Nearing the end of the expenses saga
This, Messrs Kelly and Brown and Cameron and Clegg all agreed, must mark the end of the MPs' expenses saga. It might not prove that easy.
Today's recommendations by the Kelly inquiry are just that - recommendations. Before becoming law they must be adopted by the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) - not yet in existence - which must by law first hold a public consultation.
Despite being told by their leaders and the Speaker not to resist reform, some MPs see this process as a last chance to smooth off the sharpest edges of the Kelly reforms, if not to see them off altogether.
Even if all today's proposals are implemented in full, transition arrangements will mean there will be two classes of MPs in the next Parliament - those still able to employ family members and claim mortgages for the next five years and newly elected MPs for whom that will be illegal.
And in the meantime, those whose behaviour has caused most public anger are still in their jobs, still being paid and still eligible for pay-offs worth tens of thousands of pounds.
All Sir Christopher Kelly could do about them today was to urge the Commons to use its existing rules to deny the worst offenders their pay-offs. That looks unlikely to happen.
So, we may be nearing the final chapter of the expenses saga but the last line has not been written yet - far from it.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~28~RS~)
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Hi nick
This is why the party leaders should show moral leadership on this.
For instance David Cameron who for many of his years as an MP claimed interest relief expenses when he did not have two mortgages, - in fact he claimed the maximum allowed and was the largest claimer for many of these years. should accept the findings on mortgages and stop this abuse of the tax payers by selling his house and repatriating the profit to the taxpayers.
It is sad that David Cameron had to be told by a senior civil servant to stop claiming mortgage interest payments, and that he did not himself realise this was the wrong thing to do, but now he has been told he should follow the lead of Kelly.
It is a real shame that Kelly ducked the second jobs issues - because this means that many MP's will be off making money elsewhere when they should be serving the taxpayer. If however the MP's want to show moral leadership they will ban this too.
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It is difficult to believe that the leaders will show the moral courage and leadership on this required when some of them have been playing the system for all it is worth.
I would hate to think that our country was being led by someone who had to be told what was right from wrong by a senior civil servant.
I agree that all those who have abused the system - from each party should be banned from politics for some time. Those that have done wrong should face the law. Giving them 5 years to get there act together is unacceptable.
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If the party leaders really believe in value for money they have to stop second jobs, and thirds and forths. Basically each party needs to ban their own MP's from holding second jobs. Any other approach will be a moral fudge.
They should not wait to be forced or for the setting up of a commission, they need to act now for the parliament coming and stand for election on this basis.
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The biggest abuses of the expenses system always were
1 Claiming mortgage relief - when you don't have two mortgages
2 Using your position as an MP to get other jobs.
The leaders need to clamp down on both of these to show they get where the real abuses were, and that they are real leaders. There was a lot of sound and fury especially from the opposition leaders that claiming for cat food etc was wrong, but lets see if they can really show moral authority on this.
Talk is cheap but if they could get all the MP's that have made money when they should have been working as MP's and who made capital gains on there houses should give th money back to the tax payer.
Anything less will be a pretence at dealing with it.
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I saw the report on BBC News. I mean, it's as thick as a telephone directory. Is Sir Christopher paid by the word or something? How much can someone say about the announced reforms?!
Although there was at least one notorious case of abuse, the banning of employing a family member is frankly stupid. It sounds good to the gullible, that's all. Some MP's spouses work intermittently for 7 days for no great salary. What will an employee willing to do such a job cost? Someone who will want holidays independent of whatever the MP wants?
How much will it cost to recruit someone? It isn't just advertising, sorting through applications, interviewing. There should be a CRB check. How the MP will check the integrity of the interviewee is anyone's guess. It'll need a new cross-government or independent department to deal with all this.
As with every job, the employer should choose the best person for that job. If it's the wife/husband you know and trust (and can keep him off the porn channels) then that's how it should be.
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1)
Will you give it a piggin' rest about Cameron's bloody mortgage?Its getting extremely boring.
Particularly as you're repeatedly and deliberately glossing over the expenses sins of the current government!
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2 balancedthought
"I would hate to think that our country was being led by someone who had to be told what was right from wrong by a senior civil servant."
===============================================
Errrr..... didn't Gordon Brown pay back £12,000 as a result of the expenses enquiry which told him what was right and wrong ............ some people claim that he is leading the country, so the situation you would allegedly hate to happen is actually happening now.
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5#
I have a feeling that its another case of political double standards.
The reason that MP's employ their spouses has probably got sod all to do with whether they are best qualified for the job or not. Its almost certainly purely financial.
If you transfer some of your pay or allowances or earnings to your spouse, then you are using their tax allowance as well, which can be a very efficient way of reducing your own tax exposure. Its called Income Shifting.
This used to be a common tactic, indeed one even advocated and permitted by the revenue. Then in 2004, they decided to take on a husband and wife consultancy firm pair called Arctic Systems. It was a one man firm, the wife was company secretary and the income was divided between the two of them, taking advantage of both their full tax allowances.
Labour and HMRC suddenly decided this wasnt on, so they investigated them and decided that Arctic Systems owed HMRC 42 grand in retrospective unpaid taxes, on top of what they'd already paid.
Three years, the case went on for. And at every turn, HMRC lost. They finally took their last appeal to the House Of Lords... and lost. Four-Nil.
And still they tried to bring it in, in 2007.
THATS what they're up in arms about. Its got sod all to do with whether the wives/husbands are any good at looking after the MP's affairs. Its all to do with the folding stuff and tax avoidance. Dont let them fool you!
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Why can't this be applied from the next election? There is no valid reason to allow this disgusting misuse of taxpayers cash to continue for five and in some cases ten years. Sixty five thou a year is sufficient in anybody's pocket, that's three times the average wage and probably four or five times what a helluvu lot of hardworking people earn. What should now be done is that the leaders of the parties should show their committment to cleaning up parliament by asking all of those found to have fiddled the system, (legally but not morally) to stand down now and face re election. If as I suspect this isn't in Brown's interest then at least deselect these people for the next election.They do not deserve the position of privilege they now find themselves in.
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Finbarr welcome, glad you caught up, the reason I am talking about the fact that David Cameron has claimed the max for a second mortgage when he did not have two mortgages is........
1 Every attempt to mention the difference between his pronouncements and his behaviour has been sat on, this is probably the only last time there will be to mention it and it is topical.
2 I really hate hypocrisy.
3 He has not been taken to account for his moral leadership on this by political commentators not a whisper.
4 I have not glossed over anyone else I have just chosen to concentrate on the difference between his pronouncements and his actions.
5 I think the Daily Telegraph ran a politically motivated campaign deliberately weighted to try and damage the government whilst conserving the real power. The rest of the press blindly followed it.
6 Today is a good day to bury bad news - flip flop on Europe. I think that is massively cynical.
David Cameron got a free ride with the press because - apart from his dealing with the financial system Brown had been so awful. I just really hate unfairness.
Oh and he is big enough to look after himself.
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fubar S @ 6
"Will you give it a piggin' rest about Cameron's bloody mortgage? It's getting extremely boring"
no it's NOT boring - not at all
bet you've played your favourite Clapton track about a thousand times, haven't you?
plus, BT is making a much better fist of it than me
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Finbarr
Piggin' ?? are you a brummie?
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Hi Saga,
I really like his playing on Roger Waters -Pros and cons of hitchhiking- just so dynamic.
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10#
I dont buy a word of it.
There are hundreds of other offenders, who have had aspirations to equally high office who are equally guilty, if not worse, than what Cameron is constantly accused of by you and Saga.
Yet neither of you mention any of the other offenders, who have actually ripped off the public, and been allowed by the system to keep their ill gotten gains and in some cases have even been ennobled as a result.
Or did what they do not bother you because "it was permissable under the rules"?
For someone who alleges that they cant stand hypocrisy, youre doing a very fine line in it at the moment.
Cameron is not a shoo-in as the next PM and he would be very very mistaken to believe it himself. Just "not being Gordon Brown" is no longer good enough.
What do you mean, "conserving the real power"? The information was offered around every paper in Fleet Street. Guido nearly got hold of it but wasnt prepared to bid as high as the Telegraph did.
Are you saying the Telegraph shouldnt have brought this to our attention? If that was the case, why are you getting so steamed up over Cameron? And yet not over Hoon, Darling, Prescott, Brown, Jackboots, McNulty, et al?
Why is your ire only reserved for the blue side of the house?
"Moral leadership?" Are you taking the p??? From someone who tacitly endorses the "Son Of The Manse And His Famous Presbyterian Moral Compass"? You are seriously trying to be funny, arent you???
I'd maybe have the faintest shred of respect for you and what you think if you - and you Saga for that matter, but I think you do it deliberately - just came out and said it.... "I slag him off and dont throw mud at my own benches because it suits my political agenda"
Any credibility to the name "balanced thought", (if it was ever there) is worth absolute squat. You wouldnt know balanced if it bit you on the keister.
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12#
Not quite.... Coventry. And piggin' gets past the profanity filter, where as the word I would have used, which rhymes with ducking would not have.
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When small businesses, like my tea shop in Brighton, are struggling in the recession, they shoukd get their noses out of the trough. I've blogged about our day to day trials and successes here: http://bit.ly/1xyoT7
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@ Balancedthought
THe reason no-one has been up in arms about Cameron, is because there is nothing wrong with his mortgage claim at all, despite what you would like us to believe in your oh so "balanced" way.
The rules are not there for second MORTGAGES, but for those who need a second HOME. Spot the difference? If you need a second home to do your job as an MP then the rules allow you to claim back mortgage interest (and interest only) up to a certain allowance.
You would be hard pressed to find an MP with a second home who WASN'T using this allowance.
If I were you I'd concentrate my fire on those who HAVE done wrong. Maybe paying for repairs on a 3rd home, neither in London or your constituency; maybe continuing to claimon a mortgage that had already been paid off. You know, actual wrongdoing, not just a vendetta against one person.
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2 and 10 balancedthought
"I would hate to think that our country was being led by someone who had to be told what was right from wrong by a senior civil servant."
===================================
As I said in my earlier post, it is reassuirng to know that someone is is telling Gordon Brown what is right and wrong as his moral compass doesn't seem to be doing a very good job at it. Gordon Brwon is certainly the PM, leading the country, I don't know about that.
"I agree that all those who have abused the system - from each party should be banned from politics for some time....."
==================================
You mean someone like Gordon Brown who abused the system to the point that he had to repay £12,000 ? I like your idea,, but i think his time in politics will drawing to a close fairly soon anyway.
"apart from his dealing with the financial system Brown had been so awful. I just really hate unfairness."
==============================
Are you for real ????
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17 Grawth
You would be hard pressed to find an MP with a second home who WASN'T using this allowance.
Would we? How about:
Celia Barlow (Lab)
Philip Dunne (Con)
There, that wasn't difficult.
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Finbarr
SP - how very wounding - I can hardly get my breath.
Why you ask regarding expenses do I keep mentioning David Camerons claiming of interest relief when he only has one mortgage.
It is not because he was born with a silver spoon up his nose.
not even because he is the Vanilla Ice of politics.
It is because it is true - it gets the rise out of people like you and it is good fun!
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As far as Cameron and his mortgage go ...
There were a relatively small number of MPs who decided on principle not to claim, or to claim only a small percentage of, their second home allowance.
Do you think with hindsight, Dave wishes he were one of them?
You betcha.
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g @ 17
"The reason no-one has been up in arms about Cameron, is because there is nothing wrong with his mortgage claim at all"
it's with a full and heavy heart, Grawth, that I conclude you've lost your Moral Compass
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10 & 21 balancedthought:
Don't buy 1-6 @10. (esp 2)
Absolutely buy the ss, VI and p*sstake @21.
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Quite frankly, does it matter?
MPs are not paid enough to make the best in the land find it a real job - just a job where they could exercise "power".
We may waste a few millions here and there on big-headed, pig-headed prats, but there are rather more serious issues on the block.
Who has voted to support completely waste-of-space bankers so their failed companies can be supported by tax-payers' money that doesn't actually exist, so "quantative easing" (i.e. print it today and somebody could maybe pick up the tag tomorrow) is used to ease their pain.
I rather wish that Henry XVIII was still around. There would have at lesat been a few heads that people could throw stones at, spit on or mock rather than a self-serving bunch of failed capitalists protecting themselves.
I guess that includes a certain Anthony Blair. Messed up enough locally, so went off to raise a bit of cash for his missus by cashing in on notoriety. But like Ronnie Biggs, in a way?
When do you intend to blog about the massive over-commitment to stupid bankers, compared with the benefits that could flow from "investments" in building or manufacturing companies?
Brown says he's wanting to develop the UK's potential to deliver new, greener industry. Where's the money? Just disappeared down the gullets of Brown's - NOT Tory or anybody else's - banking friends. The people who coughed up tax-take that Brown p***ed away.
It's a nonsense to talk about Tories having "friends in the City" when you look at the complete shambles of what Brown and his allies have done.
Just tees me off.
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saga,
You are an idiot.
Brown (Chancellor during the majority of the New Labour Project) started off with good intentions. In other words a prudent approach that he linked to his Tory predecessor's fiscal policy.
Threw it out of the window. Along with sustainable private companies' pension plans, sensible control over government income and expenditure and any pretence that the UK educational system was a world leading organism.
You can tolerate a flim-flam artist for a while. You can understand that the monkey only lived because an organ-grinder created a lot of noise. But at some point reality kicks in.
Brown created the banking/financial management system that failed. There were no significant failures under the rules that Thatcher and Major endorsed. So every single issue can be laid at the door of Brown.
How many Spanish Banks have required billions of underpinning?
For goodness sakes, if banks an't do their job, let them collapse. If there are assets, they can be saved. If they are just a mess, shame really...
Pity the Brown instigated regulators didn't do their jobs.
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23 sagamix
Replied to your last on your Cameron mortgage smear back at the other thread.
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The MPs (far too many of them) will still find ways to continue paying themselves beyond their worth and wealth of this country.
For example: will they be able to purcase a property under a company name and then pay that company the rent claimed through expenses?
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#26 fairlyopenmind
" Brown created the banking/financial management system that failed. There were no significant failures under the rules that Thatcher and Major endorsed. So every single issue can be laid at the door of Brown."
Funny that! many pointed to the Lehman Bros and norhtern-rock as the front runners for the banking failure, others simply point too the last tory governments crass policies of allowing those bankers and yuppies to create such a greedy selfserving market.
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fairly @ 26
I think you mean Brown is an idiot, don't you?
and is he?
no, but he's an over promoted, self regarding, bullying, control freak
there, happy now?
where you go wrong is in overstating the impact of the UK regulatory system on what did and didn't happen; sure it wasn't completely irrelevant but it wouldn't have made much difference if, say, the BoE had remained Lead Regulator or if the rules had been different
the root causes of the credit crunch (and hence this recession) are as below:
(1) lax monetary policy from the Fed
(2) US sub prime lending
(3) securisation and misselling of the above
(4) the bonus culture which drove the behaviour of the key players
(5) the craven collusion of the ratings agencies
(6) poor regulation ... yes, here it is!
believe me, Fairly ... because I know ... we'd have been blown away regardless of precisely what Regulatory system Brown had set up
only thing I'm not sure of about you and your dogged and rather sweet belief that it was mainly a failure of UK regulation is whether it's because of a desire to pin blame on Brown for partisan political reasons, or whether it's because you just don't understand this area too well
on the grounds that the simplest explanation is usually the right one, I'm going to go with the latter
(but you're not an idiot or anything)
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21#
OK, no problem, at least I know not to take what you say seriously.
Thats fine, I know where I stand now. I can just take the p*** out of you instead. Cool.
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I have been engaging with sagamix on his Cameron mortgage smear on the other thread. Since he has posted his 23 here as if his claims were sound and unquestioned, and since balancedthought is repeating the smear with all the passion of a true believer, it is valid to summarise the points here.
Saga asserted in the previous thread that the facts re his Cameron mortgage smear
"are both well known and undisputed".
The "undisputed" bit is a lie. Saga and I discussed the facts of the case only a few weeks ago. In short, his mortgage story depends absolutely on the perception that Cameron had sufficient cash to buy his constituency house outright, but that he chose to have a mortgage instead to make a packet on his expenses. He quoted Cameron's personal wealth at £25 to £30 millions.
In fact the story of the £30 millions comes from the Daily Mail. They retracted the story here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191155/Claims-David-Cameron-30m-fortune-sit-uneasily-taxpayers-So-truth-money.html
I also pointed out to saga that if Cameron has significant cash wealth, then the income from it would show up in his entry in the Register of Members Interests (unless he keeps the money in an old sock under the bed, of course!). It does not - I have checked.
Finally, Cameron told Andrew Marr, when he was interviewed and asked about his wealth, that £30 millions was well wide of the mark and that the family houses were his and his wife's predominent assets.
In order to sustain the argument that Cameron could have comfortably afforded to buy his constituency house without a mortgage, Saga is effectively saying Cameron lied on the Marr show and in the Register of Members' Interests, but he shies away from saying so explicitly.
So, first, saga's "facts" are not "undisputed". Second, without this considerable cash wealth, which saga cannot prove and which firmer facts tend to disprove, his Cameron mortgage story is dead. What's more, it has been dead since we had that previous exchange, because it was at that point that he knew it was dead.
Repeating a story that you know to be untrue in order to try to gain political capital is a smear (at least).
I think sagamix owes us an explanation and an apology.
Saga's responses so far have been a reference back to another post that assumes his "facts" are true, so that's inherently not good enough, and, more interestingly, a concession that, in fact, he doesn't know whether or not Cameron could have afforded the house outright (which is progress), but an assertion that the uncertainty allows him to carry on with the smear.
Genuinely balanced-thinking readers will recognise the look and feel of sagamix's story crumbling into the dust, along with his reputation and his integrity.
The time for sagamix's apology has arrived!
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If MPs seriously wanted to show some moral leadership here, they could arrange it so that the Kelly report was implemented in full by this time next week. Absolutely no reason why that couldn't be done.
Instead, they will hide behind all sorts of procedural stuff and committees, so that it will take years.
If they think that we, the voters, won't notice, then I'm afraid they are in for a bit of a disappointment.
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I am afraid that this report is still not good enough. The rules should change from now. If there was any real political will to do this we could have emergency legislation. Or everybody could agree to apply the rules from now.
The whining from the MP Nadine Dorries on the news was particularly patronising and sickening. I bet there are people from her constituency working longer hours than her for much less. How did we end up being ruled by people who are so out of touch?
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jr @ 27
yes, I saw
I think we're stuck until one of us can get hold of his bank statements
did read your virtual reconstruction of what those bank statements might look like, based on the Daily Mail and his Andrew Marr interview, but was not fully convinced - not nearly convinced - not at all convinced - just not convinced, JR, I'm sorry
let's move on to something else ... you choose
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The reality of the situation is that only a handful of MP's have acted in an ethical and moral way with respect to the expenses.
The vast majority, over five hundred of them, were sent a letter asking for explainations for dubious claims.
Therefore, at the next General Election there should be a wholesale clear-out, irrespective of whether the 'fiddling' MP in question is currently a high-flying Minister/Party Leader or an anonymous backbencher.
The only thing that can, and unfortunately probably will, save these politicians is a mostly tribal and literally unthinking electorate.
When you ponder that, it becomes a mystery as to why economics is tagged the dismal science, because there can be nothing more dismal for the English people than the tired old Labour/Tory duopoly.
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After the robbery of public money by the banks and the ongoing expenses saga it appears that Duff Gordon and NuLabour or still in the brown stuff.
From yesterdays YouGov Poll:
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister?
Satisfied 21%
Dissatisfied 70%
Don’t know 9%
Do you approve or disapprove of the Government’s record to date?
Approve 19%
Disapprove 67%
Don’t know 14%
Roll On 2010 - I hope Duff Gordon is still PM.
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No, this does not end the expenses saga, in fact this is just the beginning of the expenses saga.
How much of your council tax goes to paying both the salary of the CEO, the expenses of the councillors and the pensions of both.
These people are elected and employed to serve the community but appear to be only leeching off both.
Are they worth the money ?
How do you change them ?
Oh thats right, reelect or elect another venal bunch with no benefit of recall.
Of course they're going to rip us off, wouldn't you ?
We need a fundamental change in the relationship between the State and the ordinary person.
This change has been a long time in the wings, we all know that it is there, this is the elephant we've been ignoring for so long.
Which bit of THEY ARE NOT LISTENING did you fail to grasp.
I don't give a monkeys what your political alignment is, which party flag you nail your colours to, they have all failed YOU
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38 sagamix
Actually, no, we will not move on. You have not established any facts to support your Cameron smear. I, on the other hand, have presented evidence to show that the fundamental basis of your story is incorrect.
The fact that you want to move on elsewhere is understandable. Likewise, I never expected you would concede the dishonest nature of your story and apologise for it. You clearly can't manage the loss of face that would bring. Like I said before - your problem, not mine. But your reputation is in pieces as a result.
Since the story has had a bit of uncriticised airtime on this thread, it seemed reasonable to expose it for the pack of lies that it is, and to expose you as the perpetrator of it. It is a smear and you are a smearer.
If you (or balancedthought, come to that) bring the story up again, I will report it as defamatory - the case for that having been clearly made.
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Hi Nick,
As I have to pass the local job centre on my way to work every day, I am dismayed by a couple of things.....
1. I assume that the people outside are signing on as looking for work, yet when some of them can't even stand up with their white lightning can in hand.
2. Can you please suggest to the party leaders that they make people who sign on as looking for work, turn up in the clothes that they would go to an interview in because when I see them, really it is no wonder they can't get a job - either that or they really are not looking for a job at all.
Sorry if this is a bit off message but I just needed to get the frustration of my chest.
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mr perry @ 45
JR, okay I WILL say I'm sorry! ... I'm sorry for upseting you to this extent
but you're over egging it by a very considerable amount, in my opinion
he doesn't deserve you
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11 Saga
Wa hey matey loads singing from the hymn sheet youve been singing from for ages.
I was always with you on Cameron .
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12 balancedthought
You go somat against Brummies ?
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46 JeremyHorwood
May I suggest you walk for a week in the shoes of those who you criticise on your way to work before you are so critical.
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That 30m sure does make a lot of headlines?.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/55105,people,news,samantha-cameron-marks-spencer-polka-dot-dress-the-full-story-unravels
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sagamix 47
It's all very well you apologising to me - big journey though I realise that was for you. But, as you well know, that misses the point.
