Censored: From pergola to dishwasher
Here are some more particularly strange examples of information blanked out in today's expenses data from the House of Commons when it has already been officially published.
In May 2008, the Commons was forced to release material about the expenses of 14 MPs who had been the specific subject of FOI requests. Comparing this with today's disclosures throws up some particularly intriguing cases where information has been redacted, although it would seem to have no implications for the personal security of MPs.
We knew that today's material would not include correspondence with the fees office and notes of conversations, so for example it does not contain the record of John Prescott's unease about the "adverse press coverage" of his council tax payments [134Kb PDF].
But there are other differences with the previous disclosures which are much more surprising. As well as those affecting Gordon Brown, they include the following facts which were once public but are now apparently meant to be secret:
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The fact that Margaret Beckett had a claim for plants and a pergola reduced
Today:
As disclosed in May 2008:
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The fact that Tony Blair was late paying his water bill
Today:
As disclosed in May 2008:
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The model of Tony Blair's dishwasher
Today:
As disclosed in May 2008:
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The fact that Sir Menzies Campbell preferred Commons officials to add up his taxi bills rather than doing the arithmetic himself
Today:
As disclosed in May 2008:
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I've just been looking a local MPs expenses Jonathan Djanogly the MP for Huntingdon. The more I read, the angrier I'm getting. The claim form clearly states that expenses should be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred to enable you to stay away overnight away from your only or main home for the purpose of performing your Parliamentary duties. That's plain to me and makes sense. Mr Djanogly is a Solicitor by profession and therefore cannot claim to have not understood the meaning of those words.
The fact that one claim includes £3000 for backdated food without receipts and £800 for 8 weeks cleaning (now that is a well paid cleaner) without receipts is bad enough. The same claim however includes dusters (if I was being paid £100 a week for a bit of cleaning I'd supply my own pigging dusters. Candles (wholly, exclusively and necessarily?) and £47 worth of jam making equipment!! Add to that over £550 on saucepans that I assume are never used by the rest of the family who happen to live in his second home (exclusively)
When MPs say they were acting within the rules THEY ARE LYING. They only have to read their own bloody claim form to know they were breaking the rules.
Mr Djanogly, please tell us who you were paying £100 a week to without a receipt for cleaning your house. Any hand written scrap would have done.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
So who is responsible for the 'redaction'? Please try and find out and tell us!
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This latest farce just goes to show that the entire payments and expenses scheme is profusely rotten to its mouldy and corrupt core. For me, the only way out of this morally bankrupt mess is to sack the entire membership of the House of Commons and elect a whole new set of first-time MP's so that the entire country can start all over again - a total and new beginning if you like. Some may say the British people aren't ready for such a radical change, but with the expenses situation getting more sleazier with each passing day, there appears to be no end to this disgraceful and nauseous mess.
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I decided to have a look at my MPs expenses out of curiosity. Now can someone correct me if i'm wrong here but claims for food are for when they are working and in their second homes? My partner and I spend between 150-160 pounds a months on food for us both. I would love to know what Stephen Hepburn eat if he is spending 380 pound on one person! Why cant they live on the buy one get one free offers and store own brands just like the the people they represent!
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Why has my post at 7:06pm been referred?
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Dennis Skinner the Beast of Bolsover - £400 a month every month for food ...Maria Eagle has managed to 'actually spend' exact multiples of £50 (Not less than £250 per month) for the past four years. I am amazed at the number of claims are round numbers.... Why are we paying for Mp's to eat?
Alan Duncan MP Rutland and Melton Claiming for TWO macbook laptops in 3 months for same person.....
John Bercow MP claimed £264 for Sanitary Towel Blockage The engineers receipt for £264.37 says: Attend site to rectify problem with moderator. Engineer strip down pump. Check to find SANITARY TOWEL blocked in pump. No responsibility to ourselves.
He then claimed a further £933.14 for replacing the toilet. And he wants to be Speaker...!
Jacqui Smith Incidental expenses 07-08 claim for "Office camera - lens + equipment - Jessops £458.96p.... some office camera!
I could go on but frankly what good will it do... the current parliament should be prorogued and all Mp's put themselves in front of the electorate only after publishing unredacted expenses...
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YAWN
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The behaviour of all political parties has been a disgrace, the attitude of Gordon Brown to the entire sordid saga has been worse.
This man keeps telling us about his religious upbringing, it looks to me that he needs to take another look at the ten commandments.
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I think the most damning slant on this is that the MPs concerned really can't distinguish between
a) the letter of the law
b) the spirit of the law
c) the law itself
Claiming for food on business is fine. There may be a need to eat in a restaurant.
