms of envy, greed and compromise.

On a rational supply and demand basis, it is perfectly obvious that MPs should be paid not a single penny more. Political parties in winnable seats have no problem in finding candidates: more people want to do the job than there are vacancies available. It’s an employer’s market, and in this case the employer is the taxpayer: why should we cough up more cash?

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Stephen Tall

Clegg: public has been “betrayed” by Parliament’s response to #mpsexpenses

By Stephen Tall | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 7:30 pm

Nick Clegg has been putting the quiet days of summer to good use, attracting considerable media coverage. Yesterday saw the launch of the party’s pre-manifesto A Fresh Start for Britain. Today Nick fired a broadside in the Telegraph against Labour for failing to address the real problems underpinning public anger over the MPs’ expenses scandals:

If you had said to me two months ago that we would go on a three-month recess and all we would have was this insipid Standards Bill, and that nothing substantial had been changed, I wouldn’t have believed it.

“The whole momentum for change was so great after what The Telegraph did; I think people are entitled to feel betrayed.

“This was a pledge that all political leaders made – to clean up our act. But all the signs are that it was hot air.

“The sum total of it is this little Bill which is a mouse compared to the real task. It is a baby step; it needs to be followed up by far, far more radical reform. If we don’t go further, the political scandals will be back in the future.

“I am so dismayed by the lack of progress of the last few weeks and so disappointed that Gordon Brown is trying to hype up this small measure as the be all and end all.”

“The Bill is fine as far as it goes, but the idea that Gordon Brown has that this has been done and dusted is patent nonsense. It is one piece of the jigsaw, but we need to change the rotten culture at Westminster for good.”

It’s worth remembering what could by now have been achieved if Labour had chosen to adopt Nick’s 100 Day Action Plan to Save Britain’s Democracy, announced almost two months ago. If Labour had the vision and courage we could by now be celebrating:

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: MPs’ holiday betrayal

By The Voice | Wed 22nd July 2009 - 5:31 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Nick Clegg argues that a Westminster stitch-up has seen both main parties dodge reform demands in the dash for the recess door. Here’s an excerpt:

If someone had told me two months ago, in the middle of the expenses scandal, that MPs would go on their summer break without having rewritten the rules of British politics, I wouldn’t have believed it. I thought the public demand for change was, for once, overwhelming. Yet, scandalously, that’s what’s happened. …

It is easy to understand the resistance to reform from the Conservatives. Maintenance of the status

…

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Stephen Tall

The Times: Osborne to be investigated by sleaze watchdog over #mpsexpenses

By Stephen Tall | Thu 2nd July 2009 - 5:30 pm

Here are the allegations, as summarised in a Lib Dem press release issued this afternoon:

George Osborne used his second homes allowance on a London property and then switched it to a large farmhouse in his Cheshire constituency of Tatton. He bought the Cheshire residence ten months before he won his Tatton seat in 2001. Instead of taking out a mortgage on the farmhouse he increased the mortgage on the London property which he bought for £700,000 in 1998.

He designated the London house his second home, even though it was his main residence, so he could claim mortgage interest payments.

…

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Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 26 June 2009

By Stephen Tall | Fri 26th June 2009 - 9:35 am

Even to suggest today there are 2 Big Stories other than The One Big Story seems a trifle daft – the news that spread late yesterday evening of the death of Michael Jackson has dominated, and will continue to dominate, news coverage this weekend. RIP the ‘King of Pop’, of course, but spare a thought, too, for Farrah Fawcett, whose death was also announced yesterday, and has been rather overshadowed. If Michael’s death can be likened to that of Princess Diana’s in August ‘97, I guess that makes Farrah the Mother Teresa of June ’09. Anyway…

2 Big Stories

BBC …

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Stephen Tall

Lib Dems force government climbdown on MPs’ pension increases

By Stephen Tall | Thu 25th June 2009 - 10:00 am

As the BBC reports:

Plans to raise taxpayers’ contributions to MPs’ pensions have been dropped, ahead of a Commons debate. A planned increase had been accepted by all parties in March but the government now says it will accept a Lib Dem plan to freeze the amount from public funds.

The proposal would have seen MPs’ own contributions rise by £60 a month, but the Lib Dems said taxpayers would have paid £750,000 more than last year. All party leaders have indicated that MPs’ final salary schemes must end.