The point is, it's the smear you should be apologising for. I don't know how many times and in how many ways I have to try to make this clear to you. Your story depends on facts - it falls over without them. You can't establish those facts. I have shown you, with sources, that they are unlikely to be true. I did that weeks ago, too, and yet you have persisted with retelling the story. The story is untrue. You can't even show that it is likely to be true. And yet you repeated it in order to try to gain political capital. That is the definition of a smear. And you, the perpetrator of it, you are the definition of a smearer.
It's the story you need to retract and apologise for. Can't you see how dumb your efforts to avoid that make you seem?
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44 BobRocket
Calm down my friend.
You are correct, this is the continuation of the saga that will bring down all their houses.
I was saddened when it dropped off the blog sites because it was the one thing that revealed how corrupt our masters are.
I give thanks to Sir Christopher Kelly for bringing it back to the main stage.
Yes in the scheme of things, such as the 5 soldiers killed on Tuesday, it is a sideshow. But it is the corrupt beings that have put those soldiers in the firing line and if their sink plug or love nest dry rot
expense brings them down then that really is justice.
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xtun @ 49
"I was always with you on Cameron"
a small but discerning group!
I guess his mind is mainly occupied with "Europe" stuff at the moment ... rather tricky that, as always, for a leader of the Conservative Party; think the "Time For A Change" thing plus the Recession will get him there, though, when all's said and done
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derekbarker 52
"That 30m sure does make a lot of headlines?."
Yes it does, but it was also retracted by its source. See my 35.
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52 DerekBarker
Perhaps she was living in hope of a new M&S contract so one can understand Amanda Marshall not waving a Churchillian style salute.
But what a story, all that efffort to get a pretenders wife a frock.
A frock that said look I am just like you when in fact it was a special bespoke item.
All part of the smoke and mirrors intended to confuse us I guess.
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Mrs Cameron is also very wealthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Cameron
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55 Saga
Indeed Sir.
Thats a bit defeatist of you if I am reading you right !
Although the Brown crowd have had it I dont see Camerons crew as
necessarily any better or the successors.
My hope is for a new party to knock them both for six, failing that a hung Parliament. The last one, Lab/Lib, worked well for a while and then they fell out.
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I filled in my self-assessment form today, and it was very depressing knowing how little I can claim simply to ofset against by tax liability/bill, when I see MPs still getting "expenses" for stuff that shouldn't even be classed as expenses and are instead perks.
Most of these things the MPs will still be allowed to claim shouldn't be classed as expenses (they should be taxed and classed as perks), and they shouldn't even be given as perks, they should be part of the standard costs of living that you expect from taking the job. So they fleece us both ways; firstly they get money for something that they should be paying out of their own pocket, and secondly they don't even get taxed on that money when in fact it's effectively extra income/salary.
I can't even claim these kinds of things as costs to my business to get tax relief from, let alone be given the total costs by the government without them even being taxed.
Loads of other people are in the same boat as me, especially the self-employed; they see how MPs will still end up fleecing the tax payer and living by different tax laws to everyone else, and in the midst of a recession that fleecing is just rubbing salt into the wounds.
All of these reports are diversions; they simply need to live by the same basic tax laws as everyone else does. There is absolutely no reason to continue with this farce; MPs are no different to anyone else who has more than one office.
MPs: live by the same laws that you inflict on everyone else. if you don't then you have no right to retain your job. It really is that simple.
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56 jrperry
I have re-read your 35 which appears to be an episode of your ongoing battle with Saga but can find no reference to Camerons wifes frock ??????????
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60 getridofgordonnow
Right on Brother.
The sooner the corrupt are voted out the better.
It was , I think, in 1843 when the House of Commons burned down and thousands gathered to cheer.
Sounds like not a lot has changed.
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Nick you say: Nearing the end of the expenses saga. I have a strong feeling its far from that.
Now MPs want a £40,000 rise! As expenses purge is revealed, our dishonourable members look for compensation.
Grasping MPs demanded a huge pay rise last night after a crackdown on their expenses brought the Westminster gravy train to a halt.
In an astonishing show of contempt for voters, ministers and backbenchers complained that their £65,000-a-year salaries will not be enough to live on.
MPs should get a pay rise - but will lose second homes.
But he (Sir Christopher Kelly) backed off from action against those politicians whose actions sparked public fury - and signaled support for substantial pay rises for MPs in compensation for the tough new rules.
Well it appears that its back to the TROUGH as usual.
In fact next years GE will be more like First Snout Past The Trough (FSPTT) rather than the usual First Past The Post (FPTP).
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Found this article at Politics.co.uk:
Miliband 'heading to Europe'.
David Miliband has accepted the European foreign policy minister role he was tipped for, a Labour source has told politics.co.uk.
The foreign secretary could announce his new position within the next fortnight, triggering a by-election in his South Shields constituency seat which might be contested by Peter Mandelson.
Good story but only time will tell if it’s true. If it is then it looks as though the rats have started to desert the sinking ship.
Roll On 2010
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Good morning mods.
Re: The Nick Robinson blog
Is there any way you can get your techies to mend the time stamp for each comment. Whenever it is clicked an - - Error 404 - Page not found - - is sent back.
Yet this appears to be okay on other BBC blogs.
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24 Blame
well you are entitled to your opinion ice ice baby...
50 Angry of ...
surely you mean
Yow got summat against brummies.
me - Nowt bab
65 2010
I'm totally with you, the new improved system is a bit weird - getting lots of Error 404
EtonRifle
-love the name
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This expenses stuff is a load of nonsense anyway.
If it was there and it was legal to abuse it - you would do, I would do, they did do and so would most of the bloggers here.
The accounts end should have stopped it, they didn't and now everyone is having to wear a hair shirt, so what?! Move on.
What is more interesting is the response from Number 10 to the 72,000 strong petition for Gordon Brown to resign.
http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21213
Gordon with his typical - 'I couldn't care less what the people want' attitude - what a guy.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Shame of Britain's cancer death rates: Toll is 20% higher than Europe and getting worse.
Cancer patients in Britain are far more likely to die than those in the rest of Europe - and the gap is getting wider, research suggests.
There are now 20 per cent more deaths from the disease per 100,000 people in the UK than across the Continent.
Yep the Lunatics have certainly taken over the Asylum!
Roll On 2010
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JRP:
Let 'em get on with it mate, all they're doing is just yanking your tail and then running off and hiding in the bushes when you bare your teeth.
Leave 'em to it. The boneheads aint worth the stress.
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68#
You should be careful what you wish for mate.
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70 fubar
Point of principle, but sorry to be repetitive.
Sagamix, with balancedthought now grimly hanging on to his coat-tails, has pursued this vendetta over Cameron's mortgage expenses for too long. When it has been shown clearly to be a lie, all he has done is to leave it for a week or so and then come back with it again, as if it is magically restored to the status of the proven truth. If nothing is done, he will just repeat the same cycle, over and over again.
The time has come for saga to admit he has got it badly wrong, 'fess up and drop the story properly. Then we can move on.
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Just remember these expenses are chicken feed against this months Extra spending by Brown and Darling:-
32 Billion saving the banks a second time
50 Billion QE by the bank of England
10+ Billion election last ditched push coming in the pre budget report
IE Just under 100billion EXTRA spending on and above the 270Billion goverment debt just to make Brown and Co look like world players.
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"67. At 07:09am on 05 Nov 2009, sircomespect wrote:
This expenses stuff is a load of nonsense anyway.
If it was there and it was legal to abuse it - you would do, I would do, they did do and so would most of the bloggers here."
Probably BUT IN ANY OTHER JOB I would be scaked, and the TAX man would go after me for undeclaired income and possibily face jail.
Why are MP's special and above the Law?
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Off topic, but has any one else noticed that since they changed the login system and updated the blog pages they are now Very Very slow to load and often end with page errors?
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Cameron is certainly not one of the worst offenders in the expenses scandal – nobody is saying he is. But he claimed a lot. It was within the rules, but as Cameron himself has stressed in relation to other transgressors, this does not mean that it is morally justifiable. If it did, there’d be no need to reform the rules.
Cameron could have chosen not to claim his allowance, or to claim only part of it. Other, more principled, MPs did this – a couple on the basis that their personal wealth made it unethical to claim expenses from the public purse. (Ironically, this is broadly the argument that Cameron and Osborne will use to support a policy of withdrawing universal benefits such as Child Benefit from the better off.) Others with constituencies more remotes from London than Cameron’s decided that they did not need a second home at all.
So Cameron’s problem is that his high moral tone on expenses is not backed up by high moral standards – at least not compared to the MPs who showed more integrity. He is not one of the worst sinners, but he is one of the most vocal critics of those who sinned. It’s therefore right that we should judge him by higher standards.
The thing is, by being tough on others and soft on himself, Cameron has reinforced the widely held impression that he more about presentation than principle. It isn’t a clincher, but it doesn’t help his cause.
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"60. At 00:53am on 05 Nov 2009, getridofgordonnow wrote:
I filled in my self-assessment form today, and it was very depressing knowing how little I can claim simply to ofset against by tax liability/bill, when I see MPs still getting "expenses" for stuff that shouldn't even be classed as expenses and are instead perks."
MP have a special section and an additional decleration that they HAVE to sign, allowing them to tell the tax man and pay tax on any amounts paid under the second homes allowance that were not wholey, nessesesarly etc incoured in their role as MP's.
The problem is that all MP's claimed that 100% of their second homes allowance was required.
I want the Tax man to go after them, as they would a small business owner, for false declaration on their tax returns and throw the book at them.
I can see no way how a MP can claim that adult movies, duck houses, mock tudor beams, cots, planting of a wood, patio furniture, or even paying the heating and lighting in a house ocupied full time by their faimaly despite being the second home, is 100% required in their job as an MP.
They should be treated for what they are Tax Frauders!
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When you one read all the stuff on here (a lot of it deliberate wind-ups) about MPs expenses you can understand why some people think the subject ought to be closed by Kelly being accepted in full. End of story and move on. If I am accused of being a killjoy who wants to deprive some of their fun in posting light-heartedly on a serious issue then I stand guilty.
There is an election not far off, and I respectfully suggest that what each of us ought to want to know is exactly what our sitting MP has done and how guilty they are of playing the system. Or worse - we also ought to want to see those who have cheated charged and arraigned. Now, so that there is no possibility of them walking off with a big pension pot if they are found guilty.
I wrote to my MP asking him to explain why he had done what he was accused of, ie flipping. I was partially satisfied with his full and comprehensive reply, particularly as he had only been an MP since 2005 and had undoubtedly gone along with what the fees office told him he should do. He says his election had changed his view on where he should live to be most effective in his new job. I will have to give weight to his explanation when I vote. Will the rest of the electorate be told everything they need to know about their own MP, and how fair or otherwise the allegations against them may be?
If am I on the wrong board I have no doubt you will all tell me.
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"64. At 05:10am on 05 Nov 2009, Roll_On_2010 wrote:
Found this article at Politics.co.uk:
Miliband 'heading to Europe'.
David Miliband has accepted the European foreign policy minister role he was tipped for, a Labour source has told politics.co.uk.
The foreign secretary could announce his new position within the next fortnight, triggering a by-election in his South Shields constituency seat which might be contested by Peter Mandelson."
Roll On,
A change in the law will be required for Mandy to contest the seat, members of the house of Lords are band from standing as MP's.
And Just think how much it would cost us if he stood, as soon as he resugned his place in the house of Lords, which he would have to do before putting his name forward, he would receive redundancy pay for all the committees he was in and lost earnings for his ministerial role etc!
But on the Plus side there would be 4 weeks of not having him running goverment!
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Only that Kelly will finish this whole sorry mess. But we have murmurrings of a committee to approve it, which begs the question why? The keeping mortgage releif for 5 years will create a two tier system...highly unsatisfactory. Stop the relief now, they can then claim the average rental payment. This would allow them to continue to pay the mortgage or sell the house without over much penalty. but because of the history would we trust them to do this.......
The way that MPs are treat for CGT is a travesty, all those who have gained over "flipping" should be forced to repay or be taken to court for tax avoidance. Those that claimed for nonexistant mortgages should face the SFO.
This would show a determination by those who aspire to and allegedly lead the country to restore the faith of the electorate in them.
Another thing that gripes me about this is we the PM declaring he can do no wrong, that the whole world listens to him and jumps to implement his every idea and we find that he can't even claim mhis expenses properly!!! Ok cheap shot.
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Save it Davies, you're just having a go at Cam because it suits your agenda. Why dont you just say it?
Has Cam banged on about his strong presbyterian moral compass or any of that cack? And then been found out?
Let me help you with that.
No.
So, why make such a big example of one guy unless its agenda driven?
They're ALL more about style than substance, regardless of the party.
What standards are you judging Gordon by? Or Alistair Darling? Both serial flippers. Or Hazel Blears the CGT dodger? Not the same standards that you judge Cameron by, obviously.
Is it because Cameron happens to be loaded? And you aint?
More NL class warfare bulldust.
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It is amazing how that duck house was promoted by the media.
I have a feeling that its claim was disallowed by the fees office but hey! its a great tale of " nasty Tories" and fits in nicely with the "politics of envy" promoted by the media.
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And I was sooooo looking forward to a blog by Nick about the stupid Tories and the EU , or about "autistic "Tories , or indeed about the OECD report which puts UK recovery flat on its back at the bottom of the table behind the ARC OF INSOLVENCY of Iceland and Ireland , well behind Denmark, Sweden and so far behind the leader of the pack ,Norway , as to be absolutely terrifying!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
72. jrperry
C'mon jrp, get over it... this is an open forum. If you can prove they are being defamatory then refer them. If it makes you feel better respond in kind with Brown's flipping or a list of other offenders from the Cabinet; if Saga is your main antagonist dig up some dirt on Harman, her other half is a good place to start, and she's fairly easily discredited anyway. Be a bit more creative.
The Opposition leader is fair game. If there is no alternative position being offered by those who single him out don't bother having a running debate. I'd think 99% on here have made up their minds on this issue anyway.
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66 balancedthought
yow wotchit mate !
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81 FS wrote:
Save it Davies
Took me right back to the playing fields of Eton, that comment! Thank you. Very nostalgic.
Anyway, if you can be bothered, you really should read my post again and respond to what I actually wrote, rather than to your own silly parody of it.
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#33, sagamix wrote:
"fairly @ 26
I think you mean Brown is an idiot, don't you? and is he?
no, but he's an over promoted, self regarding, bullying, control freak
there, happy now?
where you go wrong is in overstating the impact of the UK regulatory system on what did and didn't happen; sure it wasn't completely irrelevant but it wouldn't have made much difference if, say, the BoE had remained Lead Regulator or if the rules had been different"
Saga,
I apologise for the ad hominen comment. It was a cheap shot. I did slap my wrist as soon as I'd pushed the send button.
However, looking at your comments:
"the root causes of the credit crunch (and hence this recession) are as below:
(1) lax monetary policy from the Fed
(And the UK government?)
(2) US sub prime lending
(And the well evidenced UK sub prime lending, which was evident to regulators - if I could see it, they surely could! Brown's regulators did absolutely nothing to throttle back on credit for any types of purchase, did they?)
(3) securisation and misselling of the above
(Approved by - or not understood by the supposed regulators. Regulators presumably accepted that some of that junk represented "real assets", otherwise they'd have forced banks to hold additional assets in reserve? And it seems, not even understood by those who claimed to be "running" the banks?)
(4) the bonus culture which drove the behaviour of the key players (Agreed. But that wasn't a hidden fact, was it? Should not UK regulators have worried that retail/mortgage organisations were lending vastly more than they actually had and stamped on the short-term borrowings to fund what should be long-term lending?)
(5) the craven collusion of the ratings agencies
(Absolutely with you on that. I'm just surprised that those guys haven't been sued into bankruptcy and oblivion, along with the auditors who signed off bank accounts...)
(6) poor regulation ... yes, here it is!
(Well, saga, all your points from 2 - 5 should have been very much within the scope of regulators in the US and the UK to pick up on. Brown bragged about his "light touch regulation" while banks generated profits and paid huge bonuses - both of which drove up his tax-take. It was only after the flow stopped that he began to complain about the appalling greed of finance houses...)
"believe me, Fairly ... because I know ... we'd have been blown away regardless of precisely what Regulatory system Brown had set up"
Saga,
As soon as the US situation was recognised, it was evident that there would be a global crunch. I contend (without your evident understanding of the inner workings) that the extent to which UK banks were shown to be tottering was simply evidence that they had been badly run and under-regulated.
Not ALL were equally affected. Standard, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds all took hits, but seemed far less exposed than some of the rapid-growth seeking basket-cases like RBS, HBoS, Northern Rock, etc.
I complain about Brown because I find him economically and politically inept. I've moaned a lot about that rediculous 10p tax rate withdrawal.
I was aghast when he could even have considered the MoD trying to chop a couple of hundred million from TA training, then within days supported another 30BILLION being shoved into banks...
I agree with the BoE that as long as the "jeopardy" is removed and finance houses are told they can't fall over, you relieve them of the need for self-discipline.
And, I still believe that Brown's pushing of HBoS into LloydsTSB was a stupidly bad decision. Forget EU "interference", the UK's Competition body would have had some very sharp words to say about giving one group such a massive slice of the retail and mortgage markets. Who stopped them having a say? Brown.
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The inflexibilty of these proposals means that the bill for the taxpayer might actually increase.
It would be better to retain flexibilty, between buying and renting accommodation for example, but to enforce the rule requiring claims to relate to expenses "necessarily and wholly" incurred for parliamentary duties, much more rigorously. MPs could be required to refund to the treasury any incidental personal profits that they made.
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81 Fubar
Is it because Cameron happens to be loaded? And you aint?
To coin a phrase, I am intensely relaxed about Cameron's wealth.
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@81 Fubar
Give Hazel credit she did write a cheque for the full amount when it was pointed out. Her boss allegedly through his toys out, funny he did not do the same for Hoon and others.
To me this shows double standards and a total lack of morals. Never mind the compass to show the way.
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90
Yeah. Course you are. I dont believe you.
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I find it touching the way the Tory types on this blog leap to the defence of David Cameron. There's a lot of 'he did nothing wrong', 'it's class envy' and 'let's draw a line under this and learn lessons'. The last bit is very New Labour. But then David Cameron admires Tony Blair portraying himself as his 'heir'.
Expect more of the same when DC gets the top job.
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84 sagamix
Your post, sadly, remains inadequate in the extreme.
You have concocted a smear, and repeated it chronically over several months. You acknowledge that you can't establish the factual basis for it, and I have clearly shown you, with sources, perfectly credible evidence to show that what you have written, tens of times now, is very likely to be untrue. Any sensible person would have dropped the story ages ago. But you didn't and you won't. So, there you are, to all intents and purposes, a self-confessed pedlar of smears, adicted to your smears, unable to stop yourself.
It is a shame that you can't get over that final hurdle, retract the story, suffer the necessary five minutes of ignominy and move on. That is your failing, your problem.
So, you remain a smearer. Nothing you write can be believed or taken seriously. It is all tainted by the known (and admitted) dishonesty of your postings here, and your inability to face up to that.
I have no wish to carry on this kind of battle and it is tedious in the extreme for everyone else. So, all I shall do is remind everyone from time to time of your record. And, of course, report any further repeats of your mortgage story, or any further efforts on your part to drop in little motifs of it. It's best left to the moderators now.
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93#
Pop, the reason I get into a lather about Cameron is not because I'm a tory, which I am not, I have questioned his leadership ability on many occasions - but because I find that the left leaning selective smearing is so hypocritical when they are equally as guilty.
Its all about glass houses and stones. Very few things make my p*ss boil as much as people being two faced liars who are equally as bad.
And they know it as well. They're just too weak and spineless to admit it publicly for loss of face.
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91#
Yes, she did. The only thing I dont know is whether it was under duress.
Her boss? If he told me it was raining outside, I'd have to go and see if I got wet before I believed him.
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81 Fubar
Are you saying that you can only criticize Cameron if you are as rich as he is, otherwise it's just envy? Really?
I know that wealth insulates you from many things in life, but criticism too?
Come on, you can do better than that!
And I am not a class warrior, thank you very much, I am a champagne socialist.
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pdavies65
For me you are the biggest hypocrite apart from balanced thought on this blog.
Let me explain something to you, in a lot of companies I have worked for, because people move around so much, they have a maximum of how much you can claim either for rent or for a mortgage. Now how many people do you think claim the minimum. Even members of the public understand that they will get the best they can within the money offered. How many of them sit down and think I will get a small inadequate property just to keep at the minimum of claiming. The answer is no one does.
Now Camerons Mortgage was quite in order, as far as I know he was only claiming for the interest on that mortgage. There was very little else he was claiming for. To be honest for a leader of the opposition I expected his bill to be a lot higher.
You may very well be angry over MPs expenses, though I doubt it is true anger, more like making political points for no reason. However put your anger where it belongs with those that deliberately set out to make money by devious means. Such as Darling who hired an accountant to find ways round the system.
I will tell you this, I am beginning to wish that this expenses scandal had never reared its ugly head, because quite honestly, I believe the measures kelly has put in place overall will cost the tax payer more money. A lot of wives and members of MPs families do help out MPs for very little reward for a start. Also if MPs have to pay rent instead of buying that will cost more. Along with this I believe MPs will have to have a pay rise to compensate for receiving less expense money. Thats before we get to people like you trying to smear the innocent ones amongst the MPs. So I am starting to wonder if starting this whole sorry mess was worth it.
Brown and his Government have committed us to the biggest gravy train of all, without any chance of reform, that is the EU. If you think our MPs are on the make, I suggest you look at this little money earner for most working there. Now they have so much power in so few hands I do not expect to see any reform in the near future, do you?
I think in the end you will have to pay MPs another 40 thousand a year. Otherwise as the saying goes 'if you pay peanuts you will get monkeys' and we have enough of those already. Balls and Cooper being a good example.
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of course these MP's want an end to the expenses saga becouse they want to settle things down and get back to normal.
do those running this country believe a few words and quick fix promises will make the problem go away, sadly they are misguided and foolishly thinking the public are easily fooled.
these people need watching very closely as if they are not watched they will revert back to as they were.
may be the parties can be penalised for the behaviour of its members as well as members been removed and charged, corruption should be stampped out fully.
