Monday's Glass Box.
The Glass Box is where the PM team meets in at 18.00 every weeknight to discuss the content of the programme.
We try to be honest with each other, but not hurtful, as we talk about what worked and what didn't...what met our expectations and what fell short.
This virtual glass box is where you're encouraged to take part in the same spirit. PM's editor Jo Carr will read your comments and may well add her own.
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
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mic 1, I wonder if let his two sons watch them? (delete, delete)
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The king sits in Dunfermline toun,
Drinking the blude-red wine o:
"O whare will I get a skeely skipper
To sail this new ship of mine o?"
Sir Patrick Spens
Do they still teach that poem in schools ?
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Makeitclear (1)
I think the issue today wasn't whether the movies were porn or not, but that they were paid for out of public funds.
Personally, I do mind both on the matter of public funding and the fact that her husband admits to porn whilst she is in public life.
On your logic most behaviour would be acceptable as long as we don't know about it. But, how would we ever know if there private lives did or did not influence public policy being in such powerful positions.
Personally, I want to know what every penny of public money is spent on, especially by elected officials, as their position is given by, and on, public trust. They need to recognise that they need to live up to that trust or find an alternative vocation. However, I don't think many of them understand what the word vocation means these days. They have reduced the position to just another job.
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fJd 4, Can you figure out why mic's post (1) was referred? I expected mine to go.
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David: have brilliant idea for you. Fancy a trip to Mars?
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Typical, the BBC yet again (as they have over housing supply ) meekly accepted the premise that we have to have water rationing because of rising population numbers, yet never questions why we should accept a rising population. Of course to do that would mean challenging the mass immigration policy, for that is the source of our rising population, and as we know the BBC won't allow one word of criticism of that!
There is another choice to resource ration you now BBC, that is to have a sustainable population, why is it you accept the argument for resource rationing, rather than air other possibilities?
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Lady Sue - Just what have the Martians done to deserve that?
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L_S 6, In Slough?
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Horse! (te heh).
Did the Second Home Secretary claim for films that were other than 'blue' and was she allowed them?
I think it's pretty appalling that someone in her position would claim for renting films at all.
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Eddie,
The MP from Gloucestershire you interviewed on MP's housing expenses said something to the effect of "until we get this sorted out we will have to get used to this kind of story every weekend".
Apart from the obvious question about what does he know that we all don't? As I understand it, these films were claimed on general expenses not on housing expenses. If I am wrong, could someone enlighten? So even if the housing expenses were 'sorted' it would not have 'sorted' the film situation.
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The simple solution to all these rows over expenses would be to pay a single salary to cover the cost of living and secretarial expenses (calculated, say, on the basis of current averages) and to allow no expense claims whatsoever, except for the additional travel costs of MPs in remote constituencies.
Then MPs would have to budget like the rest of us, and as long as expenditure was legal it would be nobody's business but their own.
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David (5)
I have no idea, It wasn't me. In Fact, I didn't see anything wrong with it?
(1) it wasn't me who sent you to the mods.
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L_S 10, And what position is that?
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Reference a current flavour of the month (I do acknowledge thet my points are based upon what I have manged to hear/read to date so the points may have been raised without my knowledge)...
Mp's Expenses.....clearly review is required but I am concerned that there appears to be a move to increase MP's Salaries 'appropriately' to compensate for the current facility being 'kicked into the long grass'.....surely an increase in salary will simply mean that an MP'S pension will ultimately increase accordingly.....I assume that their salaries are based upon basic salary....expenses currently claimed don't (I assume) qualify towards pension payments. This would of course mean that MP'S and their families would benefit from increased pension payments long after they ceased to hold the office.
As stated above - I have not seen or heard evidence of this concern raised to date.
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The Prime Minister said the Jacqui Smith/Porn Movies matter is personal for The Home Secretary.
NO IT IS NOT.
It concerns public money so it's OUR taxes. It's a public matter.
This shows just how far politicians have fled from public matters. They are now taking the Michael.
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Re: i.moore (7)
Additionally, why isn't the Environment Agency first making sure that processed water isn't leaking away through broken mains pipework anymore? A while back, quite a few Water Companies were suffering staggering losses through this, or so it was reported.
Or do the authorities just want to force consumers to pay through the nose yet again?
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The BBC is, once again, acting as apologists for the Labour Party. On my way home I had to listen to minutes of a woman talking about Mr. Smith watching pornography. The BBC isn't stupid, it knows that even if he'd been watching Mary Poppins the deceit is just the same, it isn't about what he was watching. The row is about the Smiths pleasuring themselves using the British credit card. The claim that it was an oversight is twaddle - They can remember to claim for a 22 pence bun, no oversight there.