The cost to the Treasury of MPs’ pensions has risen from

…

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Mark Pack

Taxpayers’ Alliance: MPs should be bad employers

By Mark Pack | Sun 21st June 2009 - 2:37 pm

With all the genuine expenses targets available, you’d have through the Taxpayers’ Alliance would have found a better target than attacking a Plaid MP, Adam Price, for using part of his Parliamentary expenses to pay for his staff to go on training courses.

MPs, rightly, get to employ staff via the expenses schemes. (How else, for example, would an MP deal with the hundreds of letters and emails that many get each day?) If people are being employed to work for MPs, then in return MPs should be good bosses. Part of that involves identifying training needs for their staff …

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Stephen Tall

Osborne claimed £47 for DVD of his own speech on … value for taxpayers’ money

By Stephen Tall | Thu 18th June 2009 - 11:27 am

The Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh has been doing some digging into the newly-released MPs’ expenses claims on the Parliamentary website, and has come up with this ‘file-under-you-couldn’t-make-it-up’ story:

Among the tiny fragments of new info available on MPs exes today is this:

George Osborne claimed £47 of taxpayer’s money for two copies of a DVD of his speech – and the speech was on “value for money”.

Posted in News | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
The Voice

Burnley Lib Dems call for Kitty Ussher to quit and trigger by-election

By The Voice | Thu 18th June 2009 - 11:08 am

Fresh from their amazing showing in the local and European elections, Burnley Lib Dems have urged local MP Kitty Ussher – who today quit the government over her expenses claims – to let voters have their say on who should now represent them. Here’s the press release issued this morning:

“Burnley Labour MP Kitty Ussher should stand down now and allow the people of Burnley to have their say on her replacement” says Burnley’s Liberal Democrat Council Leader and Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Councillor Gordon Birtwistle following the further twist in the story of the MP’s expenses.

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Stephen Glenn

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #5

By Stephen Glenn | Thu 18th June 2009 - 9:30 am

My first sighting of Jim Devine – the latest Labour MP to be deselected by the party in the wake of the expenses scandal – was on the eve of poll for the 2001 General Election, shortly after I came across to Scotland to live.

As the agent he was standing alongside Robin Cook waving from an open top bus as they drove through Stoneyburn on a tour of the constituency; we were eating dinner. Victors in cup finals don’t do open bus tours until after the silverware is in their clutches – but such was the certainty …

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Posted in Op-eds and Scotland | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Mark Pack

Lib Dems call on George Osborne to pay capital gains tax

By Mark Pack | Sun 14th June 2009 - 10:35 am

From The Telegraph:

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, is facing demands to “pay back” £55,000 in capital gains tax, which critics say he is morally obliged to pay after “flipping” his designated second property.

The Liberal Democrats said they had calculated how much capital gains tax Mr Osborne avoided by the way he designated his London family home. They called on David Cameron to force him to pay it back.

The Tory leader has clamped down heavily on backbench Tory MPs who have abused the expenses system, but he has yet to censure a senior member of his inner circle…

Lord Oakeshott of

…

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Rob Hart

Opinion: The office of citizen

By Rob Hart | Thu 11th June 2009 - 1:30 pm

As most will have heard the Prime Minister has gone through something of a transistion with his Cabinet appointments. However, Cabinet reshuffles will not address the deeper problem in British politics. This problem is voter disaffection with the entire political system.

MPs’ expenses have merely brought this issue to a head. It has provided much needed impetus for reformers, allowing the discussion of issues – like reforming the Lords, and introducing PR – some serious air time. The Prime Minister’s problem is that a reshuffle has all the effect of an extra coat of paint to cover …

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Posted in Op-eds | 3 Comments
Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 11 June 2009

By Alex Foster | Thu 11th June 2009 - 8:05 am

Ah, another day, another daily view. Suddenly in the blink of an eye, polling day is a whole week behind us. Lives are being lived, new councillors swearing the oath of office and new groups working out how to work with each other in future.

Two big stories

And unlike m’colleague Alix who could trumpet an end to expenses stories, sadly today they’re back with a vengeance, as the Telegraph digs into Shahid Malik.

But never fear – “the recession has ended” ! The Independent is so confident of its analysis that it feels the need to put …

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Alix Mortimer

Daily View 2×2: 3 June 2009

By Alix Mortimer | Wed 3rd June 2009 - 7:05 am

2 big stories

“It’s not the wheels falling off the government.”