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Nicholas
Where's the update on the Tory EU fiasco??
Hannan's left as spokesperson... who's next?
Davis to resign again??
Come on, Nick, you know you want to...
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sagamix 84
jrp is right saga, you cannot keep repeating things which are not true. Its very wrong to do so.
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97#
That explains a few things.
You know exactly what I'm saying. If you criticise someone for what you yourself are doing as well, then it makes you look like a t*t.
Dont know if I can put it much simpler than that.
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Duress or not it was done.
The others have not even contemplated the idea, and it was not put to them that they should. When it comes to cronnyism, deceit, duplicity and hypocrisy the "son of the manse" knows no equal.
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98 Susan
I agree with almost everything in your post. In fact, if you take out the insult at the start and the cheap party-political smear at the end, I could have written it!
Seriously, if you look at my earlier posts here and on the other related thread (you may not have the time or inclination) you'll see that I too feel that bringing the expenses scandal to light has not been of much service to the public, and that I do not feel anger (real or otherwise) about the issue.
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#95
'...Very few things make my p*ss boil as much as people being two faced liars...'
Wow, Foobs! Go and have a cup of tea and stare out of the window for a while. You're right though. Politicians, and their apologists, of all hues have royally screwed us over good and proper and have been for years. They are two faced and they are liars and if they weren't the ones writing the 'rules' half of them would be either in jail, on the run or feeding the fishes in a cement overcoat. The other half would probably be enjoying well earned obscurity and one or two might have turned out to be actual well balanced, principled human beings.
They can all sink as far as I'm concerned.
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On today of all days, instead of burning, in effigy, the man who tried a very direct reform of parliament, could we not start a tradition of recognising Guy Fawkes for the heroic, forward thinking individual that he undoubtedly was.
When the fireworks are going off tonight, I will be drinking his health.
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105#
Then we appear to have an accord... :-)
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Spooky. I've just opened a book that I haven't read in years and out fell a Labour campaign flyer from immediately before Blairs first term.
Underneath a grinning pic of Bliar, (his mouth is open so he musy be lying about something), it says - and I quote.
"OUR PRIORITIES IN GOVERNMENT WILL BE
* A GOOD EDUCATION FOR ALL CHILDREN
* FIRST CLASS HEALTH SERVICE FOR ALL
* PROPER PENSIONS FOR THE RETIRED
* NEW POLICIES FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT
* A FRESH CRUSADE AGAINST CRIME"
Comments on a post card please headed, 'Failed, Failed, Failed, Failed and...Failed'.
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106 jwnb
Yes, and the IRA tried a similar thing in Brighton. Will you be toasting them too? Just wondering ...
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Nick
I hope you'll be following this and alert us to any watering-down/kicking into the long grass. Also a name-and-shame piece on the MPs who still get the "golden goodbyes" would be welcome.
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Re 109
Without descending into the historical reductio ad absurdum of, 'which assassination / attempted assassination was right or wrong', (do you for example consider Elser or Stauffenberg or Princip right or wrong), to compare Margaret Thatchers government with that of James I, four hundred years ago, which consisted of unelected grandees, brooking no dissent from their own views, authorising surveillance, torture and murder against its enemies, real or imagined, would again, be absurd.
Blair / Brown absolutely correct comparison, but not poor old Maggie.
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Has our leader found his level and I quote from the 10 Downing Street website PM "good meeting with appretices at Air Bus"
What hope is there for this country when the senior Politician has a good meeting with a lot of youths?
My ghast is well and truely flabbered.
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jr @ 94
"It's best left to the moderators now"
with a bit of help from you apparently; bye bye 84 and bye bye the right to criticise Cameron over the expenses issue ... "perrymandering" should we call it?
very funny and not a little pathetic
but don't worry, babe, you can continue posting your brittle as a biscuit witterings about big bad Gordon Brown and the various failings of the Labour Government - nobody's going to interfere with that, least of all me
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While we're on the subject of Cameron's mortgage, has this been quoted before? It's from the Daily Mail:
One Tory MP last night attacked Mr Cameron’s alleged ‘double standards’ crackdown on some MPs and soft handling of others. ‘It’s like living through one of Stalin’s purges,’ said the MP. ‘It’s all deeply divisive. Some people are being asked simply to apologise while others are being told they have questions to answer. Fine, but on that basis, why doesn’t he repay years of mortgage interest claims above £1,250 a month that he’s claimed for?'
Or is that just typical Daily Mail anti-Tory propaganda?
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Both the Topical posts and the time stamp are trying to access the wrong web address '..2009/11/final_chapter_o.html'. Instead of '../2009/11/nearing_the_end_of.html' Couldn't register properly on here either kept getting that confirm details page. That's probably the same problem.
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98 Susan
Please I shan't take you to task for defamation but at what point have I been a hypocrite.
My understanding of the meaning of hypocrite is to do one thing whilst saying another.
I have not been claiming mortgage interest relief *(as an MP) for an additional house when I only have one mortgage; whilst telling everyone else to abide by the spirit of the rules.
So we have a different understanding of the meaning of the word.
I think what you mean is, you don't agree with me and you don't like the fact that I am saying it.
Tough.
*if it were so in order why has Kelly suggested banning it?
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113#
boot isnt as nice on the other foot, is it mate?
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So this seems to take us to a central theme defined by this country. Look after the trouble makers and punish everyone else. This is the wrong attitude to be taking, if you allow current people to continue to abuse the system in some ways then you should allow all people the same rights. I'm against this idea of a 2 tier system where new people are punished due to the old people who get to continue their cushy number as MPs without any form of punishment.
In every sector of this country, an offence is followed up by punishment, as long as we continue to allow the trouble makers to get away with it for another 5 years then we haven't reformed the situation. We need to punish the trouble makers, ban them from making claims and monitor them to ensure they are acting as they should.
Now is the time to start on the path of reinforcing good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour. People only learn when they're made to learn and the outcomes of learning depend on how the learning takes place.
Nobody is born either good or bad, we are born with the capacity to learn and from that learning process we develop the ability to make choices based on past experiences. Without proper punishment on the trouble makers will we ever get the reform we truly need. We need a process to adequately screen candidates from the start to ensure that they possess the qualities of character that will make a decent MP.
Instead all we seem to have ended up with are corrupt MPs who claim that they entered politics to serve the public interest only to use the position to abuse it for everything it's worth.
Now, thanks to our independent bunch, we have recommendations that, due to our wonderful bureaucratic processes, will probably take about 50 years to reach the point where MPs will feel that they can then debate it properly and then on another 50 years before it's put to a vote to decide on whether the public should be involved in the process, then another 50 years before they decide that it can be voted on, by which point they'll decide that the whole thing is somewhat outdated for a modern country where it will be filed in the confidential waste bin within Number 10.
We need proper reform and not words, action is what will define this situation, will MPs act or not? More importantly, will they act as they should and in the interests of the public whom they serve?
It's time for punishment and not some lax approach on "Oh, but I didn't realise what I was doing was wrong" or "It's within the rules" or any other such garbage. Make abusing the system in any way a criminal offence and bar people from any public position of power in the future.
This is their chance to choose the future they want to walk down, there are still many paths open and I get the feeling that after all the money that was spent on this enquiry, the end result will be MPs choosing their own path that suits themselves while the rest of us suffer the consequences of the selfish and greedy politicians who, in my opinion, are in the same league as the bankers that led their companies down a very big hole.
The time to choose is now....Change or no Change?
I say it's time for change, not just for the sake of saying the word and giving it no substance, but because we need it. No leniancy for offenders, zero tolerance is what's needed and then we'll see how long it takes before we start seeing MPs with the capacity to learn.
Can leopards truly change their spots? The verdict is not yet available.
And, can people learn? Yes, however, as long as we continue to reward MPs for their status instead of doing their job then they will never learn.
It's time for MPs to wake up to the world the rest of us live in and realise that their roles exist to serve the people, not the other way around.
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sagamix 113
As it happens, I did not report your 84. I would have preferred it to stay up to emphasise the points I made in my 94. So you can keep your "very funny and not a little pathetic" remark to yourself.
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Ah well
Any vestige of authority these MPs thought they might restore appears to be going out the window.
I always thought that plea-bargaining helped to reduce your sentence.
Here we seem to have the defendent saying 'I'd do it again, guvnor' when the judge asked if he had anything to say for himself after being found guilty on a unanimous verdict.
These people are relying on the media to do their dirty work for them. Find the next scandal, the next outrage and let the MPs quietly go on doing what they've been doing before. By simply refusing to ratify the recommendations of Kelly.
I don't think I'll respect anything MPs say again if they do that.....
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116#
Or in this context, to condone one activity taking place under your nose whilst feigning "moral" (LOL) outrage at the other side doing the same...
"I think what you mean is, you don't agree with me and you don't like the fact that I am saying it.... tough"
Y'know... I think I'm going to keep that line.
Every time a Labour apologist asks me a difficult question, or if they put up a countering point of view, that maybe has some validity, thats what I'll send back to them. "Too bad, yah-boo sucks to you.... tough"
I mean, its far better than debating isnt it?
Say as I say or tough t*tty? Has a certain ring to it.
Certainly better than the Clough school of debating most of the left-leaners on here graduated from... "we'll sit down and talk about it... and then decide I was right".
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fs @ 117
"boot isn't as nice on the other foot, is it mate?"
explain please ... what boot? what foot?
I'm talking about referring posts to the moderators
never done that ... not even with the yucky "BNP Fellow Traveller" stuff
you a fan of censoring posts, are you?
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114#
My, my, a socialist sincerely using the right wing ranting MSM to make a point! LOL!
I smell desperation in the air!
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Just jumping in to commend AlphaPhantom, post #118; great post, spot on, my friend.
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113. sagamix
Whoops, that didn't go down well...
You have the right of appeal, Saga. This is a democracy, allegedly.
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"nearing the end of the expenses saga"
is that headline said in hope or in jest ?
they have another 5 years to shaft us a wee bit more !!!
Sid
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You should pop over to The Guardian website and have a read of Blunketts bleating about how terribly unfair Mr Kelly is being
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/05/mps-expenses-kelly-review#start-of-comments
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This is what you get when the cops are the criminals.
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pdavies65
I agree with the substance of your posts about MPs expenses.
So (for the benefit of the few people who may recognise me on here):
I made a mistake. I took out a subscription to 'The Daily Telegraph' (because it was cheap). I'm now sick of the sanctimonious outpourings of Telegraph journalists and editors over the expenses scandal (and the EU by the way) and the editorial selection of infantile letters to include in its letters page.
The 'Telegraph' made no contribution to lifting political debate. The whole episode was a cynical ploy to increase the power of an unelected press over (flawed) democratic politicians, whose most important virtue is that they were elected by us.
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jr @ 119
"So you can keep your "very funny and not a little pathetic" remark to yourself"
I will - and I'll replace it with one of yours from your 94
it's about someone who simply can't bear to read (on a BBC politics blog with the specific topic MPs expenses) of any suspicion that the leader of his beloved Conservative Party may not have been in dire need of the mortgage on which he (within the rules) claimed expenses
here it is:
"inadequate in the extreme"
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Well at least the UKIP won't be able to take any moral high group on this issue come the next election...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8344176.stm
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Vwarious comments by balancedthought
and sagamix
balancedthought you may have a literary form of vertigo. Saga we know about the "undecided voter" angle.
Remind me was it Darling, Hoon and others in the Cabinet that had an accute case of flipping? Also, I seem to recall that two senior Labour politicians having to apologise to the House about the financial arrangements on housing costs, one supporting his parents to the tune of over £12K.
Strange that you do not discuss them at length, as I think Fubar is pointing out to you.
If you have balancedthought and to prove you have not got litarary vertigo that is affecting your balance, please reveal your thoughts on Darling, Hoon, Smith, McNulty and Blears to name but a few.
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122#
Not necessarily of censoring posts, but yes it was me who referred your 84.
I dont like the moderators taking it upon themselves as to what should be censored or not, but if someone complains about an aspect of someones - anyones - posts, then unless they choose their words carefully, they remain liable to being referred by any of us.
Thats the one thing that prevents this board from degenerating into the complete free-for-all there is on Guido's site.
You were smearing and defaming.
You'd been asked time and time again to put up or shut up and you did neither. Just kept on banging on about it, with no supporting evidence apart from your own hatred. So, I referred it. Like I did with pdavies as well.
I thoroughly expect to get as good as I give. Thems the breaks.
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114. At 2:07pm on 05 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
While we're on the subject of Cameron's mortgage, has this been quoted before? It's from the Daily Mail:
One Tory MP last night attacked Mr Cameron’s alleged ‘double standards’ crackdown on some MPs and soft handling of others. ‘It’s like living through one of Stalin’s purges,’ said the MP. ‘It’s all deeply divisive. Some people are being asked simply to apologise while others are being told they have questions to answer. Fine, but on that basis, why doesn’t he repay years of mortgage interest claims above £1,250 a month that he’s claimed for?'
Or is that just typical Daily Mail anti-Tory propaganda?
===
You should know by now that you cannot trust anything in the Daily Mail, apparently.
Unless it suits your own party political purposes, it seems!
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balancedthought 116
No, I meant what I said, hypocrite. You see I remember your earlier post in which you claimed you were going to balance the site the way you wanted. That means no one can take seriously that what you are saying is what you believe. I think anyone can look this up in your posts if they want to. Hypocrite means a person who is guilty of hypocrisy, which in turn means insincerity. I believe you fit into this category.
You can say whatever you like, though usually using the truth and the ability of people to believe what you say helps.
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Fairly @ 88
right good, so as one "non idiot" to another! ...
of course you're right about the importance of Regulation in the broad sense, it's just that you underestimate the power of the cultural and behavioural forces in play and their ability to sweep all before them
and I empathise with you about the sheer annoyingness of Gordon's self regarding (and as we now know empty) boasting and posturing ... "No More Boom And Bust" ... "Regulation With A Light Touch" ... "Best Placed To Cope With Recession" ... "Saving The World" ... etc etc
god
but let me put it this way; to have staved off the credit crunch in the UK, he'd have had to put in place a regulatory system that inter alia (a) capped bonuses (b) insisted on way more capital than Basle did (c) stopped our banks buying US asset backed securities (d) stopped our banks being exposed to banks who DID buy ABSs (e) stopped our banks abusing the wholesale money markets (f) limited the exposure of our banks to American investement banks and CDS writers such as AIG (g) somehow dealt with the complexities of doing all that in just the one country when the market is global and banks are global
and if he HAD done that (which of course he didn't) why he'd have gone down in the annals as perhaps THE best leader that ANY country has ever had at ANY time ... ever
do you see?
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#127
It's breathtaking isn't it?
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Fubar_Saunders 121
Gosh, thats even better than my reason, a two way hypocrite. Even more reason not to take balancedthought seriously.
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130#
But whether he needed it or not is utterly, utterly irrelevant. So, you shouldnt claim anything if you're loaded?
Anyone told Geoffrey Robinson or Shaun Woodward? Both worth well north of 10million sterling?
Why did Hoon or Darling need any other properties to flip between when they had grace and favour apartments? Hasnt Brown flipped his to his constituency home, when he's got No10 and Chequers?
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"...what's been revealed so far looks unlilkely to force anyone from office and compared with allegations of fraud that politicians have faced in many other countries this would be regarded as small beer."
From your blog in May about the expenses scandal.
Ouch.
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94 jrperry
If you want to be taken seriously as a one-man standards committee, you really need to apply the 'Perry smear test' more even-handedly. Brown has been accused of everything bar baby-eating and some people have even called Blair a criminal - a criminal! But that doesn't seem to set your veins throbbing in quite the same way, does it?
By all means, defend your man, but spare us all the sanctimony - it's a little hard to stomach.
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Saga, further to needing mortgages or expenses if you're loaded - data about Mr Woodward from theyworkforyou:
* Estate in Oxfordshire from which rental income is received.
* Flat in France from which rental income is received.
* Flat in London from which rental income is received.
* House in New York State from which rental income is received.
* Land plot in West Indies.
* I own properties in France, New York State and the West Indies from which rental income is received.
Additional costs allowance, he is joint first for 5 out of the last 7 YEARS.
And he's worth what.... twenty odd million? Wife is heir to the Sainsbury fortune?
So, why would he be joint first on ACA for 5 out of the last 7 years, if he is of very independant means?
You ever mentioned him? Loaded, ex-Tory and still maxing out expenses?
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120 rjaggar
It is tempting to say a plague on all their houses but if you compare an MP's salary to that of a GP the £65K does not seem quite so generous.
The MPs have been caught with there trousers down and deservedly brought to account - Kelly has made an attempt to address the problem it may need further finessing but it is a move in the right direction.
Money should not be the prime motivator for entering politics but many professionals can earn considerably more outside of politics and to many in the legal profession from whence come many of our legislators, a basic MP's salary would be hardly be an incentive to change career.
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@ Fubar_Saunders, post #133;
"I thoroughly expect to get as good as I give."
Good, because if that's the sort of games you're going to start playing, you can look forward to not a lot of your posts ever seeing the light of day, for the forseeable future.
After all; I just took a quick look back over a few pages of your recent posting history; I can't actually see where you've ever offered any sort of "proof" for any of the various claims you've made. Not to mention your habit of descending into bad language as soon as debates start not going your way; the fact that you self-censor some of your 'naughty words' only proves that you feel you can violate the spirit of the rules whilst keeping to the letter of them.
I wouldn't normally seek to censor you, nor anybody else, for anything other than violent hate-speech. But if you're going to take it upon yourself to decide what's "smearing and defaming" and what isn't, I'm not about to let that go unchallenged.
Political partisans have no place deciding what "truth" is for the rest of us. You're just as blind to any "truth" which reflects negatively on the Tories as Saga is to anything which shows the current shower in a bad light.
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139 Fubar wrote:
130#
But whether he needed it or not is utterly, utterly irrelevant. So, you shouldnt claim anything if you're loaded? Anyone told Geoffrey Robinson or Shaun Woodward? Both worth well north of 10million sterling?
Before you start smearing, check your facts.
"Martin Salter, Celia Barlow and Geoffrey Robinson are the three Labour MPs from constituencies outside London not to have claimed a penny in second homes allowance last year." [BBC News Website 14.5.09]
But it's OK, I won't complain to the mods because I am not that small-minded or vindictive.
By the way, which of my own posts did you complain to the mods about? Was it removed?
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to JR Perry
somewhat unbelievably (pls see 133) it turns out to have been Fubar Saunders (!) ... henceforth to be known as "Big Fubar" ... who decided that it's just too awful to read on a blog with topic "MPs expenses" about any suspicion that the wonderful David Cameron may (within the rules) have arranged certain matters to his own benefit
so I'm sorry, babe - we can continue as before
please take that "sadly inadequate" tag I stuck on you off ... right now! ... and transfer it over to BF
cheers
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@ 141
So are extremely relaxed about the numerous Labour ministers who have abused expenses ?
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141pdavies65 :
"some people have even called Blair a criminal - a criminal!"
Why the faux outrage?
He broke the UN Charter by illegally invading a sovereign country. He has not been tried by a court yet so technically he can't be called a criminal, but it's not exactly an outrageous claim, by definition of statements made by Kofi Annan, ex- S-G of the UN.
Cameron may be dodgy on his mortgage claims but it hasn't cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
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Post 112. I'm sorry about this but if the PM had a "good meeting with apprentices at Airbus" I might be a little happier.
Were you bemoaning the fact that Gordon was having a meeting with a few kids when there was much more for him to do? Or bemoaning the quality of the spell checking and grammatical knowledge of the No. 10 website scribes?
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saga, this article should interest you:
Humiliation for Harriet Harman as statisticians dismiss her claims on equal pay.
Harriet Harman was yesterday slapped down by national statisticians over her claims that women are paid a fifth less than men.
No wonder she looked cheesed of yesterday at PMQ’s.
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Big Fubar @ 133
"I thoroughly expect to get as good as I give"
clearly you can't
"I'm not a Tory" says Mister Fubar, over and over again
hey but I just can't stand to see a post which raises an On Topic point about how the Tory Leader may have not actually been in dire need of a mortgage on his second home
I know! (thinks BF the non Tory) even though the post makes no allegations that anything untoward was done (it's only a moral judgment point) I'm going to say it's "Defamatory" to poor David and I'll get it removed from the Board
and then I'll go back to posting my usual anti Labour rantings
oh yes and whenever any of my own posts get "moderated" I'll post one straight after moaning about it
un ... be ... lievable
all bluster, babe, aren't you?
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meninwhitecoats wrote:
"It is tempting to say a plague on all their houses but if you compare an MP's salary to that of a GP the £65K does not seem quite so generous."
That's true, but doctors do spend the best part of a decade training to become qualified and then spend their working lives keeping people alive.
Any fool can become an MP if they've got the right connections within the parties central office and once elected, most of them, spend most of their working lives doing very little of any worth.
My MP has spent the last few years totally ignoring the wishes of her constituents and relies on the fact that she's got a relatively safe seat to keep on voting with the government even when local people have made it very clear they disagree with them.
I've tried looking up positive things about her time as an MP just in the name of balance and fairness but I've been unable to find anything of any substance that she’s done for the people who voted her into office.
She was parachuted into the constituency by central office.
She spends very little time in her constituency.
She ignores local issues.
She almost always votes with the government.
Personally, I wouldn't pay her a penny.
For me she is the perfect example of why we need to change the way we select MP’s, I would much rather have a system where anyone wishing to stand as an MP must be registered to vote in the constituency that they wish to contest as well as it being their primary place of residence so we can stop party favourites being given relatively safe seats on the basis that they will then do as the party tells them.
This is one of the few times I would ever agree with the idea of local jobs for local people, if you’re not a part of a community then how can you possibly represent them and their opinions in government ?
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"So, we may be nearing the final chapter of the expenses saga" NR
I just read that and thought Nick's punctuation had let him down and it should have come across as a desperate plea to one of our regular contributors.
"So, we may be nearing the final chapter of the expenses, Saga?"
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And I thought the full moon was a couple of nights ago.
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Ian, I own up it was just a major matter of my poor copy typing.
Sorry.
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147 ghostworld wrote:
@ 141 So are extremely relaxed about the numerous Labour ministers who have abused expenses ?
When it comes to abusing expenses, I make no partisan distinctions between MPs (unlike some others, JR!).
This is because I have achieved, through study and meditation, a level of political understanding which transcends party politics.