Oh, and why 2 washing machines at my expense?
When was Malfeasance in Public Office dropped from the Statute Books? Presumably some time after Conservative MP Damian Green was arrested.
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Anne P (12)
The simple solution you put forward is already (mostly) in place. They get 63,291 pounds per year in salary. On top of this they receive an allowance for running an office and staff. Many MP's employ spouses (Jackie smith employs her husband as a staff member so in effect he is on the public payroll). Other close family are in the mix too. Mrs Smith used her sisters house as a claim house and paid rent to her. Again, another person directly gaining from cronyism and public funds.
Secondly, since the change in working hours in the commons, the majority of MPs would not need a second home. Of those that do there is an argument to have purpose built premises designated for such a purpose rather like a hotel.
I don't believe MPs should or deserve a massive pay rise to cover what many now see as a legalised fiddle. I believe the expenses system should remain,but get rid of the housing allowance to all except those that really need it. I don't believe a flat rate of pay for all is the answer. Did you know they are wanting an extra 40,000 per year to give the housing allowance. This would be paid whether or not it is being claimed at present. NO NO NO!.
If you think the situation is bad here, please don't start to look at MEPs.
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We were told that UKP93,000,000 (ninety-two million pounds sterling) was paid in expenses last year.
Call it 650 MPs, that is slightly over UKP143,000 expenses per MP.
(Nice work if you can get it, I reckon.)
So what (apart from "adult" movies for their abandoned husbands) are the legitimate expenses that are claimed? travel, second homes and boxrooms, internet connections, typing done by members of the family, pergolas, what else do they get paid for that nobody would have to pay for out of their own pocket if they were not an MP?
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Chris (20)
Didn't the Blairs claim for their TV licence when he was prime minister? I also believe they can claim a Plasma, Sky, and all the digital channels as part of having to keep up with events. Strange how such informed people can be so ignorant of public feeling?
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Oh, I forgot you can claim a bath plug and a kitchen sink.
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Has any MP claimed for a mistress on the basis that his first wife lives an inconveniently long way from his second home?
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Thought your item on MP's expenses was Labour biased and complacent. The soft interview with a compliant Labour MP did not mirror the public mood.
Snide references to tabloids are no defence for a disgraceful situation which your audience expects the BBC to condemn.
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Surely the big scandal is not was Mr Smith watching porn - but why should anyone get paid 6000 pounds per week for doing a part-time job...or for that matter why should an uneducated footballer be paid over 100,000 per week and so on (William Hague earning nearly a million in one year) when the normal 'wage slave' in Little Britain gets paid peanuts in comparison with these people....
Brian V Peck
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What bugs me is that MPs not only get their internet for free but that they get it tax free so if an MP claims 50K p.a. in expenses it is worth 70k to the likes of you and me.
Now, as 2/3 are stupid enough to believe the tooth fairy it seems we need to cut their income until it matches that of the majority that don't.
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i moore no 7
The BBC and the vast majority of the press sedulously stay away from the subject of over population. There will be a lack of water and probably food and they will insist it is because of rising population. Blatantly this is untrue because we breed at below replacement level of 2.1 children, so any increase must be coming from immigrants and their very high birth rates.
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And so ask not what your country can claim from you. Rather....
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(22) fJd: are they allowed water with those or do they claim extra?
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funnyJoedun (22)
A bath plug - 13 amp?
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For what it's worth I would welcome a water meter - I don't use the dishwasher (we inherited it with the house), use the smallest, quickest, coolest washes I can get away with, have water butts everywhere, and I live in the Mendips where I'm surrounded by reservoirs.
I would ALSO like to see water companies repairing leaks and preventing wasteage - so not either or, really, both please.
But what that has to do with "immigrants" is beyond me. I've no idea where your anti-immigrant bloggers think the nurses, doctors, teachers, bus-drivers, business-people or indeed nursing-home care assistants are going to come from once they are of an age when their children are retired if we don't find younger people from somewhere.
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Eds,
Did I miss something? We pay taxes. We elect people to spend the taxes we pay. Somewhere along the line these people lose their morals and principles and think it's OK to pocket some of our money or just spend it on stuff they want. Porn, fireplaces (good deal as the price included coal), use of a small cupboard under the stairs as a constituency office/second home/sleazy cinema.
These people told us that they would do good things with our money. They led us to believe that they would take the high ground and, yet faced with the opportunity to do the right thing, they choose to abuse the system for their own benefit.
In any other walk of life, these people would be facing fraud charges. How is it politicians are above the laws they create?
