Instead of letting MPs claim money to have a second home in London, it has now been suggested that we buy them a block of flats to use instead:

Buying a block of flats or hotel for MPs is not a good idea. The Westminster village is insular and incestuous enough as it is, without hemming them in together at all times during the working week. MPs need to experience real life as much as possible, and this sort of proposal - even excluding the physical impracticalities - will just make MPs even less connected with the rest of us than already.

Rather than this idea, why not just cut the amount that MPs will be given towards a second home to the average mortgage payment or rent nationwide? If they want nicer accommodation than that will pay for as a second home, they can pay it themselves from their not-inconsiderable salaries.

Plans for Brown Force One have been scrapped. The go-ahead for these was one of the last things that Tony Blair did as Prime Minister, yet it has taken Gordon Brown not far off a year to decide to cancel the order.

It was nothing more than an expensive status symbol, with no real point or benefits. It is a very good thing that this waste of our money has been stopped, but questions have to be asked about why it took so long for the decision to be made.

A. Tory has got out his "Excel geek" hat, put it on, and analysed MPs expenditures for the last parliamentary session. He has then awarded those who have shafted the taxpayers - that's you and me, folks - the most. And unsurprisingly all of the winners bar one are Labour MPs. And the only non-Labour MP? Angus MacNeil of the SNP. And the winners are:

Total expenditures: Shahid Malik, spending £185,421 of our money
Office and staff costs: Barry Gardiner, spending £123,852 of our money
Car travel: Janet Anderson, spending £13,851 of our money
Rail travel: Alan Milburn, spending £15,785 of our money
Air travel: Angus MacNeil, spending £30,560 of our money
Staff travel: Mohammad Sarwar, spending £4,500 of our money
Stationery and postage: Siobhain McDonagh, spending £49,107 of our money
IT: Liam Byrne of the Labour Party, spending £2,545 of our money
Staff cover and other costs: Joan Ryan, spending £19,068 of our money.

That's one hell of a lot of our money. Visit Letters From A Tory for more details, even though he hasn't published the entire Excel spreadsheet [which he should].

All the expenses claimed by MPs are to be published. Good. If they're spending our money, we have a right to know how it is being spent. What shocked me was the 'John Lewis' list:

And money can be claimed by MPs for this in the following ways:
How the hell can this be justified at all?! I don't begrudge MPs being paid some money off-set the cost of a second home - which their job requires them to have - but unless this money claimed on a second home is to be paid back when the second home is sold, it effectively amounts to a very nice payment of at least £22,000 extra per year. Plus any profit made through the increase in house prices.

With second homes, either Parliament should own them and just allow the MPs to use them or MPs should pay us back at least the savings/benefits that they generate from owning a second home at the taxpayer's expense.

MPs should also have to provide a receipt for every single claim they make on expenses. If it is too small for them to bother with a receipt, it's too small for them to mind paying for themselves.

The expenses that MPs should be subject to audits to ensure that they are not defrauding the taxpayer. I doubt that many are on a massive basis, but when it is our money that they are spending it needs to be checked. The expenses should also be made public on at least a quarterly basis, so that we know what the representatives that we elect are charging us.

Tory MP Derek Conway has been outed as employing his son as a parliamentary researcher whilst he was a full-time student and paying him £1,000-plus per month, with a total of around £13,000 salary - plus bonuses. And all from taxpayer's funds, for work that wasn't done. Certainly not work to that value, anyway.

There is no excuse for what he has done. It is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable. He should have to repay every penny that has been wrongly taken. Every. Single. Penny. From his own money.

Just giving him a suspension from the House of Commons is not enough of a punishment - and the wrong sort of punishment. By suspending from the House of Commons, the people who are suffering are his constituents. What should instead happen is that he should have to continue working, but receive no pay.

I don't agree, however, that this "should be the last-chance saloon for the scandal of MPs expenses. It should mean that MPs finally come clean and reveal full details of who and what is being paid from the public purse." Because that isn't fair on the individuals who work for MPs for their salaries to be public knowledge. Instead, MPs should have to reveal whether they are employing any immediate or close family member and any payment they receive- and why. That is as it should be - but not for all personnel. Just those who are related to them.

Like ConservativeHome, I think that Cameron's reaction hasn't been decisive enough. But I don't think that the removal of the whip from Conway is the way to go. Instead Cameron should have declared that the Conservatives will be imposing a significantly greater punishment on Conway than the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee. After all, if they ejected him, they'd only end up bringing him back in eventually and reincarnating the whole story then. Far better to get it over with right away, and try and cut out as much comparison with Labour's sleaze issues as possible.

... and even though Labour took the £180,000 they were offered, they still broke electoral law.

It is absolutely disgraceful that even though they were given £183,052 by the Electoral Commission in order for "training staff in the duties imposed by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and was specifically for the party to prepare for its requirements on submitting accounts and declaring donations above £5,000."

What annoys me most about this is that it is yet more taxpayers money being given to political parties, even if for a specific purpose. Parties shouldn't need to be given this sort of money for them to sort out their own internal procedures to comply with the law. Companies don't get given money to train staff and to prepare to meet its legal requirements, so why should political parties? Obviously the money they given cannot have been spent properly on doing this, or else the mistakes that led to "Donorgate" simply would not have happened.