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The Big Bluster @ 142
"You ever mentioned him? Loaded, ex-Tory and still maxing out expenses?"
no, babe ... but it's good that you have
even better that we're all allowed to read it
and you know why we are? (allowed to read it)
because nobody on here, other than you, has that risible combination of bias PLUS self importance which would lead them to declare it "Defamation" just because it happens to be negative about a politician they really like
what about all the really nasty stuff I read on here the whole time about a politician that EYE really like? ... the fabulous Harriet Harman
good job I don't take your approach, isn't it?
it wasn't even your argument! - it was me and the perry
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148 BlameGame
Sorry, the faux outrage was for comic effect. I won't bother next time.
But glad you agree that Dave's mortgage looks dodgy.
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144#
As you wish. If thats the level you want it to descend to. Refer as much you like if it soothes your ego.
I make no excuses for what I post and when I get something wrong, I say so. When I offend someone out of turn, I more often than not retract what I say.
But when I think I'm right, I defend what I say. I'm not two faced which is why I had the guts to tell Saga and pdavies that I referred them instead of hiding behind internet anonymity. And I told them why.
What else do you call it when someone peddles a falsehood? Do you have a different definition?
I'm not blind to Cameron's faults and if you'd chosen to look back a bit further in my post history, you'd see that I accuse him of not being capable of being the kind of leader the nation needs.
Now, considering you seem to figure that someone died and made you Sherriff, are you going to let this descend into a graffitti wall where Nick just posts what he gets fed by the lobby once a week and then all the opposing kids come out with thier spray cans and deface it with their childish opinions?
Or are we going to drop all this stupid hypocrisy and willy-waving and are we going to be able to debate like adults?
Come on then Khrystalar. You're wearing the self appointed Sheriffs badge. Where are your latest pronouncements??
You refer away mate, starting with this one. You'll get bored before I do.
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145#
Believe you me, if I wanted to smear dear old Geoffrey Robinson I could.
Did I specifically accuse him of overclaiming on anything? Nope. Go-on, go back and have a look and see.
I'll wait. You take your time now.
And maybe..... just maybe, you'd like to check YOUR facts before you go piling in, half cocked.
I notice you havent made any kind of explanation about Shaun Woodward.
Saga's original post in 130 was "He doesnt need it, he could afford to buy the place outright". Which is an assumption on his part, unless he's Camerons' bank manager. So, by the same token, if you are so rich that you dont theoretically need a mortgage, why do you need public money at all for any kind of expenses? How can a man who is almost certainly the richest man in parliament justify being Joint First for 5 out of the last 7 years on ACA? When he and his wife are worth as much as the Camerons, if not more?
That is the post I was responding to.
....Or is it just old baby eating tory toffs you enjoy putting the boot into?
I'd better keep a copy of this on my clipboard just incase Sherriff K refers it. Dont want you thinking I'm too chicken to answer you, do I?
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There seems to be a problem among some people about what "reporting" means. When you report a post, you propose to the moderators that it should be removed; you don't actually remove it yourself. So the issue of removal of posts rests with the moderators.
For information, as far as the Cameron mortgage story is concerned, if it is expressed as pdavies65 did at post 76, then that's fine. It's a matter of his opinion and not claimed to be anything else. On the other hand, expressed in the very specific way that sagamix has done it several times, and especially when he claims that it is backed by "undisputed evidence", then I regard it as defamatory and I report that to the moderators. But whether or not the post stays is up to them. I propose, they act.
I hope that makes everything clear.
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151#
Now now, Saga, you're getting a tad hot under the collar, old chum.
Think back long and hard and you may remember me saying the moderators are there to censure not to censor. If I genuinely screw up and break the rules, such is life. I might not like it, but thems the rules.
Now, lets see if Sherriff K leaves this graffitti of mine up long enough for you to take it in and absorb it.
You know exactly what I think of Brown and New Labour and why. We've discussed that at length. You also know full well why I pull you up on what I do. Glass houses and stones.
You also know full well, because I've told you before, what I think of Cameron. I've made no secret of it. I've even told you explicitly before which party I am likely to vote for and why.
But... you keep on playing to the gallery, mate, I'm sure your fans love you for it.... even if it is like watching Hugh Laurie's Prince George (Blackadder 3) at times.
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151#
Just in case you missed it in the original reply - whether he was in NEED of the mortgage is utterly utterly utterly irrelevant. It was permitted under the rules. It might stink a bit, especially in Hampstead, but it was legal.
Do you have anything to say about Gordon being told to pay back 12 grand?
Or McNulty 13 grand? Or Jackboots 13 grand and being able to keep the other sixty?
Your party is in no position to occupy ANY moral high ground, Saga.
(better watch out, I'm sure the Sherriff's about....)
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Breaking News:
Postal strike 'off' as deal is struck – reports.
Sources told the Press Association news agency that 24-hour national stoppages due to be held tomorrow and next Monday would not go ahead after a deal was agreed to end a row over jobs, pay and pensions.
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159 Fubar
I'm not two faced which is why I had the guts to tell Saga and pdavies that I referred them instead of hiding behind internet anonymity. And I told them why.
No, you didn't tell me why - or even which post you had referred.
Does that mean that you are two-faced after all?
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9. At 7:02pm on 04 Nov 2009, kaybraes wrote:
Sixty five thou a year is sufficient in anybody's pocket, that's three times the average wage and probably four or five times what a helluvu lot of hardworking people earn.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thank goodness you have hit the nail on the head! Three times national average wage is enough for anyone. All we need to do is have a tax system that stops anyone from taking more than that amount from the system. Introduce a maximum wage and 99% tax for any more.
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152 GJR
Agree with some of that - my own constituency is have a young lady from 130 miles away parachuted in to replace the locally born MP who is stepping down and the adjacent constituency a safe labour seat [even now] has one of Blair's cronies in it - who has no empathy for his constituents.
I would very much favour fewer but better renumerated MP's, thereby keeping the cost of government unaltered.
There will always be useless MPs and GPs [who are often equally undeserving] but that should not skew the argument.
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@ 156
Oh dear ..... Sit down and have some very very serious words with yourself
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158. pdavies65:
Sorry, the faux outrage was for comic effect. I won't bother next time.
Blair just isn't good material for humour... well, gallows humour maybe.
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K @ 144
"But if you're going to take it upon yourself to decide what's "smearing and defaming" and what isn't, I'm not about to let that go unchallenged"
please don't go that route - we'd miss such a lot of posturing, reactionary bluster that does no harm to anybody
as regards anything critical of the Tories though (if it's not supported with a link to a report from a truly independent Think Tank) well what I'd suggest is we flip a draft over to "Big Fubes" and make sure he's happy with it
than, on receipt of the green light ... Post!
be easier that way
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#136, sagamix wrote:
"Fairly @ 88
right good, so as one "non idiot" to another! ...
.... to have staved off the credit crunch in the UK, he'd have had to put in place a regulatory system that inter alia (a) capped bonuses (b) insisted on way more capital than Basle did (c) stopped our banks buying US asset backed securities (d) stopped our banks being exposed to banks who DID buy ABSs (e) stopped our banks abusing the wholesale money markets (f) limited the exposure of our banks to American investement banks and CDS writers such as AIG (g) somehow dealt with the complexities of doing all that in just the one country when the market is global and banks are global
and if he HAD done that (which of course he didn't) why he'd have gone down in the annals as perhaps THE best leader that ANY country has ever had at ANY time ... ever. do you see?"
Saga,
Brown tells us he always speaks the truth.
He always says that he (implying included government side-kicks) have been making the "right decisions at the right time". That would have made him the best leader of any time. But that's what he claimed!
It doesn't take a financial genius - FG - (which I am not) to work out that if UK finance houses were lending 700BILLION more than they had as assets, they were on a high-riak, slippery slope.
Doesn't take an FG to conclude that if UK operating credit card companies are allowed to shovel money over people with a card, simply easing up credit limits with no additional checks on the ability of people to pay, things could get difficult.
Doesn't take an FG to work out that, if governments spend much more than they have as income, things could get awkward.
I absolutely agree that the general impact of the US led credit crunch would have had an impact. I totally believe that the complete failure of Brown's regulatory framework allowed stupid bankers in the UK to create a far worse situation than most other countries seem to have experienced.
And, by the way, to be on topic... I think some of the Kelly recommendations are just plain silly. Of course there are interpretations about how we should support the requirements of MPs who work away from "home".
The original problem was that graspers like Balls/Cooper claimed that the London home, from which they both go to work and from which their children go to school was really a "second home". So how come their children go to school miles away from where their "real home catchment area" is located?
I don't want MPs cooped up in some barracks.
For goodness sake, they live in an unreal Westminster world as it is. Can you imagine what they'd be like if they only ever saw each other?
Or restricted to hotel rooms where it can be hard to entertain others (for example visiting children...).
I've worked in companies where fairly junior HR staff could happily tell Directors that their "expenses claims" just didn't fit the legal requirements of being "necessarily incurred as part of the performance of their duties".
I'm quite relaxed about MPs having family members working for them - subject to an overview of what they actually DO.
I don't care if MPs have side-line jobs. (Maybe there could be sliding scales of remuneration, so some MPs could work for practically no public pay if they earn a fortune elsewhere.)
What I do care about is MPs actually reading, assessing, understanding and voting on legislation, on the basis of their own individual response, rather than being lobby-fodder who need to be reminded which Bill is on the order paper.
I know. I'm a romantic.
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Just for the record, Shaun Woodward doesn't take the ministerial salary due to him.
But then.. he doesn't really need one.
Still, it's the thought that counts.
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"166. At 6:07pm on 05 Nov 2009, eye-wish wrote:
Three times national average wage is enough for anyone."
It bl**dy well isn't. The trouble is, under this Government by the time the successful chap has been taxed and the other chap handed his bucket of benefits, their disposalable income is probably the same.
And having set out to be aspirational, the higher earner has got higher overheads. A bigger house, more demanding girlfriend, excessive car insurance, swimming pool maintenance...the list goes on.
No, no, no. Three times the average is the MINIMUM someone should aim for.
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There is a mistake in my 133 and 159
The other post that was referred was 68. Not one of pdavies.
I apologise to pd for giving him the impression that I had referred one of his posts when it turns out I hadnt.
Every other word I stand by.
But I make no apology for referring 68, which was for the same reasons as 84.
Saga, you might want to run off and tell Grandy whilst you're at it and fetch the Sherriff.... probably try and have me done under some obscure Anti-Terrorism legislation.... a war on faux-tory "do nothing, wrong, wrong, wrong" terror.... keep it off the webservers of White City & Shepherds Bush.
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jr @ 161
"I hope that makes everything clear"
well let's check, shall we? ... don't want to fall foul of either you or the Big F again!
here we go:
I consider it reasonable to hold a strong suspicion (although I cannot know this for a fact) that Mortimax could have comfortably funded his second home without a mortgage, and thus that the primary purpose of said mortgage was to generate an expense claim (of the maximum amount and within the rules)
how's that, guys?
(a) a statement of opinion which you disagree with, annoys you, bores you, and you feel to be biased because the person saying it is anti Clown?
or:
(b) something you simply can't bear to read and has to go?
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fs @ 163
"It was permitted under the rules"
indeed so, Fubar ... he'd have been in a spot of bother otherwise, wouldn't he?
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172#
Very magnanimous of him too, no doubt.
175#
Now what was so difficult about that?
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@ 175
What is so mystifying is your obvious pushing aside of any morgage abuses by labour ministers, but your constant attacking of a tory who has done no wrong ...why is that ?
I hear your gal HH has been slapped down for manipulating figures yet again to force through legislation ... Seems to be a pre- requisite form of behavoiur for your party ...And don't give me that tosh about being a floater voter
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113. At 1:52pm on 05 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
"perrymandering" should we call it?
lol
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The old Cameron Mortgage Max out is an interesting one.
TBH I may have done the same, but then again I'm not expecting to be the next PM and I don't keep saying that the UK is broke and savings need to be made to the public purse.
It will be interesting to see what Dave does now that Kelly has said in effect that Mortgage interest should not be paid from the Public Purse but has given 5 years grace?
Should he stop taking the cash (after all Dave you keep saying we need to cut now) or does he keep taking it "cos he can"
A test of the old Cameron Compass here.
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@ 180
"The old Cameron Mortgage Max out is an interesting one."
please do expand and qualify
Any views on your party of choices abuses of morgages and expenses or are you extremely relaxed about Labour party abuses of the expenses system ?
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sagamix 175
The nature of reasonable suspicions, particularly, strong ones, is that they have a credible basis, or even several bases. Suspicions therefore are only reasonable if you can quote that basis, or those bases.
Now, with special reference to the fact that I can quote a number of reasons why that suspicion would appear to be groundless, with references, what is your basis? Because without it, I challenge your use of the term "reasonable".
So, as far as I am concerned, your suspicion is, at the moment, heading towards category (a), pending your response.
For added detail, in the absence of a credible basis, and if you follow up your suspicion with a constructed, party-politically-oriented conclusion, then it is a smear, so straight into category (b).
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Post 155, Exiledscot52 don't feel too bad my typing isn't great either. If it wasn't for the preview button I imagine some of my posts would make no sense at all.
I do see your point about Gordon seeming to find penty of time to not only for the apprentices. He seems to have time to comment on Britain's Got Talent; Susan Boyle; the X Factor and almost anything else reality tv based but no time for running the country properly.
I imagine we all wait his verdict on the break up of Jordan and Peter's marriage and should Cheryl Cole sing live or mime with baited breath!
It seems as if he is desperate to get "down with the kids" and be seen as hip and trendy when in reality he probably has no idea how people in the real world live and is the sort of embarassing uncle who turns up at family parties and bored people to death.
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180/181#
No, what Eaton says is correct. What Cameron does next will be watched carefully. And it isnt wrong to say that if you adopt a moral high ground position over other people that you had better make sure of the ground you stand on, otherwise you look like a two faced twit.
There are no end of us who are sick of "do as I say not do as I do". So, heres Call Me Daves chance to prove himself different.
If he doesnt, then we will all be able to judge him accordingly.
For what its worth, when you consider the amount of people who have to commute from distances like Oxford every day to the smoke, it is not beyond the wit and means of someone like Call Me Dave to do the same. If they can do it, why cant he? Witney isnt that far away from Oxford.
And, if other politicians squirm and moralise and continue to take advantage of the system at the same time, then we can also judge them accordingly too.
In an ideal world, Kelly would be implemented, in full, immediately. No cherry picking, no watering down.
What the political elite choose to do over the next few months is going to be interesting, as Eaton says. We will soon see who is serious about restoring trust and who is full of the bull.
Time will tell.
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fs @ 177
"Now what was so difficult about that?"
so that meets with your approval does it, Big Man?
phew!
pretty much how I put it at 84 as it happens but still, you know ... good news
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181 Ghost
Which bit don't you understand?
He maxes his claim on Mortgage interest but he could, if he wished, and considering his views on the state of the state of the public finances, pay his own mortgage, instead of free loading on the back of tax payers far worse off than himself.
Clear enough.
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184 Fubes?????
Is that really you or has Saga hacked into your laptop!
Until proved otherwise I give you the credit and thanks.
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sagamix 185
"pretty much how I put it at 84 as it happens but still, you know ... good news"
Well, actually, not quite, because your 84, so far as I recall, had, amongst other things, several lines baselessly rubbishing my evidence that your suspicions were unlikely to be true. When we all know that if you had anything, absolutely anything, to back up those suspicions of yours, you would have been all over me like a rash with it. But anyway...
Do you have any kind of follow-up to my 182, or is that the end of the exercise?
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173. At 6:42pm on 05 Nov 2009, AndyC555 wrote:
"166. At 6:07pm on 05 Nov 2009, eye-wish wrote:
Three times national average wage is enough for anyone."
It bl**dy well isn't. The trouble is, under this Government by the time the successful chap has been taxed and the other chap handed his bucket of benefits, their disposalable income is probably the same.
------------------
Can you give an example of that?
------------------
And having set out to be aspirational, the higher earner has got higher overheads. A bigger house, more demanding girlfriend, excessive car insurance, swimming pool maintenance...the list goes on.
------------------
I, honestly feel for you, but maybe, if you changed your girlfriend you may help yourself, both financially and spiritually.
------------------
You also say;
No, no, no. Three times the average is the MINIMUM someone should aim for.
------------------
Again, I have to ask for an example of how this would work? Why do you feel so much more valuable? Or, are you just a generous individual to others who are just plain greedy?
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@ 184
fair enough .... We shall wait and see
@ 186
My point being that you don't seem to direct the same vitriol at " New " labour ministers ... You appear to just direct it at Tory ministers which would seem somewhat a form of hypocrisy .... I hear Mr weller is scathing in his comments of the current incumbents .... Best not to take one of their classics tracks as a namesake
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jr @ 182
no, you're doing that "onus of proof" thing again; that's too high a bar for something like this - they both come from money (quite serious money) they both earn a lot - it's reasonable to suspect what I do - if there was no claim possible I reckon he'd probably have bought outright - now the claims are being outlawed, I bet he pays it off - or if he doesn't, it'll probably be because of how that would look - this is not a "provable" thing one way or the other - if I ever present it as FACT ... that aspect, I mean ... refer away (although I'd still think you were being a touch precious) - but otherwise you should grin and bear it - the 84 on here btw (which you read and DIDN'T refer ... and you've blitzed quite a few previous ones, haven't you?) did NOT breach this new little rule of ours - so the Big Fella was a little more zealous than you, funnily enough - any case, whatever, there's plenty else to talk about, isn't there?
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@ eye wish
He has a paint... Because it can get to a stage where someone earns a certain amount( and gets crap loads of tax to pay ) and has to pay for absolutley everything( which is kinda fair enough) and then someone else who doesn't want to do anything can get ever thing subsidised ... I used to work at the DWP and it is scary what you the tax payer funds
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Remember! Remember! to Perrymander in November.
It's a cracker!. LoL.................
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fubar @ 184
"what Eaton says is correct"
is it, Big Man?
well well
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fairly @ 171
"I know. I'm a romantic"
you know what? I rather think you are
and that's nice
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Having read the majority of the correspondence on these pages I cannot believe that there are so many poor misguided fools out there.
Lets get real, it doesn't matter which party any of these charalatans belong to they are only MP's for their own good,as their pitiful bleating now shows.
This country will never achieve anything as long as we still have the old traditional Labour/Conservative choices, what is required is a complete rethink,a government for national unity might be a start, though that's very unlikely, so maybe a dictatorship to get everybody pulling in the same direction.
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@ 191
remind us all of the rather POSH backround of one of your favorite minister ... Clue HH
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184#
Definately me mate. Saga's already got his own cyber stalker, he's got more than enough on his plate at the moment.
No, what you said in 180 was right on the money. By their actions we shall judge them and Cameron is absolutely no different.
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For goodness sake.
I don't really give a stu** if an MP is rich, poor, Oxbridge or real-world educated.
I'd like them to be bright enough to only ever go through the lobby and vote if they have actually READ and understood the legislation they pour on us.
I do care if they have rules that abide by the normal HMRC limits about whether expenses are incurred "wholly and necessarily" in support of their jobs.
What I don't understand is that Treasury Ministers sat in the Commons and shut an eye to rediculous and totally unjustifiable expenses claims that they would have jumped up and down about if claimed by "minions".
Why didn't Brown (as the guy responsible for the Treasury) get involved?
Good old "moral compass" at work, there??????
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191#
So, are you implying that there should there be a two tier expenses system for MPs and Lords?
One tier for those of serious independant means and another one for those who arent?
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@ 200
I don't think 191 knows where he is at .... just stuck on the magic roundabout of delusion
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No199 Fairly,
As it is now accepted that the expenses system was started by Thatcher in 1983, have you any idea how many Treasury ministers served during the following 15 years?
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" 199. At 9:02pm on 05 Nov 2009, fairlyopenmind wrote:
For goodness sake.
I don't really give a stu** if an MP is rich, poor, Oxbridge or real-world educated."
And who cares if their cast Iron promises are written on tablets of chalk?.
"What I don't understand is that Treasury Ministers sat in the Commons and shut an eye to rediculous and totally unjustifiable expenses claims that they would have jumped up and down about if claimed by "minions"."
Are you suggesting that all MP's should come from a background like Osborne, 40 million and a lordship passed on!.
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191 sagamix
I have issues about the way you describe your 84. See my 188, if it ever surfaces.
I'm not asking for proof. But I do expect you to acknowledge the evidence I provided against your suspicions, and if you don't have anything to counter my evidence, then I expect you to drop your story, on the basis of the imbalance between my evidence and your - well, you seem to have nothing at all.
Sure, they both have high incomes. We also know they spent £250k kitting out their London house for Ivan, had other high outgoings connected to him, and both of their occupations tend to be connected to high cost-of-living too. How many families do you know who have a house, mortgage, family and more than a year's savings in the bank too? Frankly, my experience of people in that category, when faced with the need for a second house, put down a deposit and get a mortgage.
Anyway, that's my position. Constructively react to the evidence I gave against your suspicions (which is a significantly lesser test than providing proof, but a higher test than just ignoring it) or drop it.
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sagamix
By the way, note your 68 in the previous thread:
"things like this where the facts are both well known and undisputed"
which is where this all started. "Facts" and "undisputed"?
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No196 Willod,
You appear to have a desire for a dictatorship to deal with economic problems, and the behaviour of public representatives. What preference do you have in mind, a Pinochet Style, or a Dictatorship of the Proletariat?
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196. At 8:53pm on 05 Nov 2009, willodeweesp wrote:
"...so maybe a dictatorship to get everybody pulling in the same direction."
Dictators only get people "pulling in the same direction" because there's usually someone heavily armed behind them showing then which way to pull.
Those that don't pull in that direction often end up falling out of 8th floor windows. Is that what you had in mind?
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Bit early for the pubs to be chucking out innit?
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No204jr,
I am not too concerned about the wealth of individuals. However, I find it nauseating that the Old Etonian multi-millionaire in his new policy on Europe will be attempting to deny to British workers certain rights enjoyed by their counterparts on the European mainland.I will be doing everything possible to ensure that my employees are fully acquainted with the threat from the Tories.
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209 bS
It's a bit mean to call your wife, kids and the dog "employees", isn't it?
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210#
Ha... nice shootin' Tex... I can just picture a field with about 10 sheep in it, chewing the cud looking at him, ears pricked up, whilst he's stood on an old pallett in the driving rain, no man or woman around for miles, in full clenched-fist, Wolfie Smith mode...