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FJD (4)
Actually there is more than one issue, not just the one that you have chosen to primarily focus on.
And actually, my "logic" would not suggest any such thing...(though yours in saying this is somewhat suspect here).
Also there are a good many deficiencies in the "private lives" of many celebrated leaders which would not and should not necessarily have to bear scrutiny. This is one (ie apart from claiming in on allowances).
.....AND BBC, WHY HAVE YOU ERASED MY PERFECTLY INOFFENSIVE COMMENT?
DID IT CRITICIZE RADIO 4 TOO MUCH? WHAT ON EARTH IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?!
(For those who havn't seen one , that was a rant).
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Why are the G20 having a summit?
Because they've got summit to talk about!
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An awful lot of sanctimonious humbug is being talked about the viewing of soft porn at taxpayers expense. Of course it is wrong to claim that on expenses. But how many BBC journalists, finding themselves alone in hotels while working, have viewed 18R material and then claimed it on expenses as 'Room Service' (believe it or not some hotels disguise it deliberately as such on their bills). That too is misusing taxpayers money. Can we look at BBC employees' expenses under Freedom of Information?
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I did laugh when they said that 'additional services' was a euphemism for 'adult movies' ...
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MIC (33)
I agree, I think my logic is always suspect, but hopefully understandable.
Also I believe we have the right to know who our so called representatives are as people. I want to know who the person is that I might be asked to vote for-Warts an all. Remember, they have a choice, they don't have to stand for election. I don't see why I have to swallow the rubbish about attracting the right kind of upstanding people to parliament when in reality, it might mean nothing. I want people who can face up to their responsibilities. Also I notice Mrs Smiths husband didn't apologise to the British public - the people who pay his wages and the films. No I suspect they are only sorry that they got caught.
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Address to the Unco Greedy, or the Fiscally Frivolous
O ye wha for exotics fell,
Sae joyous and sae jolly,
Ye'd nought tae dae but buy an' sell,
An' tak yer neibor's lolly!
Wi' hands stuck firmly in the till,
Mere ethics didnae matter;
Now poor Joe Public foots the bill,
For City boys grown fatter!
....follow the link
;-)
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Next time you want to mention that 'additional services' was a euphemism for 'adult movies' ... please could you create a scetch along the lines of
Hello, I'd like some additional services please.
No no I mean additional services.
No not that sort of additional services.
the other sort of additional services
etc etc etc.
....
Oh ok you want the extra special jacqui smith additional services.
Employing John Cleese for such a sketch would of course be a scandalously good waste of public money. Call it Jacquis remorse payment and deduct her from her wodge.
[ All My Comments at http://blodcast.com/cheap-flights ]
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mic 33, I saw no reason for removing your post either. I think the mods choose which posts to remove by throwing darts.
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FLD @ 37 and others - there are two issues here and they are very consistently being conflated.
1 - Innapropriate expaenses claim (for about a tenner in this case, although I recgnoise that the value is not the issue)
2 - The watching of soft porn, in private by a consenting adult.
Item one is omportant, in spite of the low value, since, as we have seen, an enormous amount is spent each year by MPs. This should be broadly itemised and accounted for so that we (the tax payer) do not give up cash that is ultimately abused.
Of course this argument applies to all public servants and those paid from the public purse and in the interests of fairness, all public servants should be expected to acocunt for their expenses in the same way form the NHS, BBC, Parliament and anywhere else. When the BBC publish their expenses itemise din the way MPs now will, i'll pay more attention. Yes, second homes are differnet to bottled water but the principle is the same.
2 is a completely irrelevant and spurious issue which has been deliberately conflated with 1 in orderto lend it legitimacy and to try to heghten the moral outrage attributable to 1. Whether this man, his wife, or both of them watch or have watched legal movies, pornographic or otherwise, if none of our business and irrelevant to their jobs.
There is no public interest in this story leaking since the sums involved were so small and whoever leaked itshould be sacked - they have caused enormous fuss and wasted a lot of time and money, far more that the £10 initially fraudulently claimed. The issue is already under scrutiny, this particular leak adds nothing but lascivious gossip and is unhelpful.
My final two points are these. Firstly, i am fed up with media groups trying to change the politicians that we have democratically elected. Smearing people to no benefit (I remind you that this issue is already being looked into prior to this leak) except to try to undermine them or their party and ultimately to oust them, is not fair and is not democratic. My vote is as important as that of a media mogul and his wealth and reach does not entitle him to try to overrule the decision at the ballot box.