Claiming for food in your second home (I wish!!!) as opposed to your first home is fatuous - one eats - that's what one does. Where one eats doesn't alter the fact that it's a basic human function, not "an expense be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred to enable you to stay away overnight"
It's this patent disregard of simple honesty that sticks in the craw. I don't mind bigoted egotists trying to live at my expense. I do mind bigoted egotists telling me they are above suspicion, I am biased and there is no case to answer...
I voted for my MP. He answers to me. I resent the implication I pay for him no questions asked....
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I love the idea that Tony Blair "might be experiencing financial difficulties".
Just out of interest, I wonder how many MPs are late paying their bills? Something that struck my about my own MP's expenses (Siobhain McDonagh) is just how many of the invoices were rather old (often several months) when she claimed for them. She claimed for at least one late payment charge that I noticed.
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Remember that the food claims (unreceipted)relate only to an MPs time spent at their second home. ie. the one they need to have to carry out Parliamentary duties. They mostly argue that their second home is the one where they spend the least time (Jackie Smiths main home is her Sisters spare room, for instance)
We should therefore conclude that we are paying for food for the days of the week when they are NOT in Parliament in a large number of cases. Political logic at its finest.
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Incidentally, has anybody calculated what percentage of claims are made during March in order to use up as much of their allowances as they can before the end of the financial year? I've got a funny feeling I might know the answer to that one.
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Why are these documents redacted?
The Data Protection Act requires that official information about a private individual must remain confidential. The Freedom of Information Act came into effect in 2005 and allows that we can view all official information (except where the FoI exempts that for security reasons).
Nobody knows how those two conflicting laws can be reconciled.
Which might be the real reason so much has been blanked out of these expense claims.
Perhaps it's time we revised these conflicts of purpose?
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Dear Tony,
I remember when we used to share that office and plan how one day we would get our mate Pete "things can only get better" Mandelson to reinvent that nasty left wing party.
Well we did it didn't we? We made friends with all the right people like Oasis and Ross Kemp and we showed those Tories we could be more like them than they were!
Then you let me run the economy and get rid of that boom and bust thing and you made friends with George Bush cos he's a cowboy and he's got loads of guns. We even started a war and not many people can say that can they?
A few years ago I remembered that you said you would let me have a go at being the manager but you said I was too miserable and didn't smile all the time like you and I could only do it if I went to smiley school. So I did and I got really good at it, even if it is jolly hard work! Then you said you wouldn't let me be manager because nobody liked me. Well I got all my friends together and they showed you Mr Teflon (what is that?)
Well now I have had my turn and things have really gone well so far. I knew that by not telling people things or just pretending then doing something else was much better than being hon....hon... hon... no I can't say it.
You will never guess what has happened at our house though? Some naughty boys have been buying things by pinching the money that was supposed to be used for really useful things like hospitals. We tried to blame it on the head boy but he just left in a moody.
Anyway I have decided that the best thing to do is hang on till next year because we had some elections and 15% of people want me to. That's good isn't it? Then I might give you another turn if you want.
Your best friend
Gordon
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I am frankly stunned and appalled by the Fees Office allowing late payment charges to be claimed as expenses. The late payment is a personal failure, not something the general public has responsibility for.
Mobile phones are also contentious. The House of Commons is no bigger than a modest large business. Surely it would be possible for them to negotiate a deal with one of the service providers to provide a standard tariff mobile phone for each member - and make the calls made accountable!
Employment of family members should be stopped immediately.
A reasonably sized digital TV costs around £350 these days. Make that the cap - if they want a wall mounted plasma, they can pay the difference themselves.
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Oh yes, I forgot, they don't need Sky as the BBC News Channel runs 24 hours a day
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this expenses story has become like people going around sniffing other people's socks? compared to other politicians around the world our lot are mainly saints.
why drive the good out with the bad?
now reforms are coming the expenses story is no longer news but an obsession or fetish for small minds?
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stringph: Asks who was responsible for the extent of redactions. The scope of the redactions was not determined by each individual MP (although they were given the chance to ask for additional redactions) but by the House of Commons authorities, acting in accordance with the policy laid down by the senior MPs on the House of Commons Commission. Here's a list of the kind of data to be redacted.
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Martin Rosenbaum makes the comment that MP's didn't decide on the redactions but were offered further ones in addition by a senior group of MPs in the house which is precisely the the reason we are in this position they are making their own rules up yet again they are so much out of touch it isn't true one knows of doctors taking the Hippocratic oath do MPs take the Hipocritic oath because it would be difficult to find any bigger hipocrits than them, a plague on all their houses including second homes its flipping criminal but will we see any action call me sceptical but I very much doubt it,it is the mushroom syndrome keep them in the dark and feed them on bulls--t.
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Why does the BBC not get one of its Lawyers to comment on MPs claims which may have broken the law?, It would be interesting to see how many of these claims would normally result in prosecution.
A quick trawl on the internet gives many examples of UK citizens being given custodial terms for doing exactly the same as some of our MPs.
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