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209. braveSouter:
"However, I find it nauseating that the Old Etonian multi-millionaire in his new policy on Europe will be attempting to deny to British workers certain rights enjoyed by their counterparts on the European mainland.I will be doing everything possible to ensure that my employees are fully acquainted with the threat from the Tories."
bS
Looks like Blair, Brown and co. have sold your employees down the river already.
"The Lisbon Treaty represents a potential strengthening of "Bosses Europe"; as such we firmly oppose it."
"The betrayal by the Labour and trade union leaders was particularly cynical."
Socialist Appeal
Bob Crow said that the NO2EU electoral alliance was backing the workers in their fight against employers treating people like commodities “to be thrown away on a whim”.
“This process is being carried out across the EU under EU directives and European Court of Justice rulings that are handing bosses even more powers to undermine workers’ rights and enrich themselves.
I haven't read the Treaty from cover to cover but from what make of it picketing will be made redundant. Let me know if I've got that wrong, bS.
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The expenses problem will not be resolved until the public has regained trust in Parliament and Parliamentarians once again demonstrate that they are upstanding, honest and moral.
Let us take the case of Miss Smith, who has claimed £116,000 in expenses for living with her sister in her broom cupboard. This payment has been reviewed, and she has been ordered to make an apology to the House. £116,000 is, by my back of a fag packet calculations, about 53 years of income tax and NI contributions for a minimum wage earner, or about 18 years of income tax and NI contributions for somebody on £25,000 pa. Sadly, this kind of behaviour is not just applicable to one party and is practiced by a depressing number of members of “club MuPpet”
Having been caught misappropriating our taxes for their own financial gain, they are given the easy option of paying it back, no questions asked, and still they squeal. They were trusted to formulate and police their own expenses rules, but have only abused their power and our trust.
If a private citizen claimed a few pounds of public money in a similar scam, they would be prosecuted. Our political elite are either so arrogant or so stupid that they believe themselves to be untouchable. If we cannot trust them to claim reasonable expenses from public money, how are we supposed to trust them with governing the Country? Until such time as they regain the trust of the public and restore some semblance of honesty to the House, they will continue to be held in contempt. The MPs expenses system must be reformed, and enforced by an independent and impartial arbitrator. If our elected representatives don’t like it, they can go and work elsewhere, if anybody is daft enough to employ them.
I’m sorry Mr Robinson, but until this is rectified this story is just going to run and run.
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No211 Fubar,
You forgot to mention finding time to pick up unbelievably generous subsidies from the EU. Can you try and find time to say something sensible about Dave's new policy on Europe? I understand the difficulties.
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NO210jr,
That is exactly the infantile response that I anticipated from you.
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This is a NEW thingy m'giggy ! -
There is going to be a mega boom in the UK economy in 2016 - 2024 - mark my words, anyone disagree ?
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#203, derekbarker wrote:
" 199. At 9:02pm on 05 Nov 2009, fairlyopenmind wrote:
For goodness sake.
I don't really give a stu** if an MP is rich, poor, Oxbridge or real-world educated."
And who cares if their cast Iron promises are written on tablets of chalk?.
What do you mean Derek? That a New Labour intention to hold a referendum on the Constitutional/Lisbon Treaty should be wiped off with a casual shrug of the shoulders?
But another party - not in power - finds it hard to write the words for a referendum that was promised to be about whether the Lisbon Treaty should be signed, when a yellow bellied Blair/Brown mob decided that it wasn't necessary?
For goodness sake, I've always been a European. Can't help it. Geography, and in my case working life and marriage makes it fairly essential.
"What I don't understand is that Treasury Ministers sat in the Commons and shut an eye to rediculous and totally unjustifiable expenses claims that they would have jumped up and down about if claimed by "minions"."
Are you suggesting that all MP's should come from a background like Osborne, 40 million and a lordship passed on!.
Derek,
IF the people who run the Treasury (for a long time that was Brown) decided that MPs should have a bunch of rediculous exemptions from the "normal" rules that apply to individuals working within businesses, what the heck has that got to do with whether an MP is rich or poor?
The law was quite simply not applied in a way that normal businesses nwould recognise.
I don't give a st**f which party managed this Charade. If normal HMRC rules had been applied, there would not have been the jackal attacks.
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209 braveSouter
Bob Crow wrote an article headed:
"No to the Libson Treaty; Yes to Worker's Rights".
It explains how E.U. laws are progressively weakening the right to strike; Bob says: "The European Court of Justice will decide which issues constitute 'lawful trade disputes' and whether strike action is 'appropriate' in each circumstance - something not even Thatcher-era anti-trade union laws achieved..."
So before you acquaint your employees with the threat from the Old Etonian multi-millionaires, best acquaint them with the current situation as brought about those other millionaires.
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bS 215
Alright then, accepting that you actually have employees in the conventional sense, don't you think it's a bit feudal to coerce them into voting your preferred way? I thought you lefties were against that sort of thing.
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214#
Mate, considering I'm already over in Europe and doing very nicely out of it thank you very much, thanks to Gordon's mob trashing sterling.... I'm probably not the right person to ask.
Theres nothing in any policy on Europe that Cameron has (if he has one, I dont think he does yet) that is going to affect me, to be honest. Sorry!
(psst.... Dont tell GrandAntidote, he thinks the likes of the Kinnocks, etc are working class heroes for working in the EU building and making a stack.)
So, dont you want us in Europe, fully under the auspices of Lisbon then? Or am I getting mixed messages from you here?
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203#
"Are you suggesting that all MP's should come from a background like Osborne, 40 million and a lordship passed on!."
If it winds you up Derek, hell yes, I'd vote for that!! Two for the price of one!
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216#
Probably under an enormous mushroom cloud.
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Peter Hain having the brazen chutzpah to lecture anyone on credibility on QT... LMAO.
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jr @ 205
okay, last on this from me ... we were halfway through designing the new National Bank (weren't we?) and I'm keen to get back to that
the "facts" which are "undisputed" are as follows:
- he took out a mortgage which generated the maximum allowable claim
- he's relatively wealthy
- he's the leader of the Conservative Party
- he's our next PM
- he said he was "livid" about expense abuse
- he sacrificed other people so as to look good
then the question we've been batting around is ... if there were no expense claim to be had, would his mortgage arrangements have been different?
I suspect so; you say not
and you offer:
- on Andrew Marr he says he's worth nothing like £30m
- the Daily Mail says most of the money is "family money"
- the Register of Interests doesn't disclose enormous wealth
to which I say:
- the Marr interview was a cagey affair and didn't tell us much
- you don't need anything like £30m to fund that house
- the R of I does not have to include all personal assets
- you don't know what his wife is worth
- you don't know about access to this "family money"
that's all there is to it; no-one's saying he's committed a resigning offence or anything
and I've overdone it, I know I have, but it's a point, JR ... a valid observation, not a smear ... and I don't really expect it to be censored off the boards by other posters; not by you and not by Blusterbus either
if I took that sort of approach every time I saw nasty "near the knuckle" stuff about, say, Harriet then gee whizz I'd be referring so thick and fast I'd have no time to write anything (yes yes don't say it!)
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Ok, I re-added my details purely because the BBC are absolutely useless at doing anything online without cocking it up. Please BBC, get it together or employ people who actually know how to use the inet.
Anyway, this post Saga, this post is precisely why I try my hardest to ignore anything you have to write.
#244 Saga( ugh )
"
the "facts" which are "undisputed" are as follows:
- he took out a mortgage which generated the maximum allowable claim
- he's relatively wealthy
- he's the leader of the Conservative Party
- he's our next PM
- he said he was "livid" about expense abuse
- he sacrificed other people so as to look good
"
Ok, let us deal with these.
#1: So, he took out something that was *allowable*.
#2: What does his wealth have to do with anything? -- are you finally coming clean about your envy or something?. I make pittance, probably even compared to you. That doesn't mean your opinions are useless( reading your posts does, which is why JP should not waste his time ).
#3: So being the leader of a particular political party is your point? -- again, what?. Your point seems to be if he doesn't lead your party, obviously Labour, then his opinion is worthless.
#4: lol, what? I and neither has anyone else voted yet. I'll agree that he is likely to be the next PM -- something I'm not all too happy about either. But again, that's not a sin. Payable under only the saga rule of justice( if you disagree with Saga your head must be cut clean off and shall you burn for all eternity ). I'll listen to any leader of a political party. I think most are morons, but still, I'll listen.
#5: Most of us were livid. Given by your own statements he was within the "allowable" claim, what is your point. He's done nothing wrong.
#6: See 5. I wish Brown had done the same.
Saga, you can rant about the Conservatives all you like. That's fine, many people will read; including myself. So far you've said nothing, absolutely nothing, everytime I read your posts I just assume they're full of smears. Stop being stupid about it. There are many things to call the Conservatives on. David Cameron's expenses is not one -- an any who think it is were already voting labour anyway. So it's pointless and slightly, I say slightly, party-politcal( which makes people like myself tune out entirely ). Stop talking nonsense and slam on them the real things -- of which there are many. Making stuff up is useless. An as I've just demonstrated, all your points are personal and based in either envy or pure idiocy. No political party came out of this cleanly, mostly the leaders did. But if you want to start throwing toys from the pram around Brown was *far* worse than Cameron. None of them were moral -- at all. You're not playing the right game in your Anti-Conservative postings.
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saga,
Surely you must get fed up with all the Progressive stuff, when it could only happen if somebody makes it economically possible?
I sort of hoped that "New Labour", reconstructing public services garbage would deliver some benefits. Any idea where we should look?
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I've forgotten it again. You can't think it, it won't let you ; what is it ? It's literally time going backwards....
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Who do we want on our verbal bonfire : Gordon Brown or Tony Blair or BOTH ?
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MP Charles Clarke has a wibble about Sir Chrispher Kelly's report in todays Times.
In part of his piece, he says "MPs are freestanding elected representatives whose first loyalty should be to the constituents who elect them".
If the MP in question is a member of a political party, then that statement by Clarke is a bit baffling.
Is Clarke implying that the constituents who elected (voted) for the candidate are 100% behind the candidates usual sponsor i.e. a political party?
Where does the freestanding bit come in?
Party MPs are usually whipped into the Party line and constituents concerns come a poor second virtually every time.
Party MPs generally toe the Party line, especially if they want to be promoted.
So, if you want an MP whose first loyalty really is his or her constituents, with no potential conflict of interest with a sponsor i.e. a political Party, then you have to vote for an independent candidate.
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#217 fairlyopenmind wrote
"But another party - not in power - finds it hard to write the words for a referendum that was promised to be about whether the Lisbon Treaty should be signed, when a yellow bellied Blair/Brown mob decided that it wasn't necessary?"
So prince Cameron who like to pretend he is a pauper starts to break promises before he has even entered No10?. What exactly does Cameron mean by created a new law to combat any future EU legislations?.Crickey! what if we adopt the single currency before february!.
"For goodness sake, I've always been a European. Can't help it. Geography, and in my case working life and marriage makes it fairly essential."
Geography and the European influence of the Germanic language! yet by far those Euro sceptics stem from the conservative ranks?.
"IF the people who run the Treasury (for a long time that was Brown) decided that MPs should have a bunch of rediculous exemptions from the "normal" rules that apply to individuals working within businesses, what the heck has that got to do with whether an MP is rich or poor?"
When 19 members of the shadow cabinet are all millionares, why on earth did they claim for items which they could so easily afford?I like to think that parliament has moved on from a 100 years ago, where most MP's were from the privileged backgrounds. I guess I just think that a person who is an MP and does the job well, shouldn't be judged by the size of his bank account and familiy ties.
"I don't give a st**f which party managed this Charade. If normal HMRC rules had been applied, there would not have been the jackal attacks"
But surely HMRC was aware of the cost of parliament and all it's receipts and surely every single MP was aware of their intentions, as to their claims.
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fom @ 226
"Any idea where we should look?"
no I'm stumped
the only way Labour can ever win power is on a Middle England mandate and so they can't be progressive else they'd frighten the horses and get chucked out
and the Tories are an anachronism who have no interest in the progressive agenda
that's Britain for you, I suppose - or England anyway - it's a very reactionary country - I reckon if we went that direct democracy route ... you know, a referendum every week on this, that and the other ... we'd have hanging and flogging back, the borders shut, mosques closed, out of Europe, national service, and compulsory roast beef and yorkshire pud on a Sunday - all within six months
yes yes I know, the last one works for me too
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@ 225
Good post
expect sosmix to come long shortly and accuse us of having an affair or going to the same " Cambridge " college ....Not that truth comes into either... But that doesn't bother Sosmix
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213 feduplittlefellow
That is exactly what I keep saying.
The Cameron/Smith who did what, how and when , ie the minutae, does not matter.
The fact is that most of them took advantage of a system of their own making that would have the rest of us in Court.
It is the ultimate example of one rule for them and another for us with both rules made by them.
Until the whole rotten lot of them are purged Parliament will be tainted.
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I wouldn't mind MPs being paid a decent salary with decent expenses if they did a decent job. But this lot have proved to a totally useless bunch, nodding through useless laws without holding this useless executive to account.
Labour MPs should be particularly ashamed of themselves for allowing Gordon to sign the EU constitutional treaty without the promised referendum.
I believe that any MP who wilfully breaks a manifesto pledge should be charged with electoral fraud and required to pay back their salary in full!
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On that new conservative law which the tories would introduce in regards of Europe, you know! the sovereignty protection law! that David Cameron says is in place, if the tories are elected.
Will that new law put a final stop to Britain ever accepting the single currency? ans if so? should that not be made clear at any future G.E.
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235:
You just made my point entirely. Not that it needed to be made. Anybody reading you for a couple weeks would draw the same conclusion. Whatever colour they bear. I figured it was too much for you to say "Hold on, I made these points because...". You're a far better Conservative supporter than I gave you credit for. Thank you.
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235 ( saga )
I wasn't going to say anything. But it was eating away at me. So here goes.
Yes, I'm a girl. That doesn't on *any* level mean agreeing with me means I'm "up for grabs". I hate the sexist kind of argument that militants like Harman pursue but that comment you made really really riled me. Don't patronise me. Disagree with me any way you like. But don't make me out to be some silly little women you can throw platitudes at. It's highly infuriating.
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sagamix 224
Likewise, this is the last time I will address The Subject, at least until someone else (including you) does.
Addressing some of your points.
If you say he lied on Marr, then that's quite a serious allegation. The question about his wealth was put quite explicitly, and his answer could be seen in the same light.
The Register of Interests does, indeed, not show wealth per se. However, people who have significant wealth tend to have it in a range of investments, for income. That tends to make them dependent on the fortunes of particular companies or groups of companies, which is precisely the thing that the R of I is there to capture. So a register entry showing no investment income is VERY SIGNIFICANT.
I will continue to refer comments that I think are defamatory. As noted before, what the mods do with those referrals is their business, not mine. If you prefer, I will tell you when I refer a post. I think I gave a personal definition of "defamatory", or at least "smearing", in one of the earlier posts up the thread.
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#240
Perry! here is a list of the shadow cabinets registered income!.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/859331/the-shadow-cabinet-rich-list-part-2.thtml
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derekbarker 241
That list is of guestimated wealth, not "registered income". An important distinction which I hope you understand. Check the introduction to the list at part 1 (link at the top of your reference).
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231. At 00:18am on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
.....that's Britain for you, I suppose - or England anyway - it's a very reactionary country - I reckon if we went that direct democracy route ... you know, a referendum every week on this, that and the other ... we'd have hanging and flogging back, the borders shut, mosques closed, out of Europe, national service, and compulsory roast beef and yorkshire pud on a Sunday - all within six months
yes yes I know, the last one works for me too
******************************
You fotgot 'bring back Grammar Schools' 8-)
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#242 JRPerry
Perry! look! if you take Mr and Mrs Cameron's wealth, as to the chart, it gives a clear example of assets and wealth, income registered at that date.
I'm quite surprised that you challenge this, your usually pretty decent at the old accountancy.Perry are you just having a biased laugh?.
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241#
Del:
In the words of Ed Balls:
"So What?"
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245
Fubar! hows the champagne taste know!.
Here a better link to the above! ouch!.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2008/07/does-it-matter.html
So what? are you for real? they are have second based incomes, some have more than two? Is it right or proper to have outside interest as MP's and possible future ministers of Great Britain?.
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Ian I must agree with you, unfortunately I am of the age and may be considered an embarassing uncle. However, I don't "run" the country, when I make a fool of myself it is with family unlike Brown.
I wonder what tone his ramblings will take later today. Apparently the words have been released, WHY do they do this? Make a speech but dont publish the essay before hand.
Another I saved the world? Who knows, embarassing I hope not but fear it will be.
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239. EmilyQuango:
235 ( saga )
Saga, that puts a dent in your 'champion of equality' moniker. :-)
I may be imagining this but you do seem to adopt a different tone when responding to posters you assume to be female. Which is a bit odd for a devotee of HH.
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*244* Derekbarker
Can you please to do a similar critique of Sean Woodward or Geoffrey Robinson for us?
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246#
Why not mate?
For as long as they are in opposition and there is no direct conflict of interest, I genuinely cannot see anything wrong with it.
Arent there rules already in place that prevents a serving Government minister from holding a paid directorship? I see no problem with that either.
Isnt that why Geoffrey Robinson gave up the Big Cheese Seat at Coventry City Football Club, when he was made Paymaster General?
Why.... do you see it as a problem, mate?
Incidentally, I'm going to pick up the first of two half-cases of the fizzy stuff this afternoon. That'll be good for Christmas....
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Darn, I must have missed 235 before it got censured...
Opening one's chops only to change feet again, eh Saga? Mmmmm.... Gucci loafer.... tasty.... :o)
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#250
Good luck with the fizzy pop! Oh, and my sincere apology for my grammatical poverty of errors!.
Well! since we have just had the biggest release of expenses scandal ever, which did throw up very concerning greed and unbelieveable arrogance, is it wise to suggest that MP's with outside interests are just doing it for the best of our peoples interest?. selfserving seems to be the anti agenda! wouldn't you agree.
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TheBlameGame 248
No you are not imagining it, Sagamix does it to me as well. Emily puts it very well. I have resisted saying it because I did not want anyone to think I was playing the gender card as Harriet Harman does. I think Emily resisted it as well for as long as she could, but just sometimes you have to say what is on your mind.
Of course Emily also made some very good points which Sagamix could not answer. Therefore he turns to this sort of thing.
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253#
But Derek.... if these are outside interests... how is it costing the public purse anything?
What has it got to do with the general public mate? Unless the general public are paying Hague's after dinner speaking fees or buying rolls of Osborne wallpaper - which are choices they can make, no one forces them into it - as we said, so long as these interests are declared and no-one has a paid directorship once they are appointed as serving government ministers - I really dont see a problem.
I'd rather they made their money externally than feel the need to raid the public purse for it and then lie about it - like staying in your sister's spare room and declaring your main residence in your constituency for instance, or claiming for repair works on a house which is neither your constituency home or your main one... and I'd rather they had an appreciation of business and money and understood it rather than being a PPPE Professional politician, straight from a think tank, personally. Intimates to me that they understand their electorates concerns better than some spotty over-promoted policy wonk ever would.
After all, as someone reminded me yesterday, Mr Woodward doesnt draw a ministerial salary, because he is of independent means... how do you think he got those independent means, mate?
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Perhaps sagamix should settle down with the assurance that David Cameron is less well off than the Queen but probably only slightly better off than Geoff Hoon and his flippers paradise property empire.
His ability to take an argument absolutely nowhere is now the stuff of legend on these posts.
But then again, the whole newlabour machine has been blowing smoke up its own backside for twelve years.
Say something often enough and people might actually believe it's happening seems to be the newlabour mantra - 'Social justice! Reform agenda! Equality agenda! ...' and so on until the masses are bored into submission.
Call an election; we're going nowhere fast under this clapped out group of dogwhistle agenda brokers.
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#230, derekbarker wrote:
"#217 fairlyopenmind wrote
"But another party - not in power - finds it hard to write the words for a referendum that was promised to be about whether the Lisbon Treaty should be signed, when a yellow bellied Blair/Brown mob decided that it wasn't necessary?"
So prince Cameron who like to pretend he is a pauper starts to break promises before he has even entered No10?. What exactly does Cameron mean by created a new law to combat any future EU legislations?.Crickey! what if we adopt the single currency before february!.
Derek,
I doubt that any local/national legislation could stop the new EU self-management from just rolling ahead.
I can't see how it's breaking a promise if you say you will hold a referendum to decide whether a Treaty should be signed, when the governing party (who refused such a referendum on silly grounds) has already signed up. So what question would you ask? "Do you believe the Government broke a promise?". That could work.
"For goodness sake, I've always been a European. Can't help it. Geography, and in my case working life and marriage makes it fairly essential."
Geography and the European influence of the Germanic language! yet by far those Euro sceptics stem from the conservative ranks?.
Derek,
The European influence of Scandinavian, French, Germanic, Latin and other languages. Not sure where theso called indigenous people came from, but they spoke something that couldn't have originated here, because the British Isles were covered in ice!
I'm European because of geography, because of who I worked for and with and because I have a French wife and kids now studying in France. I have a little understanding of history and know that wars between various countries has been a way of life for centuries. Hopefully it won't happen again. I don't think that imposing an unelected bunch of "rulers", who we cannot deselect or chuck out, is a good way forward.
Or maybe you prefer to be run by a self-selecting political elite...
They didn't do much to stop the break up of Yugoslavia, did they?
"IF the people who run the Treasury (for a long time that was Brown) decided that MPs should have a bunch of rediculous exemptions from the "normal" rules that apply to individuals working within businesses, what the heck has that got to do with whether an MP is rich or poor?"
When 19 members of the shadow cabinet are all millionares, why on earth did they claim for items which they could so easily afford?I like to think that parliament has moved on from a 100 years ago, where most MP's were from the privileged backgrounds. I guess I just think that a person who is an MP and does the job well, shouldn't be judged by the size of his bank account and familiy ties.
Derek,
I simly don't care if an MP is a pauper or a prince. I believe there should be some sensible rules - properly applied - about their income, expenses and what they should DO. I don't know anybody who judges an MP by the size of his/her wealth. I certainly judge MPs on the basis of whether they actually bother to read and understand legislation they pass.
