The discredited Speaker of The House, Labour’s Michael Martin, on greedy expenses claims:
Says it all, really.
Articles with the Tag UK
“They who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have the least liberty, because they are the most observedâ€
This is the sort of story being pushed into the background by the media free for all that’s the MPs expenses scandal; normally it’d cause public outrage. Yet another way in which Parliament’s let down the voters, but at least it shows some people are still watching.
It’s been alleged by lots of those present (or watching live, like me)that the violence at the G20 London protests was incited by police provocateurs to discredit protestors, following the established European pattern.
The police, as is their wont, continue to deny it strenuously, despite damning video evidence. But also as is their wont they made the mistake of assuming the crowd was composed entirely of hippies with dogs on strings.
G20 police ‘used undercover men to incite crowds’
“…Liberal Democrat [MP] Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.
Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.
Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament’s joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.
“When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, ‘There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'” Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.
Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. “He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable,” Amos said. “Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked.”
Amos added: “He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up.”
Clearly German federal police didn’t get the memo. They (accidentally or otherwise) arrested one of their police provocateurs:
Police Officer Arrested for Joining Berlin’s May Day Riot
During the May Day protests last week, Berlin police clashed with nearly every kind of demonstrator imaginable — including one of their own. An off-duty police officer from Frankfurt has been arrested for stone-throwing during riots which left over 450 of his colleagues injured.
[…]
The 24-year-old, usually stationed at Frankfurt International Airport, is suspected of taking part in the May Day riots in Berlin and — in at least two instances — throwing cobblestones and striking police officers. He was off-duty and staying in Kreuzberg, the multi-ethnic and alternative neighborhood at the center of the annual demonstrations, during his visit to the capital, where he completed his training in August last year.
The policeman has been suspended and will remain off-duty until the criminal proceedings are over…
Yeah sure. More like a pressured plod didn’t recognise the code word. Now they have to follow through with the arrest and charge.
If this arrest of a fellow-officer follows the UK pattern, give it a couple of months and most likely any charges will be quietly forgotten and the officer concerned will be compensated with a comfy well-paid admin post in a regional station somewhere.
Pandering to The Pizza Base
What a political weekend.
Never was so much freeloaded by so many in New Labour’s long march to attain – and maintain – the haute-bourgeois lifestyle to which they think they should be accustomed. Never were so many acres of newsprint or miles of pixels expended in condemning it. ‘Do they think we’re stupid?’ is the general cry.
Yes, they do.
If this ASDA customer service recording is any evidence, they’re right. We are stupid. And like greedy MPs, we all expect something for nothing too:
Hello? Is that ASDA/Walmart? Can you deliver another Parliament, please? This one’s got no bottom to it.
MP’s Expenses Leak ‘Very Small Beer Indeed.’ Bzzzt! Wrong.
So said the BBC’s chief political commentator and Brown-noser Nick Robinson on the Today programme this morning about the publishing of leaked, unredacted receipts for cabinet MPs expenses by the Daily Telegraph, 2 months ahead of their official release with key details (ie the damning bits) redacted by the MPs themselves.
Robinson has got this one spectacularly wrong. I certainly don’t think it’s small beer and I doubt fellow voters will either.
But to describe it so is classic Robinson. If any one reporter in mainstream British political media is complicit in the normalisation of politicians’ licensed dishonesty it’s Robinson, whose modus operandi at the BBC has been to focus on internecine parliamentary gossip while fastidiously, and despite the rising stench, ignoring the festering corruption right underneath his nose.
Here the Telegraph describes some of the everyday, mundane corruption; it promises there’s much more to come.
Because MPs can claim up to £24,222 each year for their second home, some MPs appear to go on spending sprees at the end of the financial year to “use up†what they have not already claimed.
Some also appear to take advantage of rules which allowed them, until recently, to claim up to £250 in any category without submitting a receipt, resulting in a rash of claims for cleaners, gardeners and repair bills which came in at £249 per month. And because MPs can claim up to £400 per month for food, with no need for receipts, some put in claims for precisely that amount every month, even during the recess when they are not expected to live at their “second†home.
Other tricks of the MPs’ trade come into play when they decide to step down from Parliament, with some arranging expensive building work on their homes just prior to leaving the Commons before selling them on at a profit. Others are thought to avoid capital gains tax when they sell their “second†homes by telling HM Revenue and Customs that the property is, in fact, their main home and hence is exempt from tax.
Robinson says the the public have outrage fatigue, and that they’ll essentially just shrug at today’s revelations. I don’t know who of the public he asked; perhaps he could’ve asked someone who’s just been made redundant with the prospect of living on sixty pounds a week benefit what they think. I know what I’d think about the man in charge of setting those benefits claiming one and a half times my monthly income, from public money, just for food that they didn’t even need – or even necessarily buy:
James Purnell has come under fire today for claiming £400 a month on food expenses. It is believed that the information has come about as more receipts are leaked to the press. The Daily Star also claims the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Stalybridge and Hyde MP claims for his council tax and utility bills. The receipts are to be released to the public in June.
It really does smack of hypocrisy that it was James Purnell who recently admitted on the Sunday Politics Show that £60 a week Job Seekers Allowance wasn’t enough to live on, but those with families could earn up to £400 a week with tax credits (see video above) to pay for cost of living expenses such as food, rent and utility bills etc. Yet he claims £400 a month on food alone.
Under rules set out by the house of commons, MPs don’t have to submit receipts for groceries, but they are able to claim up to £400 a month under the second home allowance. According to the Daily Star, James Purnell tried to claim £475 a month on his groceries, but this was rejected.
That’s without even mentioning some of the smaller items for which MPs’ve claimed reimbursement. One female Lib Dem even had the gall to claim for a 2.50 eyeliner pencil from Boots . She probably bought it to gussy up for an interview with with Robinson. Boy wonder David Miliband, touted as PM, claimed almost £200 for a pram for his adopted child – it was rejected, but that illustrates better than any other claim the entitlement which MPs feel.
I’m going to spend my morning reading; much as I loathe the Telegraph as a newspaper, and leaving aside my outrage at the substantive issues, to the Westminster scandal junkie and blogger an unprecedented info dump like this is not small beer at all. It’s a gift, a gigantic box of succulent fresh cream truffles and license to eat every single one.
I Expect Gordon Brown Already Has His Complimentary Copy, Not that It’ll Do Him Any Good
North Korea’s video instructions to the populace on how to vote:
See, apathetic UK voters, it’s easy. Step up, bow to the nice party officials, and don’t forget to vote overwhelmingly for the Dear Leader. It certainly works for Kim Jong Il, who got 99% of the vote in the last North Korean election: it could work for Gordo too. He could put a copy through every letter box along with the swine flu leaflets.
It’s the only way Labour under Brown will ever get elected again anytime soon, despite their members’ best efforts to subvert the vote.
Labour MPs know this. They see the gravy train rapidly steaming out of the station. That’s why there are so many carefully placed rumours Charles”I’m ashamed to be a Labour MP” Clarke is plotting for the leadership as a Blairite ‘safety’ candidate, just to get rid of Brown.
Prepare for mean, stalking safety elephant on a media rampage and worse; like the once-laughable Squirrel Nutkin Hazel Blears and the lightweight James Purnell being touted as actual contenders for PM.
But the Blairites’ve tried it numerous times before, and like the Dear Leader Brown’s still there, despite being universally loathed by the public and his own party alike.
They’ve all failed to dislodge Brown; despite every failure, every disaster, every mismanagement and however many Nokias and printers he’s attacked in temper, the bugger’s still bloody there. It’s at least a year until the general election. We may yet get the instructional voting videos in the post.