With these (deliberate?) words on Radio 4’s PM yesterday afternoon, Harriet Harman defined today’s big story. No, the PM’s reshuffle plans have in no way leaked throughout a thoroughly angry and demoralised cabinet, and they are not at all about to resign en masse. The government is not in the slightest on a course to imminent implosion and Gordon Brown is not reduced to kissing babies on the news and saying nice things about Susan Boyle in a farcically doomed attempt to court popularity. Honest.

Covered with varying degrees of glee …

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Baroness Ros Scott

Ros Scott writes… Party President’s report to members, May ’09

By Baroness Ros Scott | Tue 2nd June 2009 - 12:05 pm

It has, to say the least, been one heck of month.

At the start of May, I was in Vancouver, attending the Executive meeting of Liberal International where I gave a speech on the topic of The challenges facing Liberalism over the next decade. We also met up with the Canadian Liberal Party Convention where they celebrated the election of Michael Ignatieff as their Leader. The international theme continued later in the month with the launch of the Liberal Democrat Friends of Poland.

Back home, the Telegraph expenses story broke and, with events moving along with amazing rapidity, led to the resignation …

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Posted in Op-eds and Party Presidency | Also tagged and | 26 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 2 June 2009

By Helen Duffett | Tue 2nd June 2009 - 8:00 am

2 Big Stories

Expenses ‘mistake’ hangs over Darling
The Financial Times reports that not even the Chancellor himself is blameless in the MPs’ expenses controversy:

Alistair Darling’s future as chancellor was looking precarious on Monday after he admitted making “a mistake” over his expenses and Gordon Brown refused to say whether he would be in his job in 10 days’ time.

Mr Darling yesterday paid back £668 he wrongly claimed and apologised “unreservedly” but speculation was growing at Westminster that he could become the first chancellor in postwar Britain to be demoted in the middle of a recession.

Three things must ye know about …

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Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 1 June 09

By Helen Duffett | Mon 1st June 2009 - 8:00 am

This morning’s headlines had me singing into my hairbrush:

“My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah, and Brown will meet his destiny in quite a similar way…”

Faced with a whole legion of bother (MPs’ expenses, this week’s elections, constitutional and electoral reform and rumours of a leadership coup) the Prime Minister marches into a critical week:

2 Big Stories

And yet:
Cabinet revolt won’t force me out, declares Brown
Today’s Independent reports Brown’s determination to stay on as PM and speculates on his plans to reshuffle the Cabinet:

Labour MPs return to the Commons in a grim frame of mind today after the half-term

…

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Mark Pack

Nine months on, Daily Telegraph catches up on our Glenda Jackson story

By Mark Pack | Sun 31st May 2009 - 6:40 pm

Today’s Telegraph story about Labour MP Glenda Jackson and how she repaid £8,000 in expenses that had gone on Labour Party campaigning may seem vaguely familiar to readers of The Voice.

That’s because, ahem, I broke the story back at the start of September, following which a complaint went in that resulted in her having to make the repayment, as reported later that month.

Hat tip: Liberal Vision, though their “breaking news” headline is perhaps a little over-keen 🙂

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Mark Pack

Daily View 2×2: 31 May 09

By Mark Pack | Sun 31st May 2009 - 8:00 am

Welcome to the Sunday outing for our Daily View. As it’s a Sunday, today’s comes with a special examination paper supplement. If you spot anything for future posts, do let us know on [email protected].

2 Big Stories

Opinion polls

It’s been a tale of two polls: a disappointing Populus poll on Saturday followed by a spectacularly good ICM poll in today’s Sunday Telegraph, putting the Liberal Democrats in second place in both general election and European election voting intentions:

The ICM poll for The Sunday Telegraph is the worst possible news for the Prime Minister as he enters his most important week since taking

…

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The Voice

Clegg: quitting MPs should say goodbye to their golden goodbyes

By The Voice | Fri 29th May 2009 - 10:41 pm

The BBC has the story:

MPs who stand down after expenses revelations should not be entitled to large tax free pay-offs, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said. Since stories about expenses claims began, 13 MPs have said they will stand down at the election, although three say they are going for health reasons. They will be entitled to a pay-off worth up to a year’s salary of £64,000 depending on their age and experience.

Mr Clegg said there was “no reason” some should get the tax free reward. Under current rules, Conservative MP Julie Kirkbride could receive a pay off

…

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