"I don't give a st**f which party managed this Charade. If normal HMRC rules had been applied, there would not have been the jackal attacks"
But surely HMRC was aware of the cost of parliament and all it's receipts and surely every single MP was aware of their intentions, as to their claims.
Derek,
Who, exactly, "runs" HMRC? That's right. The Chancellor. So how come Chancellors (both New Labour and Tory) failed to enforce the normal rules that apply to "normal citizens"?
If something is legal, it doesn't matter whether you are rich or poor, the rules can still apply. I will never understand how Jaqui Smith could claim for a patio heater as "necessary for the performance of her duties as an MP".
And I simply don't know how Balls/Cooper have children in school in London, when their "main residence" is a hunded miles away. Surely they are cheating the schools admission system? Not good for the Minister for Schools, is it?
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fubar @ 252
"Opening one's chops only to change feet again, eh Saga? Mmmmm.... Gucci loafer.... tasty.... :o)"
mmm seems so, doesn't it?
also seems like I'm upseting some people for the right reasons (you, Perry etc etc) and some others for the wrong reasons (Croft, Quango)
so it's a case of "Tough!" and "I'm truly sorry" respectively, I think
on expenses, Michael Portillo made an interesting point on the Andrew Neil show last night; he said there's a good case for paying senior MPs more than junior ones - and that's right, isn't it? - if you compare an MP with 26 years experience (Harman, say) with some wet behind the ears estate agent who joined the Tory benches only in 2005 (Emily, let's call her) then how much better an MP is Harriet than Emily? at least £25k a year better, I'd have thought - so why not reflect that in the base salary?
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#255
Fubar, Patrick Cormack was calling for MP's wages to be doubled.
So Osborne can stand in front of a conservative gathering and proclaim "we're in this together" and we will share those tough times ahead by not giving the cabinet an annual rise. Wow! the Notting Hill group want us to believe they share our pain, when they propose to slash the public services.
Come on Fubar are you really telling me that having more than one job is a prerequisite for the country's success?.When Cameron and Osborne just mouth off with out thought about Europe and finances, could it be that they simply don't give enough time to the issues because their other interests have taking up some valuable time?
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A little confusion over whether the wealth of MPs 'matters'.
Morally, no - unless you have a grudge against wealth per se.
Politically, maybe.
Would people trust a cabinet of millionaires to connect with their day-to-day problems or understand their concerns? Part of Thatcher's appeal was that, although part of an intellectual elite (president of Oxford Union and all that) she was from ordinary stock socially.
I'm not saying that the 'Dave and his mates are all toffs' line is going to turn off any dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters. But it might make waverers hesitate if they realize that the country is on the verge of a bloodless coup by the Eton prefects room, and that there is a real chance they're reintroduce fagging.
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258#
Yep, I saw that too.
Well, there may be mileage in what you say... but in terms of what you judge to be "better"... that would be a more difficult thing to measure.
What do you base it on? Like a civil service scale/spine type thing? The more you get experienced and the more you get promoted to say, ministerial office, the more you earn? Ah, but then what if you return to the backbenches, either voluntarily or as part of a reshuffle or if the PM/Leader of your party decides so? Do you then slide back down the scale and get paid less? Or do you stay at the pay level you've got?
Not an impossible problem, but a thought provoking one. The difficult bit is how you measure it.
I also liked the Tom Conti bit - Portillo was very surprised to hear Conti advocating lowering taxes to get more disposable folding stuff in peoples pockets, encouraging them to get out there and spend - he thought that all the acting/arts lot were "inveterate lefties" as he put it and it was probably the last thing he was expecting to hear... I think he may even have used the word "progressive".... or was it "radical"? Eitherway, it put a big grin on his face.
Where's Derek got to? He must still be out there chucking scraps of red meat around in the dogg pound, blowing his whistle for all he's worth... :o)
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Saga I think I would pay the young Emily slightly more than the old hag Harriet. The latter being substantially over paid currently, and has a penchant for misusing statistics provided by the government. Sounds a bit like you!!!!
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Sagamix 258
You miss the point entirely as usual, you do not upset us at all, no more than you upset Perry, who just wants you to stick to the truth. We just want you to learn some manners and practise what you preach about being a new man.
As to the rest of the post Emily strikes me as too smart to fall for that bait.
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Morning all. Let's try this line. For all those making mischief over whether or not Cameron should have put in his mortgage claim given he has some money of his own . . .
Point 1; the expenses system is there to cover EXTRA expenses incurred as a result of being an MP. No doubt many MPs of all parties could have afforded to pay their own mortgages on 2nd homes, but as they only have those 2nd homes to fulfil their MP role, so the interest cost is covered by the taxpayer. Unless you are suggesting that DC would have bought a 2nd home regardless of whether he was an MP or a checkout assistant?
Point 2; the whole point about expenses is a bit like the original idea of the NHS - available to all regardless of ability to pay. If you suggest that people should NOT claim because they have some money then you have a means-tested system. If that's what you want then fine, just be honest about it.
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~260
why all this posturing again about tory toffs? Because of course Gorbals Mick and Moral Compass Gordon have made so much better a job of it haven't they?
Background appears to be no guide to whether you will be a success or failure in government and that is why it has become such a crushing vote loser for the newlabour chip on both shoulders brigade...
Call an election.
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259#
But Del.... they're still in opposition, if you hadnt noticed. It doesn't matter. What does it matter about their second jobs when they are in opposition?
I'm saying that having had the experience of more than one job, not necessarily simultaneously, is not a bad thing for a minister or politician to have - isnt that a better way of avoiding having someone like Alan Johnson say "I'm this week's health secretary" or the former Europe minister not understanding her brief or someone else describing themselves as a jobbing minister?
How can someone straight from Uni/PPPE to policy wonk to safe-seat MP to Cabinet Minister have any kind of realistic understanding of what affects their constituents?
Are you realistically expecting me to believe that Brown, Balls, Darling, Harman, Johnson, Woodward, Robinson - all these people "feel our pain"??? Come on Del, pull the other one. No politician regardless of shade in the current climate really knows, because they're in the bubble...
It works both ways you know!
Once they get elected into government, then thats a different matter.
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Derek
You know full well (I assume) that Cameron's proposed new law about the transfer of power to Brussels does NOT preclude joining the Euro! Simply put it says that any transfer of power from Britain to Europe would have to be put to the people of this country before it could happen. A good thing, yes? Unless you're one of those who believes in democracy only when the people agree with him?
So, if you did know that then you are guilty of deliberately trying to paint a false picture of Tory policy. Of course, if you didn't know it, then you are also guilty - of not bothering to actually find out the truth of something before you post about it.
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#260 pdavies65
Cabinet of millionaires? We already have that, don't we?
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219jr
Is it reasonable to assume that you do not know the difference between providing information and coersion? That sort of thinking could only come from a fool that thinks that in the UK we 'elect parliament'.
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#257
Fairlyopenmind, Well! either Cameron doesn't know whats going on in Europe when he gave his cast Iron guarantee to give a referendum on the Lisbon treaty or he simply just caved into the EU 's will.Now! giving that two Tory officials have resigned over the issue, there just might have been something there about waving the white flag and that's not forget that Cameron also wrote to the Czech President. I wonder what was in that letter?.
Is that a broken promise! Yeah Fairly! I'd say so.
Anglo Saxon term should help your Geography lesson?.but Hey! you might have a grasp for modern studies.
Of course Mrs Thatcher was responsible for the unregulated banking market and labour should have done more to realise that just handing money out without proper rules, so bankers could grab more bonus was a tragedy waiting to happen and happen it did, northern rock and the Lehman Bros made sure of that.
I'm not sure what or who Ed Balls represents any more! clearly he needs to just concentrate on being a labour minister.
But! to think that someone like W. Hague can earn millions for talking about politics that dont work is amazing! your money for nothing and kicks for free.
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266 Robin
Well I did say it wouldn't win over any dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters.
But if it were all posturing, as you imply, then why were the Bullingdon Club photos suppressed? Why not put them on the Conservative election leaflets?
Actually, I have my own fond memories of the Bullingdon Club. I remember them trashing an Indian restaurant I happened to be in at the same time, and then throwing wads of banknotes on the floor so the waiters had to scrabble around on their hands and knees to pick them up. All harmless fun and high spirits!
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What is there left to say except
#225 EmilyQ - brilliant!
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I am surprised that in the so called "debate" (mud slinging more likely) about MPs having a second or more jobs outside Parliament, that so much emphasis is placed on the personal monetary gain and no mention is made of conflict on interest. There are already far too many ex MPs sitting on the boards of directors in UK and foreign banks. At the very least former Prime Ministers and Chancellors of the Exchequer should not be allowed to hold directorships in financial institutions.
Given that the banking industry has reinvented itself since the 1980's this should give a serious cause for concern. That the economic catastrophe in which the world finds itself in was precipitated by the banks, the very close relationship between the political "elite" and the biggest banks cannot be ignored.
Is there a mechanism in the Palace of Westminster that regulates this, or do they depend on the dishonourable MPs to act with honour? You could question whether a former Cabinet Minister's directorship with a tobacco firm is healthy? (pun intended)
Broadly I prefer MPs to have outside interests, but I suspect that it is not in the interest of MPs and the outside interests to scrutinise too closely the benefits that might accrue to those outside interests as a result of that relationship. Though I predict that after the expenses scandal dies down, this will be an area that the likes of Guido will be looking at along with nebulous influence of various lobbyist groups.
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269#
Looks like someone has decided to "give me a taste of my own medicine" about a throw-away bloodless coup comment... fine, I dont mind. If it makes you feel better, on you go.
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Susan @ 263
so I'm a "Champagne Sexist" now, I suppose!
listen, get one thing straight - EQ is one thing (we've swapped no more than a handful of posts) and if she was offended by my tone in the latest, I take that on board - one can strike the wrong note on here ... it's easily done ... and I've done exactly that several times before with posters of both genders - makes me feel bad when it happens but, you know, I post a lot, I like to interact with others rather than just transmit and so it's bound to - c'est ca
you are something else entirely
I don't know you, of course, I only know the "Susan Croft" blogging construct - and that posts a lot too, almost as much as I do
my approach to the SCBC is based purely on what it posts and how it posts
I find the views to be based on quite breathtaking ignorance and I find that there's a lack of "wherewithall" to debate anything properly - that's not so terrible because we're each of us blessed with different degrees of wherewithall - but there's no DESIRE to analyse or discuss either, and that I find truly reprehensible
the views themselves offend or frustrate or make me laugh depending on what mood I'm in - althoughsome of the views are actually no laughing matter
so the way I talk to the SCBC comes from this unholy mix
I don't particularly want to change it either ... but if the Construct has even the slightest suspicion that my lack of respect for its views is because it has the female gender, then it should think again
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#267 fubar
Fubar, you seem to be saying that the opposition are only responsible when they become the government and when in opposition all those tory MP's and councillors can float about as much as they like.
Now! what life giving hard earned employment title has Cameron or Osborne ever earned?.
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277 FS
Certainly not me. I was disappointed I didn't get to see it!
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#264 #271
OK, I'll just try typing "Harriet Harpy" and see if that's allowed.
Or is there some bar on giving HER a nick-name that doesn't seem to apply to any other politician?
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#231, sagamix wrote:
"fom @ 226
"Any idea where we should look?"
no I'm stumped
the only way Labour can ever win power is on a Middle England mandate and so they can't be progressive else they'd frighten the horses and get chucked out
Saga, The only way any party wins power is by appealing to a broad spectrum of voters. You witter on about a "progressive" approach as if it means something. Apart from banning private education, I've no idea what your approach would be. OK, more women in high positions. That is happening and a good thing too. If people are capable, they should be in suiatble jobs. (Because they are good - NOT because of their sex or background.)
and the Tories are an anachronism who have no interest in the progressive agenda
Saga, Funny isn't it. Tories led the assault on slave trading. Just like in the USA, it was Abe Lincoln's Republican party that fought against slavery. Doesn't seem believable today, does it, because people don't understand history. (Of course that's not fair. Our children probably know little bits about either WW1 or WW2. But because they don't understand earlier European or more global history, there is no context within which to consider how or why events happened.)
that's Britain for you, I suppose - or England anyway - it's a very reactionary country - I reckon if we went that direct democracy route ... you know, a referendum every week on this, that and the other ... we'd have hanging and flogging back, the borders shut, mosques closed, out of Europe, national service, and compulsory roast beef and yorkshire pud on a Sunday - all within six months
yes yes I know, the last one works for me too
Saga, I don't much like the Swiss. Too wrapped up in themselves. Too secretive. Don't really warm to people who declare "neutrality" while war rages around them. So I've always had an historically driven caution around Swiss, Swedes, Irish even.
But the Swiss do have a massively democratic way of life, where decisions about anything significant can/must be put to the "people".
Nothing wrong with that, is there?
Or is it only "progressive" if a self-selecting and promoting elite decide that everybody else should do what the elite dictate (even if they don't follow their own rules... Like your mate Harriet sending children to schools they shouldn't really be at, but they are "better" than the immediately local place?).
Give me a fortune and I'd probably be so much more progressive than you, that you wouldn't believe it saga.
I do realise that "progressive" is a silly label. Stalin was a progressive sort of guy, wasn't he? A bit like Mao and Fidel. Sharing misery for others, while being cocooned in a rather nice life.
You got me right, saga. I'm a grumpy old man. Old enough to have campaigned against the death penalty. Lived long enough to regret that. Not because I like the idea of killing off people. But I just don't understand why somebody who tortures, rapes, kills children gets to live a materially better (and more costly) life than a pensioner. If you told a developing thug that he/she could have a life curtailed I do wonder whether it would make a difference.
We tolerate violence in a way that I find simply extraordinary. But we have masses of laws saying people shouldn't do this or that. Then the full weight of the law comes down on a teacher who holds a violent pupil and the teacher breaches some rule...
And we kill embryoes in tens of thousands every year. Some of them may have been tomorrow's leaders. (By the way, I am very much in favour of choice. But I do wonder if we are too relaxed about killing not-yet-born, while releasing murderous people back on the streets,
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276#
I notice no-one has mentioned the Revolving Door yet either, ecb.....
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273#
"But! to think that someone like W. Hague can earn millions for talking about politics that dont work is amazing! your money for nothing and kicks for free."
But if people are willing to pay for it, out of their own pockets... why shouldnt he?
No different to people paying to see Bernard Manning or Vic Reeves... doesnt matter whether its funny or not, its simply supply and demand, isnt it?
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charentais @ 275
"What is there left to say except #225 EmilyQ - brilliant!"
hope you're not saying that just because she's a girl
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@ 263
"no more than you upset Perry, who just wants to stick to the truth"
mmm like, let's see
- Labour systematically and deliberately keep people poor and on benefits purely to win votes
and:
- Labour rolled out a trendy left masterplan to pollute our Homeland with ethnic diversity
that sort of thing?
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I am getting mega probs with this site - is anybody else? It keeps asking me to sign in and then saying it doesn't recog nise me! Thought with the technology today should be a doddle. Apparently not....
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fubar @ 277
"Looks like someone has decided to "give me a taste of my own medicine" about a throwaway bloodless coup comment... fine, I don't mind. If it makes you feel better, on you go"
nice try babe but it won't work, I'm afraid - bet you bit your opponents' ears when you boxed in the Army, didn't you?
hey, should I refer Andy's 281 where he's throwing cheap defamatory insults at a decent and honourable politician?
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274. At 10:19am on 06 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
266 Robin
Well I did say it wouldn't win over any dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters.
But if it were all posturing, as you imply, then why were the Bullingdon Club photos suppressed? Why not put them on the Conservative election leaflets?
------------
For fear of the small minded class warrior who will react... well... rather as you appear to be.
Just because it does not matter, does not mean everyone is smart enough to realise it.
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#284
That's the problem with the tories. They would talk all day about sweet nothing.
William Hague is a victim of conservative control, rolled out in front of the tory machine when he was barely into puberty.
Why dont our politicians talk about engineering and creating and making all types of things! I'd rather have an MP who understood the concept of mechanical engineering and creating, rather than a mouth piece that just churned out propaganda non stop.
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#288
"hey, should I refer Andy's 281 where he's throwing cheap defamatory insults at a decent and honourable politician?"
If I was, you could. Your argument has some merits during the first half of your statement but runs out of steam completely over the last four words.
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289 GHM
So you're saying that they suppressed the photo because they feared that some of the electorate would react negatively to it. (Remember, small-minded people have the vote too.)
My point entirely!
Glad we're finally singing from the hymn sheet!
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flame @ 287
yes, they have a few bugs at the moment ... working on it, one hopes
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279#
Thats about the long and short of it Derek, yes.
What did Osbourne or Cameron do? Cam worked for Carlton TV (which in my humble opinion was a disaster for British TV, but thats another story) and I dont know what Osborne did.
Its the government that makes the decisions, especially if they have a healthy majority. What the opposition does is largely irrelevant, except when it comes to memberships of Select Committees and so on and the obvious representation of their constituents.
Given the amount of time off that MP's get and that in times of crisis it is only going to be the government that actually makes the decisions, I dont have a problem with the opposition, of whatever flavour it happens to be, "floating about".
Why, do you? It worked for Labour as well, you know, in opposition... Ever heard of Transtec? Or Craigavon? Or Coventry City Football Club? Or Triumph Motorcycles? Or The New Statesman?
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260. pdavies65
Old Etonian spin doctor vs confused ex-atheist/Presbyterian. Tough choice for the nation.
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288#
Mate, I've never boxed and I wasnt in the Army. Its upto you if you want to refer the Harpy comment. Depends on how thin your skin is, I guess.
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#288 - Besides, why would you associate "Harriet Harpy" with any particular person? There are lots of people called Harriet in the country.
Unless, of course, you can see why such a nick-name would apply to anyone in particular.
"Harpy" = in Greek mythology, a monster that was half woman and half bird of prey who carried out acts of vengence
And if you CAN see why, it sort-of suggests you think it appropriate.
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No218TheBlamegame
I appreciate your advice on the legal threats to working people from whatever source.Do you think it is futile to rely on an un-democratic UK parliament to introduce laws that will protect ordinary people from the ravages of our current politico/economic system?Are you familiar with the concept 'economic democracy'? According to most reports the financial buffoons in the City and other financial institutions that brought the world economy to its knees are once again on the march, perhaps Bob and his colleagues are the only ones capable of preventing the next crises.
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I know this off topic but...
'Gordon Brown has said he thinks X Factor's twin contestants John and Edward Grimes are "not very good".'
I really cannot think of anything to say that wouldn't be moderated at something approaching the speed of light.
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Sagamix 278
That would be fine if it were true. I do not even mind if you are less than Harriet expects you to be. However you can hardly complain when someone points this out, when you claim you are such a defender of womens rights.
You avoid answering difficult questions by ignoring the point and using a one liner. You are known for it. Therefore the writer is not prepared to engage with you again, if they can avoid it.
I do not suppose you have thought that I find your views less than articulate as well, but am too polite to say so. No that could not be could it?
What is the point in exploring an argument with you. You see issues one way and you have made that very clear. Yes we can bat backwards and forwards for hours as we did on AN with others trying to make the same point to you, to what end, except the loss of time. You then put your own interpretation on what was said. Which is never the truth and then you insinuate things in a underhand way. What is the point in that.
There are people who you can have a reasonable exchange of views with, but I am afraid you are not one of them.
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298. braveSouter
"perhaps Bob and his colleagues are the only ones capable of preventing the next crises."
That's the point I'm making bS... at the moment at least the unions have some bargaining powers, but like Mandelson is doing, the EU will slowly strip those away. Yes the bankers are at it again but that's another issue.
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fairly @ 282
well if we could have you as our "wise and benevolent" Dictator ruling with that perfect mix of hard head / big heart, then I might vote for it as being better than the available alternatives ... the pragmatic choice as it were
but I'm not quite ready to give up on my dream of a country (and a world!) where the gross inequalities of today are a thing of the past; something everyone looks back on with a kind of awed disgust ... a bit like the Slave Trading which you mention
and if you want to get to that, you have to have the VISION to formulate the necessary (very radical) policies and you have to have the COURAGE to implement them
what you need, in other words, is something you have no taste for; think you hate the very word, don't you? ... an ideology ... a "Progressive" ideology through which you can then filter not only all your politics, but your whole view of life itself - everything I do, I do in a progressive way - when I go to a cafe, for example, or to the cinema ... when I'm being patronising to a female ... or I pick up my dry cleaning ... I don't do it like the normal person, I do it progressively
and maybe I joke around too much, but the thing itself ... clear thinking progressiveness ... is a deadly serious proposition for a better world
and it's on the rise - just nothing like so much as the BNP, unfortunately
it will happen one day, Open ... the CTP triumph and that Better World ... but unfortunately it's likely that neither you or I will be around to chat about it :-(
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Here are my proposals:
Firstly we pay MP's a salary appropriate to their standing. The best MP I ever had was former brain surgeon Sam Galbraith (who, in an act of remarkable and rare common sense was made shadow Scotish Health Minister for a time and very good at it he was). You do not encourage brain surgeons to enter public office by offering them a third of their NHS salary. British MP's get a quarter of the salary of US congressmen and the US president gets 10 time what the PM does.
MP's are given a set allowance for secretarial, office and research costs. My mother works as my fathers secretary (he's a surgeon) for the simple reason that she's the only one who will put up with him. Every other sec. has quit within 6 months. As an added bonus is reduces the problem of MP's having affairs with the staff!
We build them 'halls of residences' rather like the flats I live near designed for NHS staff on short term contracts. 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, plenty of phone/internet access. Reasonably close to Westminster. There are plenty of military sites in central London that could provide land or they could be built within the perimeter of Heathrow or London City airport for security. Such flats would be no more a terror target than Westminster itself or MI6/5 HQ etc.
Pay and expenses HAS to be linked to attendance. Why the h**l should George Galloway, the Sinn Fein MPs etc be getting full expenses and pay yet not attending parliament? Gordon Brown was spot on about this.
Personally I don't blame the MP's for milking the system. If I was allowed to claim 1st class rail a £200 hotel room & £100 a day for meals every time I go to a conference I would do. I suspect most other people would to.
FINALLY get a sense of perspective. Sarkozy charged the EU £250,000 for a shower he never used. Paying £3000 a year for a cleaner seems small change in comparision.
