Expense Claims...

[The Moan Ranger]

Coming out as we speak...should be good

 

[Barman]

Harriet Harperson was just slaughtered on 'Today'.... It was wonderful! 

[Pastis]

Also Newsnight last night... the Lumley vs. Woolas clash

[Pastis]

So, Gordo claimed back £6K for the cleaning over 26 months on house he shared with his brother. No doubt an equitable agreement was struck, splitting the costs 50 / 50; so that's £12K for 26 months. What?  They paid £115 a week for someone to clean the house!

 

[Nick]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/

Thieving bastards!!

Mandelson claimed to do up his house AFTER he announced he was resigning form Pariliament. Then he sold hte house for a profit. The utter utter bastard!!

[Snoopy]

Hand on heart who among us hasn't taken advantage when allowed to claim expenses (or part thereof) by our employers?

I have always raided the stationery cupboard, added a few miles for non existent detours, picked up and used discarded parking tickets and then claimed to have paid for them, made sure that the bill for any lunches was for at least two people even when lunching alone (and claimed it was a prospective client), taken a couple of sickies to watch the Test Match etc etc. Yes I have taken advantage of whichever system I worked under and sometimes have got away with it and sometimes the company accountant has thrown the claim out. It is all part of the game.

The simple fact of the matter is that MPs have taken advantage of the system ~ I don't have a problem with that, I would have done the same. Where I get angry is that WE have allowed them to make the rules for their own scheme.

  Does that really make me angry or am I more annoyed that I didn't get a slice of the cake? Searching my conscience I cannot say with honesty which it is.

Whatever ~ no point in Old Holbornish name calling. The chance is now upon us to have a good laugh at MPs expense and make sure the system is put right.

[The Moan Ranger]

The Court of Public Opinion doesn't work that way, Snoopy. They should be beyond reproach and setting an example, not milking the system for all it's worth.

[Uncle Mort]

Hand on heart Snoopy? ~ no I've never taken advantage when making expenses claims. I'm not claiming to be a saint to me it's just morally wrong. As is the MPs claims, they might be within the rules but morally unacceptable.

[Nick]

What Mort said. I am waiting for resignations and suicides from MPs but I fear I will have to wait a long time.

[Snoopy]

Clearly I am in the wrong place

[Nick]

Lying lessons: Number One

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8040007.stm

[Uncle Mort]

Well, if anyone's going to recognise a smear...

[Nick]

Quite. He made £136000 profit on the sale, which he kept, having bought and maintained and repaired the house AT OUR EXPENSE!!

[Barman]

Call him what else you like, but does anybody really, really think that Gordon Brown is a crook?

Yes, I do.

Now why don't you stop writing crap in The Times and go suck the crook's cock, you mendacious little shit.

 

Source

[Snoopy]

If anyone of you seriously thought that these people sought "power" in the public interest rather than as a career out of which they could make plenty and be able to retire with a better pension than they would have otherwise have earned in the real world there is little hope for you.

I cannot understand why everyone is so "surprised" and "shocked" by these revelations. People seek election for the prestige and the money, they want and generally get preferment in all matters from booking a table at a restaurant to invitations to Garden Parties at the Palace. They expect and get upgrades on all flights and deference from the majority in their constituencies. No-one does it out of a sense of "Public Duty" nor have they since Harold Wilson and the infamous "Lavender List" blew the gaff on the whole rotten system

Yes I do believe it is the system that is a fault and that system needs to be reformed ~ we might then see a few of the gravy train riders drop out for more lucrative positions elsewhere but I never expected the MPs and their cronies the "Working Life Peers" to act in any other way. I am amazed at the naivety of anyone who did.

But then I am a cynic who doesn't believe that anyone is totally honest. I know that those who put a company supplied Bic pen in their pocket at the end of a meeting will probably take it home and when one of their kids asks for a pen will give it to them and not consider for a moment that they have actually stolen it from their employer. I know that few if any who takes a client out to lunch and then submits the bill for both lunches to their employer as "Entertainment Expenses" and having accepted the reimbursement then goes on to actually declare their share of the meal as "a benefit in kind" on their tax return.

Let's get real and have a jolly good laugh at the embarrassed MPs but please spare me the sanctimonious holier than thou attitudes.