Since they were given money from the taxpayer's purse in order to comply with the law that they passed, it makes their acceptance of known illegal donations even less acceptable.

That all political parties have received this money as well means that for any of them to break the law is simply not good enough, and implies a lack of respect of the tax-paying electorate.

Sources: The Times, BBC

This is fantastic news:

Good! Political parties should certainly not get any more money from the taxpayer. Short and Cranbourne Money has a reason - no other state financing does or can. If a political party cannot survive on what it gets given, it does not deserve the survive at all. They should live within their means, and within what they can persuade their members to donate. Not live life large on taxpayer's subsidy.

Source: BBC

£135,000 each in just one year?! The MP who claimed the most was Labour minister Shahid Malik [who must be the big pig on the far right in the picture above], claiming £185,421, which can be contrasted with the lowest - Tory MP Philip Hollobone, who claimed just £44,551, less than a quarter than Shahid Malik!

By average claim per party, the Liberal Democrat MPs claim £140,756 each; Labour MPs claim £138,366; and Conservative MPs £129,948 on average. The top claimers are the SNPs six members, with an average of £154,231.

It's all way too much, as it adds up to £87.6m! A 5% like-for-like rise on last year. MPs either need a pay cut or closer inspection of their expense claims. I think the latter is the best choice.

Source: BBC

We all know that Labour have continually failed the military over the past decade. But now Gordon wants them to go even further, despite number of wars in which they are currently engaged.

He really isn't Flash Gordon [except with our cash on bureaucracy and encouraging state dependence, of course] but Slash Gordon - slashing our armed forces which are already under severe financial constraints brought around by the past decade of Labour (mis)government. This slash "would reduce the RN's capabilities to just one small scale operation and that is it." We already have several on the go, though, don't we? Liam Fox is right when he says that:

So even despite taxing us 50% more than a decade ago, Brown has wasted so much of our money that he deems a slash in the military budget as necessary to keep up his pouring of money into various black holes parts of the state apparatus.

A 50% increase in just a decade? Only Gordon could do it.

So in 2007 we pay 50% more tax than in 1997. Have we got 50% more/better services for it? Bollocks have we. You'd be hard put to prove that we have almost any improvement in public services in the last decade, let alone some worth a 50% increase in our tax burden.

Source: The Telegraph

The gay icon Foreign Secretary, David Miliband has, as I reported he intended to, restarted his blog. The aim of his blog is, he says to

But will they be worth my time reading?

But he's not alone - he has friends blogging with him! There are six of them from the Foreign Office blogging - Milibland himself, Jim Murphy (Minister for Europe), the "Strategy Adviser to the UK Ambassador to the EU", and other officials. They want to have a "global conversation" - whatever one of them is.

But the burning question is - how much does this cost us, the taxpayer? Miliband's original blog at Defra was costing us £40,000 a year, but how much more is this one going to cost, considering that there are six of them? I think we have a right to know.

Despite reports that FCO mandarins wouldn't allow it, David Miliband is to resume blogging at the Foreign Office, have previously done so at Defra:

It better not cost the absurd amounts that it was before. That is truly a waste of money, especially considering the inanity of Miliband's pronouncements. Make it interesting and actually engage in the real blogging experience and don't let it cost us so much money - or don't bother doing it at all.

Image: Beau Bo D'Or
Source: BBC

How much?!

A minimum of £62million on health tourism?! Why are we funding people who don't even live here to have healthcare? We may have a free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system, but that is no excuse for allowing it to be abused. Free emergency care is fine, but £62 million goes way beyond that.

When the NHS is as skint as it is at the moment, despite the amount of money that has been pumped into it, we shouldn't be making it so easy for it to be basically ripped off. Ben Wallace, the Conservative MP who uncovered the report, said:
They are, and it is. And it is costing us millions that could - and should - be put to better use.

Source: The Times

He is finally no longer mooching off of the taxpayer!

Prescott is now no longer living in his grace-and-favour apartment, no longer has his ministerial Jaguar, or his security team. And about time. He should have lost them the minute his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister came into effect.

Ex-Cabinet members certainly don't need - or deserve - taxpayer-funded government cars or accommodation. They lose any right to them as soon as they resign or are sacked from the government. They exist only to facilitate a minister to do their job, and once they are no longer doing that job, they do not deserve or need them at all. A security team, on the other hand, may be needed by ex-ministers. But I doubt that many do.

Source: The Times

A cut in the Prisons budget puts us in danger:

When they said that criminals were going to be released early because of prison overcrowding [and under-funding], they specifically denied that any "dangerous" criminals would be amongst them. Either they were lying or just stupid.

They released the first thousand on the day that Gordo was crowned became PM, and plan to release 25,000 criminals early every year. Despite this, at the same time they are detaining other criminals beyond the end of their sentence.

And yet, at the same time, the Ministry of Justice is demanding that the Prison Service spend £60 million less next year:
Let me get this straight... The prisons are overcrowded and you are already planning the early release 25,000 criminals a year, so you slash their budget by £60m? Yes, that's very clever. Thus, despite taking more and more from us in taxes, this government is utterly failing to put it to any good use. Instead, they prefer to spend it on bureaucracy.

What the hell are they on? There is no doubt about it that this government has failed miserably on law and order, policing, and prisons. Instead of being "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime," they have been weak, useless, and completely unprepared to deal with it.

Source: The Times