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my wife helps me with my work, even at weekends.. she doesn't get paid. but she helps me keep my job..
these people simply don't live in the real world. perhaps its time we had a bunch of politicians who did and who weren't the best examples of corruption, perversion and self seeking ever to be found.
all incited by QT, i've just gone to the BNP site. i'm shocked to read what depraved politicians we put in power. they have my vote now!
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#298 bravesouter wrote:
"perhaps Bob [Crow] and his colleagues are the only ones capable of preventing the next crises"
Though I don't agree with this, let's assume that it is true.
Then the question is, would membership of the EU prevent socialist solutions being implemented in the UK?
I remember the 1970s Common Market debate as it was the first time I was able to vote (yes, by the way). The left opposed the Common Market as they saw it as a capitalist conspiracy that would prevent Britain implementing socialism in one country. The remnants of Empire (Enoch Powell) also opposed it, of course, but the majority of conservatives (small 'c') saw the Common Market as a bulwark against socialism (and remember that at that time many members of the Labour Party believed in socialism). Much of the debate has been lost (no internet) but an historical record survives in various left-wing journals.
I'm always puzzled why so many Labour supporters are in favour of the EU. Presumably because they don't believe in socialism either.
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#290, derekbarker wrote:
"...Why dont our politicians talk about engineering and creating and making all types of things! I'd rather have an MP who understood the concept of mechanical engineering and creating, rather than a mouth piece that just churned out propaganda non stop."
Yes. Sock it to 'em Derek.
We've had 12 years of "New" Labour. Just what have they done to support the engineering and construction indutries? Not a lot. Because Brown decided that financial services would deliver lots more easy tax take.
I believe that UK still has world-class engineering competence. Despite a lack of apprenticeships and people learning genuine skills. (By the way, I think Thatcher did a disservice by reducing the attractiveness of apprenticeships.
Oh, and by the way, Thatcher did not set up the bank regulation system that failed. In fact she had already been gone for 7 years when Blair/Brown took over and changed the regime. I don't recall many bank crises before 1997. Do you?
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290#
"Why dont our politicians talk about engineering and creating and making all types of things! I'd rather have an MP who understood the concept of mechanical engineering and creating, rather than a mouth piece that just churned out propaganda non stop."
100% agree.
So, where are they?? Isnt that what we used to have before PPPE's???
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@299 My comment about the apprentices of yesterday. What does he think he is doing. He is either the world saviour(his view and words) or a cheap politician currying favour with reality tv watching minorities. Perhaps Saga has a view on this. He woould appear to have a view on most things pertaining to the government.
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The story so far..
Labour supporters (and self-deniers) attack Tory supporters (and self-deniers) with politics of envy approach. Tory supporters (and self-deniers) respond with 'your lot are just as bad' defence.
Someone suggests debating policies.
Labour supporters (and self-deniers) think, good idea... but wait a minute, ours aren't working.
Tory supporters (and self-deniers) think, good idea... but hang on, we don't have any.
Labour supporters (and self-deniers) attack Tory supporters (and self-deniers) with politics of envy approach. Tory supporters (and self-deniers) respond with etc. etc. etc.
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303#
Forgive me mate, but.... how on earth can pick up dry cleaning "progressively"???? LOL
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"I don't do it like the normal person, I do it progressively"
Are you saying then, that there is a disconnect between what is percieved to be a "normal" person (depending on what you use to represent "normal") and a "progressive"???
Is it possible then, that the "progressive" will ever be able to represent the interests, desires, needs, aspirations of the "normal", if there is some sort of implicit disconnect?
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fubar @ 296
"It's up to you if you want to refer the Harpy comment. Depends on how thin your skin is, I guess"
mmm, so says the rough, tough "bar room brawler" of a blogger who gets off on writing the most down and dirty invective about assorted Labour politicians, but who then takes it upon himself to censor an anti Cameron post which offends him
... and who isn't a Tory
a joke of the very rarest finest quality
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#305
'You do not encourage brain surgeons to enter public office by offering them a third of their NHS salary. British MP's get a quarter of the salary of US congressmen and the US president gets 10 time what the PM does.'
But Peter, MPs are always telling us that they entered public life inspired by altruism, high ideals and a determination 'to do good' and not for fat cat wages. They've got to realise that they can't have their cake and eat it and that it was greedy and naughty of them (I think the language of the nursery is best used when communicating with them!) when they were doing exactly that.
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311#
You've been here before then?????
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re problems with this page
Nick must have changed the title at the last minute from something like 'Final chapter of the expenses saga?' to 'Nearing the end of the expenses saga' the topical posts, the time stamp and the signing in page are still trying to access the old "Final chapter.." web address. An error on the signing page may take you to confirm your details. You don't need to. Just delete the web address back to Nick Robinson and access it. then select this blog you'll be signed in.
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sc @ 301
"What is the point in exploring an argument with you?"
okay Susan, let's take you at face value then - a new start as it were
you wanted to hear some "proper left wing" policies from me (didn't you?) because you feel all of my stuff is not really that
okay, so I'm not sure what you mean and I'd like to pursue this with you
please kick off by giving me an example of a policy which you consider to be a "proper left wing" one (don't worry about whether you agree with it or not) and we'll take it from there
okay?
just the one, please, is fine for starters and I'll let you know what I think
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314 GHM wrote:
Its actually more a problem of the unscrupulous hacks who will exploit the ignorance of some of the electorate. Before you know it, some of those people they preach to actually start believing all the petty nonsense about snobs and the Bullingdon club. Can't really blame them for their ignorance, so instead we can only blame those who should know better.
Yes, this is the stock defense for censorship. The old "it could mislead a stupid person" argument. How very patronizing!
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#308. What have New Labour done to encourage the construction industries:
Apart from the third runway at Heathrow, the 2012 olympics, major road and rail extensions, proposed 'eco-towns' and (until recently) an epidemic of house & flat building right across the UK and then spent billions trying to bail out the banks and keep the next generation of 1st time buyers in mortages?
I'll stop before I got all 'Life of Brian'.
Likewise UK manufacturing: our problem is that the workers want salaries and conditions that make most UK manufacturing totally unviable and it ends up outsourced to China. What we CAN do is high-tech. For instance the new aircraft carriers for the navy and the replacement for Trident. Three or four new nuclear subs would keep 40,000 skilled workers in Derby & Barrow in work for years.
You may not have noticed but Blair actually sat up and listened when Britains biotech & pharm industry threatened to leave the UK and the animal rights terrorists are all in jail now.
The £2000 scrappage scheme is keeping our car industry afloat. They may not be British owned but the Nissan plant in Sunderland, the Honda plant in Swindon and the Toyata plant in Derby are the WORLDS most efficient and productive car plants. Most Nissans driven in Japan are made on Wearside.
The problem is any of the above are shot down in flames by the great british public. We don't want nasty pharmaceutical companies testing their overpriced drugs on cute little mice (but we all want to be immune from swine flue) We don't want wider roads or new airports or new towns because it might spoil a tree. We don't want the Olympics, we don't want nuclear subs and if BAe dares to bribe some corrupt Saudi prince to buy our jet fighters at a grossly inflated price then we want British heads on stakes.... and most of all we HATE paying any more for our heating and lighting yet object to wind farms so much the only UK maker of turbines has gone bust. Maybe rather than blame New Labour we might stop being hypocritical NIMBY's for a week or so?
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290. At 10:56am on 06 Nov 2009, derekbarker wrote:
#284
That's the problem with the tories. They would talk all day about sweet nothing.
William Hague is a victim of conservative control, rolled out in front of the tory machine when he was barely into puberty.
Why dont our politicians talk about engineering and creating and making all types of things! I'd rather have an MP who understood the concept of mechanical engineering and creating, rather than a mouth piece that just churned out propaganda non stop.
==================================================
Derek,
The last politician, that I can think of, that dabbled in inventing and engineering was Tony Benn and he is still in the invention business - devised a suitcase on wheels with a fold out seat, so he could sit at bus stops etc.
This is what I find so frustrating about the Quantitative Easing - throw the money all up in the air and hope that the economy picks up. It would of course be far too sensible to build something tangible with it, wouldn't it?
Both Tories and Labour have banged on and on about more housing over the last 40 years and end result - hot air! Think back to the New Deal in 1930's America where Roosevelt invested heavily in road building and other infrastructure projects. Is this government so bereft of grey cells that new ideas are an impossibility? A couple more projects that are desperately needed: coastal defences and drainage on flood plains. Best of all both these projects would be labour intensive and employ millions rather than bung a few billion to a management consultancy firm - you would not say no to this if you lived in Aberdeenshire, would you?
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#321
'Maybe rather than blame New Labour we might stop being hypocritical NIMBY's for a week or so?'
And become unprincipled, professional liars without a conscience, perhaps?
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#305
'You do not encourage brain surgeons to enter public office by offering them a third of their NHS salary. British MP's get a quarter of the salary of US congressmen and the US president gets 10 time what the PM does.'
US presidential salary $400,000 p.a = £240,000
Now you may THINK that Brown is only worth £24,000 p.a. but he's paid a lot more.
US Congressman salary $174,000 p.a. = £104,000
Did you just make your figures up for effect?
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258 Saga
You do like casting pebbles on the pond dont ou?
You know many on here would not pay HH in bottletops.
I dont know if you can equate length of service with expertise. I have started jobs and been horrified to find out that people who had been there years, and on the top pay, knew hardly anything. They were also stuck in the past and were very reluctant to change. I actually came across someone compiling statistics that were required during the war and this had bee going on for 30 years !
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309 FS
The chance of any grease monkey making it as far as the selection process are nil at the moment - and parliament is all the poorer for it.
The real world where people still get their hands dirty is anathema to the new breed of MP's.
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315#
Tried responding mate, but I guess someone didnt find it funny, or I drifted a tad off topic. Maybe it was the reference to a certain cabinet minister hitting a parked car that did it...
Suffice it to say, the broad thrust was
a) Thanks for the compliment
b) If they werent such naughty boys and girls I wouldnt have been gifted with such an embarrassment of riches for my invective, would I?
c) Unfortunately, a lot of the Labour invective, does regrettably have a basis in fact and is therefore, to me anyway, fair game. If I get it wrong I apologise, rather than just saying "tough".
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"326. At 12:19pm on 06 Nov 2009, xTunbridge wrote:
258 Saga
You do like casting pebbles on the pond dont ou?
You know many on here would not pay HH in bottletops."
xTunbridge - I'm fairly sure that Sagamix is trying to wind us up with his supposed love of HH. It's one of those situations where if he's trying to be funny, it's not quite funny and if he's being serious, it's not at all funny.
I did enjoy her being criticised by ONS for her miss-use of stats on equal pay. No doubt she went off and gnawed on a table (or some unfortunate minion) for a while after that.
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#316 "But Peter, MPs are always telling us that they entered public life inspired by altruism, high ideals and a determination 'to do good' and not for fat cat wages. They've got to realise that they can't have their cake and eat it and that it was greedy and naughty of them (I think the language of the nursery is best used when communicating with them!) when they were doing exactly that"
This is my point. Rather than this pretend 'serving the public' nonsense we should cut the cr*p and pay professionals to do a professional job. Who would you rather have in No 11? Darling or someone like Peter Jones or Richard Branson? But why would a highly succesful businessman want to be paid a fraction of what he can earn in business and put up with the abuse most politicians get? The fact that you use 'the language of the nursery' just shows what a frankly thankless job it is and why they try to get as much out of the job as they can.
We can punish our MPs for being 'naughty' (I remember a few of Majors cabinet rather liked that) or change our attitude and encourage those who can do the job in the real world to take charge in westminster. We won't though, because this is now a witch hunt so we'll doubtless get more mediocre lawyers as MPs and they'll spend more and more time working out new ways to top up their pay rather than fix the country.
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#321, Peter_Sym wrote:
"#308. What have New Labour done to encourage the construction industries:
Apart from the third runway at Heathrow, the 2012 olympics, major road and rail extensions, proposed 'eco-towns' and (until recently) an epidemic of house & flat building right across the UK and then spent billions trying to bail out the banks and keep the next generation of 1st time buyers in mortages?
I'll stop before I got all 'Life of Brian'."
Peter,
I asked what they had DONE.
- A "proposed third runway at Heathrow" is years away.
- "Proposed" eco-towns don't give people a place to live in.
- The Government has invested just about diddly-sqaut in the rash of flat buildings - and the privately-funded supply has often been of the wrong sort in the wrong places.
- Yes some road and rail extensions - but not a lot. Plenty of talk but you can't get to work on White, Green or even loo Papers...
The Olympics is something I like (was a wannabee Olympian once upon a time). But the bid was not considered important enough for Gordon Brown's Treasury team to look at properly. So, once won as a fairly low-cost and legacy-leaving project, he ratcheted up costs by shovelling in VAT (I mean how incometent could you be to not spot that?) and digging into the real costs and contingencies.
Tell me, Peter, how many new power stations have opened since 1997?
How many UK built Royal Navy vessels have been constructed?
Money poured into failed banks has so far had minimal impact on those people who want to get started on the property ladder. And flows like glue towards small businesses.
Life of Brian? I don't care what politicians talk about. It's what they actually DO that counts.
This mob screwed up MGRover.
Messed up a rail network company and pours billions of guarantees into its ideologically driven successor.
Pretends that windmills can "cover the gap" when great chunks of energy production are scheduled to close over the next decade.
For goodness sake, they can't even get helicopters out of the hangers and into operational service in Afghanistan.
At least the Romans DID things. It wasn't all togas and talk...
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Fubar @ 312
"how on earth can pick up dry cleaning "progressively"?"
good question
with this "Big Fubar the Censor" thing, okay enough - I've given you a hard time (which you deserved) but time to move on - the way I feel about it, I can't put any better than at 315 - and on reflection I'm of the view it was one of those one off "heat of the moment" mistakes that we all make, and which we bitterly regret and have to live with for the rest of our natural lives - John Terry's penalty miss in the CL Final springs to mind
he's a self styled "Big Man" too, isn't he?, John Terry
so let's have no more mention of it and let's pick up on our serious dialogue ... starting with your question above about picking up dry cleaning in a progressive way
well how that works is, when I go there, I don't just pick up my stuff I ask a whole load of perceptive, caring questions about whether the staff are being exploited or not by the owner; if they're not, Fine but if they are, Problem - in this latter case, I don't actually stop going there (if it's nearby and they do a good job of my cashmere sweaters) but what I do is I make sure that when I go in to collect those sweaters, I put a very kind and concerned expression on my face ... a progressive look if you know what I mean
you DO know what I mean, don't you Fubar?
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320. At 11:59am on 06 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
314 GHM wrote:
Its actually more a problem of the unscrupulous hacks who will exploit the ignorance of some of the electorate. Before you know it, some of those people they preach to actually start believing all the petty nonsense about snobs and the Bullingdon club. Can't really blame them for their ignorance, so instead we can only blame those who should know better.
Yes, this is the stock defense for censorship. The old "it could mislead a stupid person" argument. How very patronizing!
-------------
Indeed, I'm a very patronising chap, I have no intention of apologising for it. But out of interest, do you think it is more patronising to say it than to just think it? Because don't tell me you have never had a patronishing thought to yourself while listening to a stupid person talk on a subject they have no understanding.
I will reiterate, hopefully if I make it clearer you will be able to understand this time (see what I did there?). If the Bullingdon club pictures etc. were shown openly and noone from the other side tried to make a big deal out of it, there would have been no issue. However, in the knowledge that someone would try to smear and propagandise (is it a word?) the photo, you can hardly blame them for wanting this aspect of their personal life (note personal, not public) kept away from misuse.
Is it your view that propaganda, predjudice and smearing are preferable to censorship?
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No266RockRobin,
Some people believe that Mr Martin lost his job because as the senior politician within the Palace of Westminster he was unable to prevent the publication of the details of MPs expenses rather than his inability to conduct business in the House of Commons.You may recall that there was no serious threat to his position during the previous 8 years.Your daily call for an election seems to be going unheeded, have you any idea why that should be the case?
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#319, sagamix wrote:
"sc @ 301
"What is the point in exploring an argument with you?"
okay Susan, let's take you at face value then - a new start as it were"
Saga, I realise you are having a private spat. But you do say some odd things.
"please kick off by giving me an example of a policy which you consider to be a "proper left wing" one (don't worry about whether you agree with it or not) and we'll take it from there. okay?"
Saga, why do you conflate "left wing" and "progressive", as though they carry equal value and worth?
I'd say it is fairly progressive to bring electricity to a village that previously only lived by firelight. Nothing left-wing about that. After all, private companies developed and continue to roll out the technology.
I'd say it's fairly progressive to educate people. Nothing very left-wing about that. It's been done under various regimes and the origins were based on Churches' and Sovereigns' decisions. Not so left-wing, I feel.
I guess that most - probably all - nations believe that the primary responsibility of a government is to protect them. Right/left/whatever.
I'd guess that most people eventually understand that "rights" can only work if "responsibilities" are also enshrined in the psyche. That's not left or right wing, is it?
So do tell why you seem to feel that "progressive" is a left-wing thing.
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sagamix 286
Groan - time to correct the record again.
""no more than you upset Perry, who just wants to stick to the truth"
mmm like, let's see
- Labour systematically and deliberately keep people poor and on benefits purely to win votes and:
- Labour rolled out a trendy left masterplan to pollute our Homeland with ethnic diversity
that sort of thing?"
First of all, check my posting record if you like. On the "keeping people poor to create an electoral cohort" thing, I showed that it was possible to prove the individual elements of the "plan", but explicitly, that you could not prove connectivity or intent. On the "pollution of the homeland thing" (a very pejorative way of putting it, I think) I contributed one post only, pointing out that it was very similar to the "keeping people poor" case, in that again, you can prove individual elements of the "plan" but not the connectivity or the intent.
As I said, check my posting record if you need to.
If you can find anything untruthful or dishonest in the above, then let's hear it. Get your facts right, saga!
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It's nice to see after solving Afghanistan Gordon is moving on to a really important issue!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8345696.stm
The man beggard belief.
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03. At 11:27am on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
.....and if you want to get to that, you have to have the VISION to formulate the necessary (very radical) policies.....
*************************
Franklin D Roosevelt once described 'radical' as "Someone who has both feet planted firmly in the clouds".
I wonder if he had foreknowledge of you Saga?
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derekbarker 244
"#242 JRPerry Perry! look! if you take Mr and Mrs Cameron's wealth, as to the chart, it gives a clear example of assets and wealth, income registered at that date. I'm quite surprised that you challenge this, your usually pretty decent at the old accountancy.Perry are you just having a biased laugh?."
Unfortunately, another correction required. Check your post 241 and the link you cited in it, including page 1 of the link, which explains page 2 (the reference you cited). The table in your link explicitly lists wealth of the members of the shadow cabinet, nothing to do with income. Repeat - nothing to do with income! I did speculate that you wouldn't understand the difference in my 242 - seems I was right. I'm sure someone else on here will help you if necessary.
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"I don't just pick up my stuff I ask a whole load of perceptive, caring questions about whether the staff are being exploited or not by the owner; if they're not, Fine but if they are, Problem - in this latter case, I don't actually stop going there (if it's nearby and they do a good job of my cashmere sweaters) but what I do is I make sure that when I go in to collect those sweaters, I put a very kind and concerned expression on my face ... a progressive look if you know what I mean"
And I bet the staff sooooo look forward to you coming
"Oh, no! It's that sanctimonious buffoon sagamix coming. It's your turn to put up with his nosey questions and gurning, I did it last time"
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333#
I think I do mate yes. Its what I've heard described in the IT Service Management Industry as "Broken Window" Syndrome.
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#366
You are wasting yur time. Did you not notice that Sagamix asked SUSAN to give HIM an example of a proper left wing policy. Isn't HE supposed to give HER examples of what policies he'd introduce?
Except at the end of the day he usually can't. Asked about immigration policies he just mumbled something about "he'd ensure everyone get along" without saying HOW he'd do it.
And that, at the end is what Clear Progressive Thinking is. A set of airy-fairy idealistic goals with no idea how to get those ideas achieved. Like Gordon Brown, they believe that by saying something, it makes it so.
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#321, Peter_Sym wrote:
"#308. What have New Labour done to encourage the construction industries:
The £2000 scrappage scheme is keeping our car industry afloat. They may not be British owned but the Nissan plant in Sunderland, the Honda plant in Swindon and the Toyata plant in Derby are the WORLDS most efficient and productive car plants. Most Nissans driven in Japan are made on Wearside."
Peter, Sorry I should have acknowledged that. As I've often said, the UK can do some things really well. Sometimes it requires other nations to inject a bit of sense. (But over the centuries, the Brits used to do that for others, too!). It is a shame that we effectively have no domestically owned car manufacturers. Sorry to say I thing Byers killed that option when he made a bad decision over MG Rover.
"The problem is any of the above are shot down in flames by the great british public. We don't want nasty pharmaceutical companies testing their overpriced drugs on cute little mice (but we all want to be immune from swine flue) We don't want wider roads or new airports or new towns because it might spoil a tree. We don't want the Olympics, we don't want nuclear subs and if BAe dares to bribe some corrupt Saudi prince to buy our jet fighters at a grossly inflated price then we want British heads on stakes.... and most of all we HATE paying any more for our heating and lighting yet object to wind farms so much the only UK maker of turbines has gone bust. Maybe rather than blame New Labour we might stop being hypocritical NIMBY's for a week or so?"
Peter,
Wind farms are massively subsidised. They can at best be intermittent. They do not represent a sensible way forward - unless, maybe, a few islands off the Scottish mainland were given over completely to harvesting the wind. Can you imagine any Labour politician suggesting that?
Labour politicians blame Tory or Liberal local politicians for resisting visual and noise impacts.
ONLY because they want to site farms in rural areas, which Labour has never been interested in.
(Remember the completely stupid and catastrophic mass slaughter of cows in the Blair years?)
Peter, I've seen bright and shiny new schools turning out dumb pupils. So, in a way, I'm more interested in education than building. But if Brown had decided to underwrite the construction industries at a fraction of the cost of helping failed banks, it would attract far more jobs.
And, by the way, I think a collapsed bank should be allowed to fail. I think that constructive administration is the term people use. I.E. keep a business running if you can sort it out and deliver it back in a shape that has a business value - it may be smaller, but it could still work.