Secondly, I understand why the tabloids seize on these things but why do worthy shows like PM give so much atention to it and finish the show with someone like the agony aunt whose opinion is of absolutely no rleveance to me or anyone else as far as I can see. She has no particular qualifications that were mentioned and gave a very old-fashioned point of view which added nothing to the debate. This was a disapointing show for me and I hope that todays will have more important, interesting issue sto discuss.
Apologies ofr the long post.
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philtblog @ 42, you say " The issue is already under scrutiny, this particular leak adds nothing but lascivious gossip and is unhelpful."
I think the reports today say that something which was due to start being investigated some time in the autumn is now being investigated as from today -- and I suspect that can be directly attributed to this particular leak, which I agree with you is incredibly trivial in and of itself, though possibly symptomatic of profound and widespread dishonesty.
The Independent has devoted a couple of pages to comparing claimed expenses for various MPs, and in four columns: travel, housing, parliamentary work and secretaries and such, and "the rest". "The rest", in most cases, seems to be a larger amount than those for travel, housing or working expenses, and I really want to know what comes into that category. Why should eg a bathplug be an MP's expense, if it would not be claimable as an expense by anyone working in any other job of any kind? Why should a pergola for the garden be listed as an "expense" of the job: surely not essential for that job? Why should an ordinary internet/TV connection such as many people have anyway: surely the MP too would have that anyway, and it has nothing to do with the job anyway if it is for the second home (that one is trying to have the second-home thing both ways)?
What else are we all paying for, that is nothing whatever to do with the job and should surely be paid for out of a sixty-thousand-pounds-plus salary, rather than as an "expense"?
Surely that is the point of this fuss, not the fact that two out of the five films for which we were billed were "adult" (for which read "unfit for children", nothing to do with being grown-up.)
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pb 42, But don't forget the 88p claim for the bathroom plug.
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C_G 43, Maybe the plug was to stop the leak.
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Why do these people all have to claim for wide-screen TVs? Ours is tiny and C_G doesn't even have one. And he can't have our second one. Or is he a she?
Sid 30, No, fork handles.
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Dear everyone,
sorry to be so late- 24 hours in fact- and sorry to start every post with an apology. Sorry.
So MPs expenses top of the news once again. All those of you who point out that the nature of the films viewed at taxpayers' expense is secondary to the fact that they were viewed at taxpayers' expense at all are, as ever, on the money. But surely the fact that they were adult movies underlines the point that clearly personal items are being paid for by tax payers? Our coverage didn't concentrate on that aspect anyway- rather we tried to get to air what we know to be the feeling among backbench MPs, i.e. that although none of them can say it because they'd be slaughtered in the media, many MPs of all parties think that the job they do should command a higher salary, and that if they got the pain over with, that action would leave us with a healthier democracy than now. I don't comment, I merely point out that we brought this view to air.
Thanks as always for your thoughts.
Sorry,
Jo
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Jo yours is such an interesting comment but I fear it might be lost, as we tend not to "go backwards" looking for posts.
Just how much exactly does a backbench MP get? How much, on average, in expenses?
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Lady Sue @ 48, according to the figures in The Independent newspaper today, all of which relate to last year (whatever they mean by that) the backbenchers' basic salary is UKP63,291. Cabinet ministers get paid more, but that figure (or those figures) are not there that I can find off-hand.
According to the Indy's figures the highest claim made for expenses including "staying outside London", "staffing costs", "main expenses" and "travel costs' is that by the MP for Falkirk, a total of UKP187,443. The lowest is that of the MP for Kettering, for the same things, of UKP47,737.
Jacquie Smith's claim for running her "second home", that is, the house in her constituency occupied by her husband and two children (and let's not forget that he is paid UKP60+ as her parliamentary advisor) is UKP22,948 -- a whole 52 quid less than she *could* have claimed, I think.
I don't know what the average claim is for expenses because it would depend on what sort of average one meant, but the total paid in allowances last year is just under UKP93,000,000; allow there are 645 MPs, that would be UKP144,186 and a few pennies per head per annum. Call it 144 thousands pounds.
In no case that they list (a total of 60, 50 of the highest and 10 of the lowest, claims) are the claims for "staying outside London", "staffing", or "travel costs" higher than the ambiguous and unspecified "main expenses".
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Jo 47 - I'm sorry to disagree with you, but the last item at 5 to 6 with the agony aunt was specifically about the films being of an adult nature and nothing to do with the money. That is exactly what I (and others) are talking about when we say the emphasis was wrong. And no, the fact that some of them were adult does not mean suggets that they are for personal use anymore than if they were lord of the rings, King King and Amelie. It says more about the journos than the Smiths for my money.
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Testing v1
Using bullet points
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