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278. At 10:24am on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
I only know the "Susan Croft" blogging construct - and that posts a lot too, almost as much as I do
lol
Last 6 months
sagamix 1321 posts
Susan-Croft 416 posts
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How about jome flipping, the most serious and blatant abuse?
We don't expect MPs to be saints but there are areas where they msut be beyond reproach. If they are so obsessive and defensive about expenses, then they are easy targets for bribes and corruptions from lobbyists, from individuals, from tycoons, from foreign governments...
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334 GHM
If the Bullingdon club pictures etc. were shown openly and noone from the other side tried to make a big deal out of it, there would have been no issue.
That's the bit of your argument I disagree with. There, sorted.
But out of interest, do you think it is more patronising to say it than to just think it?
Yes. Patronising is something you do to somebody. Thinking it but not saying it just makes you aloof.
Because don't tell me you have never had a patronising thought to yourself while listening to a stupid person talk on a subject they have no understanding.
Aaarrrrgh ...temptation ....so.....great.....must....fight.....it...
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#322. WHY haven't these things been built?
Because of people like my parents: They live in a 4 bed detached house with big garden just down the road from where "Pendelton" would have been built. They donated several hundred quid to the fighting fund, petitioned their (tory) MP to stop it and waved banners along with several hundred others. If they'd admited to me it was to preserve their house price I might have some respect for them but instead they have me B.S about 'noone needing 15,000 homes etc'. Now they're trying to stop 3 wind turbines being errected up the road. Doubtless they'll succeed there too.
Find me ONE new housing development or road or power station that hasn't been immediately attacked for whatever contrived reason imaginable. The 'eco-towns' were mostly denied planning permission because the govt is not the all powerful monster we claim and is very, very reluctant to annoy the voters. If Brown really was Stalin he'd have concreted the countryside by now but he doesn't have the power.
In fact no politician has much power at all. Apparently Brown screwed up the economy single handedly, yet Britain has suffered about the same level of recession as every other major western nation. Is Brown running the German and US economy too?
MG Rover screwed itself up. They were making cars a decade and a half out of date, that had reliability and QC problems, awful after purchase service and cost more than Japanese designed models built in the UK to a far higher standard. This is why most British industry folded before there even was a new-labour. Frankly I couldn't care less that Rover is gone. British workers in Derby, Swindon & Nissan are making better cars than British workers in Birmingham could. I don't especially want my taxes going to make us all drive the Longbridge equivalent of the Trabant. Thats what state control of the car industry gives you.
If the Romans wanted a new housing development or a nuclear power plant built at the edge of your village they'd do it and crucify anyone who objected. If they wanted to equip their army with the latest sword or armour they'd just take it out of the aquaduct budget. Its a great argument for military dictatorship but I don't think General Brown would be so popular on the BBC blogs.
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#332. I missed the helicopter comment.
Firstly it was the tories who ordered those damn chinooks and also a tory govt that outrageously blamed the pilot when one dropped out of the sky over the Mull of Kintrye. Thats the same govt responsible for the lack of Nimrod replacement and the same govt that sent me to Croatia with a defective rifle and no body armour whatsoever. If you want to know the definition of 'uncomfortable' is standing among 20 soldiers in full kevlar with blue covers and helmets while wearing a black beret and a cotton smock. Not only did I have no protection I looked like I might be someone worth sniping at. Thanks for nothing John Major. I'm only here now because the serbs couldn't shoot straight.
The other issue regarding the helicopters is that they've got nothing to do with the state of the war in Afghanistan. If the roads are so dangerous that we have to fly everywhere then we're saying that the Taliban have such control of the land that we can't walk on it. That means we've lost. The US did the same thing in Vietnam... NVA pop up in a valley, the hueys fly in the GI's who fight the NVA and almost always win. Then they get back on the huey and fly back to base and the NVA re-occupy the valley by nightfall. Afghanistan will be won or lost by our guys, on foot taking control of the land and permanently keeping the Taliban off it, not by a handful of chinooks. Its another example of people who don't understand the situation shouting tabloid headlines at the government.
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Fairly @ 336 (Andy too, for that matter)
no, I prefer "progressive" versus "reactionary" - this Left v Right thing is a bit old hat, I agree
reason for that post (to Susan) is she came on the other day and, appropos of nothing, rather gravely announced that I wasn't a "proper left winger" and she wanted to hear some "proper left wing policies" from me ... so first step (so I can oblige) is to just clarify what she means by a Left Wing policy - hence I've asked her - reply should be interesting so watch "that" space
but, yes, P v R is much better
easy to define:
P's political beliefs are centred around reducing inequality
R's PBs are all about the right of the individual to do what they want with minimum state interference
so an R would say liberty always trumps equality
and a P would reply that you can't have true liberty WITHOUT equality
not all Ps are "clear thinking" like me, however, I do admit that ... Pol Pot for example, no badge for him
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xtun @ 326
"You know many on here would not pay HH in bottletops"
not sure about that; she's a very polarising figure but I think even her worst enemies would tend to accept that she's a politician of the very first order
(right, Andy?)
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No, thats not what reactionary means at all. You really haven't grasped it have you.
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349#
I will never make excuses for Bunter Soames, but the Mull accident was blamed on the two pilots by two Air Chief Marshalls, both I think now retired. It is a source of immense disquiet as to why successive SofS for Defence have never reopened or overturned their decision. I can only speculate vested interests.
Some of it is down to the Single service chiefs playing Shiny Kit Syndrome and only thinking in their narrow stovepipes, rather than a Joint Ops perspective. Some of it is down to the now discredited IPT model of purchasing. Some of it is down to BAe taking the p*** and being allowed to get away with it by Central Government, the MOD and the IPT's.
And some of it is down to (as Haddon-Cave alluded to) a shocking lack of leadership at star level.
But considering how many years there have been and how many SofS D's theres been... you'd have thought someone would have had the temerity to have banged some heads?
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"352. At 1:29pm on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
xtun @ 326
"You know many on here would not pay HH in bottletops"
not sure about that; she's a very polarising figure but I think even her worst enemies would tend to accept that she's a politician of the very first order
(right, Andy?)"
No, she's dogmatic, opinionated, bullying, devious, hypocritical and represents all that is bad about politics and politicians. Her relentless pursuit of her version of 'equality' would see laws trampled on and freedoms infringed. She repels both many who might support her views as well as any who oppose them. She does not listen to argument, nor reason and has an appalling record in any job she is giving, achieving little and alienating many. In fact the truth is, I ought to apologise to Harpies for linking her to them.
She is a politician of the very first order in the same way that the mess a dog leaves behind on the pavement is a gourmet meal of the very first order.
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#350 "P's political beliefs are centred around reducing inequality
R's PBs are all about the right of the individual to do what they want with minimum state interference
so an R would say liberty always trumps equality
and a P would reply that you can't have true liberty WITHOUT equality"
Which prooves that P's policies are ideas without plans combined with meaningless platitudes.
You may as well say that your policies are that everyone should live happily ever after.
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356 Andy
She is a politician of the very first order in the same way that the mess a dog leaves behind on the pavement is a gourmet meal of the very first order.
No, that's a foul smear.
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#344
Fairly, you seem to be just waiting for the Hadron collider to connect with the big bang. Offering little but partisan attacks.
Cameron's no Macmillan and Thatcher closed down Industrial Britain,Thatcher closed the pits and imported coal from third world nations to keep the coal power station going, she even brought electricity off the French, to keep the lights on! as she smashed the coalmines. In the end, Mrs Thatchers government made a very expensive mistake by closing the pits.So you can hardly quote Peter and the history of the Roman empire when the tories failed so drastically last time.
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ghm @ 353
"No, thats not what reactionary means at all. You really haven't grasped it have you?"
maybe not ... I'm on firmer ground with the P side of things ... Horse's Mouth is always the best, I guess
what's your idea of an Reactionary then?
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#355. This is part of the confusion. At present its the 'governments' fault that kit is missing in Afghanistan, when in reality its usually down to senior civil servants (and effectively thats what these air chief marshalls are), so we blame Brown, elect Cameron and the same people making the same mistakes remain in their jobs.
My point about the tactical use of helicopters is really, really important and it scares me that both MOD top brass, politicians and even serving army officers (who have no excuses) don't realise that swooping in and out in helicopters is great for a suprise raid (like Sierra Leonne in 2000) but useless if you want to pacify and hold a whole country long term. The US use of air-cav and firebases in Vietnam is why they lost. You need to send infantry out on foot to find and kill the enemy and then stay on the land you've taken. Annoyingly we knew this & did it in Malaya, Borneo, Oman etc but seem to have forgotten it now. It worth pointing out that the US axed the air-cav idea soon after Vietnam too and most former air-cav units now have wheeled and tracked transport instead.
Sir Humphrey Appelby made a good point aboout politicians coming and politicans going but civil servants always remaining.
In regards your other point:
"Peter, I've seen bright and shiny new schools turning out dumb pupils. So, in a way, I'm more interested in education than building. But if Brown had decided to underwrite the construction industries at a fraction of the cost of helping failed banks, it would attract far more jobs. And, by the way, I think a collapsed bank should be allowed to fail"
Who would be able to buy all these houses if the major banks have all folded? Are you suggesting that Brown should use taxpayers money to pay for houses that are then given to a few lucky taxpayers? This sudden epidemic of cheap houses would really rather screw someone like me who saved up for years to buy a small house with a 95% mortgage a few years back wouldn't it? Mind you with the banks allowed to collapse I wouldn't have a job so I'd be on benefits anyway. The 5 person biotech company I work for has the £3M it needs to keep operating in the bank... the £50,000 the treasury would have paid us would barely cover the redundancy cheques.
What annoys me is that we haven't 'given' the banks the money... we've bought the banks. Doubtless in 5 or ten years when RBS's share price is back to pre-crunch levels Cameron will sell our stake in it, we'll get billions back and he'll claim this surge of new govt. cash is due to 'conservative economic brilliance' in exactly the same way Brown took the credit for the boom in the late 90's.
I'm also more interested in education too. What we need is a political party to take a long view at what we will need in 20 years time (long after the opposition is in power) and start training the people (ie give money to universities to train and revamp the exam system to focus on high tech rather than arts and 'media studies') we'll need. I'd suggest that training people (and developing the technology) to extract oil from 'spent' fields, nuclear and hydro construction and waste management and high efficiency engine design would be smart as would intelligent flood defence design and construction etc. We're never going to design and build a mass produced family car that can compete with the Germans and Japanese but we can do Formula 1 cars better than anyone and make the best jet engines in the world. Rather than waste billions on Rover we'd be better off giving it to Rolls Royce.
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I might complain about all the posts on this blog that are off topic. Typically, the political mind doesn't seem capable of addressing the subject under discussion but veers off in to party political bitching, not answering any points made just loading a shovel with more of the same and hurling it back.
Jokers.
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In Moderation @ 345
really! - oh god, that's way too many (both of us really, but me especially)
I guess one person's boyish enthusiasm is another person's dreary verbal incontinence, isn't it?
perhaps what EYE should do is take a hint from that user name of yours
perhaps there's no perhaps about it
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"358. At 1:57pm on 06 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
356 Andy
She is a politician of the very first order in the same way that the mess a dog leaves behind on the pavement is a gourmet meal of the very first order.
No, that's a foul smear."
Actually, it's an opinion.
"A politician of the very first order"
Here are some politicians I think might merit that claim:
Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, Cicero, JFK, FDR, Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Nelson Mandela.
A short list, but where would you rank Harman in amongst that lot? Or put another way, if these politicians were worth (say) between 95/100 and 100/100 for their achievements, oratory and the impression they made on history how many out of 100 would you give HH? 3? 3.5?
If this conversation is happening in (say) America in 20 years time, many on my list would still be there. Do you think HH would make the list.
"Politician of the very first order"????
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360. At 2:11pm on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
ghm @ 353
"No, thats not what reactionary means at all. You really haven't grasped it have you?"
maybe not ... I'm on firmer ground with the P side of things
-------------
Strange, because you got that wrong as well.
The penny drops though. All those claims you make to being a "free thinking progressive" are made in error not because you suffer from delusion, but because you simply do not know what it means.
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351 GHM
I'm typing this slowly so you can follow. The Bullingdon Club photos undermine the image that Cameron and Osborne are currently trying to present to the electorate. That's why they feel uncomfortable about them. It's that simple. If it isn't clear to you, it might be clear to others so I'll leave it at that.
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#350 sagamix
Don't think I agree with your progressive / reactionary definition.
A true reactionary will value neither equality nor liberty.
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352 Saga
I think AndyC555 gave a good list of why HH is a no no,
One thing he missed is her reported attempt to turn rape into an offence that requires the accused to prove their innocence.
Make no mistake it is a horrible crime. Some cases are easier than others, ie total strangers grabbed off the street etc but when they are known to each other and there is no corroborating evidence then the jury has nothing to go on and must aquit.
But could you prove your innocence, the next day, a week later or two years later? Thats the sort of time variations on these allegations.
To try to bend the system to get more convictions is not justice.
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366
And what image are they trying to present to the public?
As far as I can see, the only image they are trying to present is one of calm and coherent competence (I am not saying they are necessarily succeeding).
Do you think they are trying to portray themselves as working class. What could have given you that impression?
Don't worry, you'll get there, just think it through from the start.
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#366
I agree pictures of politicians coming across as privilidged idiots can be embarressing can't they? It would be the sign of a desperate opposition to try and make capital out of someone's background, though, wouldn't it?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23387466-blair-in-a-boater-a-crude-hand-gesture-and-the-class-of-75.do
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274. At 10:19am on 06 Nov 2009, pdavies65 wrote:
266 Robin
Actually, I have my own fond memories of the Bullingdon Club. I remember them trashing an Indian restaurant I happened to be in at the same time, and then throwing wads of banknotes on the floor so the waiters had to scrabble around on their hands and knees to pick them up. All harmless fun and high spirits!
===
The rap stars of their time!
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555 @ 364
come on Andy, you can't rank Harriet Harman below Pericles! ... Pericles was a total charlatan
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Further to my 369
The only people trying to present Cameron and Osbourne in any "image" as you put it, are those who would attempt to utilise their wealth in a dirty political smear. Those who want to play on the nasty class warrior styled politics of envy. "Yuk, look at those wealthy Toffs. Lets hate them because their parents were succesful and they are well educated."
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#366 pdavies65 wrote:
"The Bullingdon Club photos undermine the image that Cameron and Osborne are currently trying to present to the electorate. That's why they feel uncomfortable about them."
Quite correct. But it's possible to agree with these two sentences, and at the same time say that the photographs no longer present the reality of the two men as they approach early middle-age. We know that Cameron and Osborne have had a privileged background, and for that reason some people will argue that they should not be elected, or that the Conservative Party is tainted in having chosen them. I don't agree with this argument, but it's a position. However, constant references to photographs taken in juvenilia add nothing to our understanding. Fortunately my most embarrassing moments are not a matter of public record.
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ghm @ 365
don't get distracted by my snide little jokes; I know you're not a reactionary! - well, I think I do ... which is why (just to confirm) I'd like the Great Haye thumbnail of what a Reactionary is, please
come on, you promised
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273# derekbarker
"But! to think that someone like W. Hague can earn millions for talking about politics that dont work is amazing! your money for nothing and kicks for free."
===
Del,
Infinitely preferable to the wife of a Prime Minister charging a CHARITY £17,000 to talk rubbish to them. £17,000 the Children's Cancer Institute in Melbourne could have done with, I'm sure.
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I am sorely tempted, suckers!
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Just as an added extra thought, for no reason really, maybe if we didn't live in Rip-Off Britain, MPs wouldn't need all these expenses, we'd all be able to get by on lower salaries........I wonder how that would affect things?
Also, why is it seen that people in this country need to spend as much as they can on a luxurious expensive living style?
Because we're a developed country, our leaders and wealthy citizens MUST spend everything on big mansions, big cars, etc. (all the symbols of wealth, power and status). Why is that?
I mean, surely there's something embedded in this country's culture that makes people believe that if they are in such a position, they must spend on an extravagant lifestyle to be seen as superior to everyone else. To me, that in itself, is the wrong attitude in this country.
We need to reform our entire country's culture and attitudes.
Even if I was rich and powerful, I would see no need in an extravagant lifestyle. Then again, it's the perception of things. People who are rich feel that they can only justify their lives in doing everything possible to accumulate more wealth and spend it on such lifestyles. Due to my background and experiences, I don't perceive the need to justify my life through an extravagant lifestyle and doing everything I can to accumulate wealth in order to continue my ever growing desires from living that lifestyle.
All I want out of life is to live comfortably, have a nice job that pays reasonably well and to not have financial worries about how I can get through each month. I don't see that as a lot to ask, so why is it that so many people NEED more than this?
I can understand some of the things that MPs need in order to carry out their jobs but they all seem to take it beyond what's considered reasonable and necessary to perform the duties of their job because they're all convinced that the only way they can live as an MP and be recognised and acknowledged by those of their elite status is to abuse the system and SPEND, SPEND, SPEND on their own selfish needs to make them feel and appear to be part of the superior elite.
Therefore, I put this forward.
Maybe the first step is in changing the perceptions held by the elite class of this country that the only way they can justify their lives is to do whatever they can to live an extravagant lifestyle, and in this case, at the expense of the taxpayers.
Our moral, value, belief and cultural systems are all defined by our perceptions. If we perceive that a way of life is the way to live then we will adopt that way of living. Therefore, all those abusing the system in any way perceive that this is the way they must live.
Why is that and where do these perceptions originate from?
I'm not part of this elite class, I'm not even from a wealthy, powerful, influential background, so I am completely unable to come up with a proper answer but it makes for an interesting thought that the system was created from a perception that MPs must live this way and therefore, the step before reforming the system must be in reforming the perception that MPs have about their own positions and responsibilities.
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274. pdavies65 wrote:
266 Robin
Actually, I have my own fond memories of the Bullingdon Club. I remember them trashing an Indian restaurant I happened to be in at the same time, and then throwing wads of banknotes on the floor so the waiters had to scrabble around on their hands and knees to pick them up. All harmless fun and high spirits!
Footballers do the same without leaving banknotes... and they're idolised.
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Andy @ 396
"Remember Sagamix, it's EASY to TALK about putting the world to rights"
well yes, but in the immortal words of Robin Gibb ... "It's Only Words, And Words Are All I Have ... to "
a killer point though, and noted
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That feels a bit better!
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fubar @ 399
"What about Ed "So What?" Balls' membership of The Steamers during his time at Oxford? ... One of the multitude of reasons why he isn't fit to hold high office"
hey, hang on a minute ... you go all Fruit and Nuts when anybody says the equivalent thing about certain leading Tory politicians and the Buller
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#386 sagamix
Your example could quite legitimately be used to illustrate inequality. However, it could also be used to illustrate unfairness.
We might speak of fairness rather than equality because actually very few people believe in equality of outcome, if pressed.
And it is not self-contradictory to say that a particular social or economic outcome is indeed equal but nevertheless unfair (two employees are paid the same but one does all the work).
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400#
He also sang "Like a fool I was dreamin'....", but thats another story.
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AlphaPhantom 391
I understand and agree with a lot that you say.
I think it is because we have developed a culture in this Country of get rich quick, by whatever method possible. People now see this as the only way to get respect. It has come about because of celebrities more that anything else, I believe. Young people see a lot of celebrities with very little talent who are earning a lot of money and getting very rich. Therefore the ambition to be a good doctor or teacher has lost its value. We have lost respect for those that work hard and actually contribute to society. We have actually lost the culture of even being honest in our society. The rot runs from top to bottom.
Politicians, the police all people who used to have some standing in our society are now not trusted anymore. We have lost our faith in all those who represent us. I do not know if this trust can ever be restored.
I like you just want to be able to pay my bills and enjoy my life. This comes at a very high price in Britain now because the cost of living for those like pensioners and low paid workers is so high.
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Saga, its about glass houses and stones again, you know what I'm like.
I believe that a party who is attacking someone for what they did in their adolescence and holding it against them now, when there are members of their own cabinet who have equally shady, equally odious connections in their youth, at the same university - equally elitist, showing the same unattractive character traits - I find that a tad two faced.
Its not OK for anyone else to do it, but its OK for one of us to do it.
Kinda blows up any moral high ground from underneath the accusers' feet.
And thats as politely as I can put it.
Have to see now whether it gets past the moderator who is obviously on piece-work... he/she is going through this thread like you know what through a goose.
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61. At 2:15pm on 06 Nov 2009, Peter_Sym wrote:
#355
In regards your other point:
"Peter, I've seen bright and shiny new schools turning out dumb pupils. So, in a way, I'm more interested in education than building. But if Brown had decided to underwrite the construction industries at a fraction of the cost of helping failed banks, it would attract far more jobs. And, by the way, I think a collapsed bank should be allowed to fail"
Who would be able to buy all these houses if the major banks have all folded?...
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But they didn't all get into trouble, did they. Nothing much wrong with Barclays, HSBC, the old LloydsTSB or Santander.
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403#
What I'm saying is that if it makes a tory unelectable, then in the interests of equality too, which you're naturally an advocate of it would also disqualify the current Secretary Of State For Education.
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I recall that after the election of 1997, a Conservative MP, lost his seat. This was big news in a local paper, not because of the change of political fortunes, but the fact that he had no pension and had to sign on as unemployed in order to exist.
Reading the above, how things have changed in 12 years. These alterations must be the responsibility of New Labour; now it appears to be the case of, fill your boots in the next 5 years, but only for exisiting members but not new ones. Surely this is not right?
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#370
Nice one.
The thuggish St John's College Archery Club dining society, no less!
I shall have to quote that next time braveSouter spouts his usual nonsense.
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#370
Indeed! Old photos taken out of context can come back to haunt you, as Mr Balls will testify:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1062940/I-obeying-orders---Schools-Secretary-Eddie-Balls-dressed-German-officer.html
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399 Fubar
Poor Fubar. He tries to put the icing on top of somebody else's cake and ends up squashing the cake.
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414#
Story of my life. :o)
Makes a change from micturating in the punchbowl though.
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352. At 1:29pm on 06 Nov 2009, sagamix wrote:
xtun @ 326
"You know many on here would not pay HH in bottletops"
not sure about that; she's a very polarising figure but I think even her worst enemies would tend to accept that she's a politician of the very first order
I'm sure I'm not her worst enemy, but speaking as a rational liberal and a sometimes Labour sympathiser I have to say that the possibility of her gaining real power is one of the main reasons I can't vote for them.
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