| Author | Message | ||
     Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.170.127.210 |
. . . must surely deserve a thread of its own. Latest one. The Dewsbury MP, Shahid Malik, has been staunchly defending his allowances. Including the money for the widescreen TV he bought, necessary to watch the news on, and the massage chair, presumably to calm him while he watched the news, so that he could make rational decisions in our best interests. As he was entitled to the money for the telly, he's not giving it back, but instead donating the dosh to local good causes of his choosing. Should be interesting to see what they are. I think he's keeping the massage chair dosh though. I'm sighing, because these bloody MPs believe that if they do take things that they're not due and simply repay the money when they're found out, that it's okay. Well, it bloody well isn't. If memory serves, David Blunkett, a few years ago Home Secretary, funded his various girlfriends' private travel and accomodation through the tax payer. When found out he repaid the money. Nothing more was said; certainly he wasn't prosecuted. Yet I recall someone I know setting up in business, getting a fine for innocently rounding the tricky .5% in VAT down instead of up. And he paid the money back too. he certainly wasn't trying to defraud anyone. There are plenty of cases like this, of course. Various people go tot heir MPs with tale sof hardship, and are advised to try the soical fund, hope they'll get a double matress to sleep off form them and not a gammy secondhand single one. While the Mps claim for second homes by the seaside nowhere near their constituancy, or for two seperate second homes for a married couple (both MPs), or simply a thousand other perks, the profits from which they're allowed to keep despite the tax payer funding . . . Stephen Fry, multi-millionaire comedian, believes it's really a fuss over nothing very much. He thinks it's more of a crime that their decisions aren't scrutinised in such detail, ie in the case of going to war. Sounds good and he has a point, to a certain extent. But they're our moral voice, and adjuring assistance from Fred the Shred in this time of need and harsh necessity, by asking him to pay back his exorbetent pension. I'm sure he's listening gleefully to them right now and considering his options. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Bang on, Mark. Fry (Stephen, not Gary) is damn right about decisions needing scrutiny- I'd definitely like to see every MP who voted for the Iraq invasion in the dock- but these bastards have had their snouts in the trough for too damn long. We don't have a democracy in this country anymore- we're ruled by a political class, most of whose members have little or no experience of any work other than being in politics. Which hardly counts IMHO. We get to choose the colour of the wallpaper every five years and that's about it. And the contempt that they have for the rest of us isn't even hidden anymore. These are the same people who foam at the mouth over benefit fraud? If I claimed any benefits I wasn't entitled to I'd be liable to prosecution and imprisonment. I've known people who've admitted inflating their benefit claims just to meet the basic costs of living. Which I don't condone, but it's a sight more defensible than what these arseholes are doing. What would the men and women who founded the Labour Party say about this? What would Clement Attlee, Nye Bevan et al think? The Labour Party has become a travesty, a mockery, of everything it once claimed to stand for. The Tories are no better- if anything they'll be even worse if they get into power. A party standing for the values Labour once represented would face the most vicious of media smear campaigns and chicanery- the likeliest beneficiaries of the electorate deserting the main parties would probably be the scumbags of the BNP. We need a change, a complete change. But god knows where it'll come from, if it comes at all. This guy died recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/13/obituary-ernest-millington That's the kind of person we need standing for Parliament now. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.119.24 |
The ones that really piss me off are the MPs who say ingenuously "but it was all within the guidelines". We need a list of MPs who've not fiddled anything - then sack the rest. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.125.173 |
Its awful isn't it? I have no faith left in any political party. I'm 42 years old. If I have no faith in any candidates for leadership how can we expect to motivate the youth? I do believe, we have truly and finally gone to the dogs. gcw | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.119.24 |
I'm not too sure about the 'finally', gcw - the only difference between last month and this is that we know about the claims - MPs have probably been at the trough for centuries. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.74 |
I think what's also to be taken into account is the fact that a good number of these expenses they claimed were done so - such as flipping their main residences and secondary homes - in ways that would not have been revealed in the due release of expenses in July. The Telegraph got it right publishing, whether it paid for the information or not... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
I have an expense account at work. In Seville last week I got myself a breakfast (pizza slices and a cuppa) for 6 Euros and then some lunch for 7 Euros (sandwich and coke). Cos the current exchange rate makes these meals so expensive in GBPs, I decided to claim for only one of these meals, since I regarded two in four hours as a tad excessive. I'm perfectly entitled to claim for both, however. But I exercised discretion because I didn't want to take the piss. And that was over a fiver. I don't know how these sleezebags can look themselves in the faces each morning. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.17.106 |
If they get confused, make errors and can't submit reasonable accounts they shouldn't be running the country. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.119.24 |
Very good point, Ally. Plus, it's really annoying how they appear to be able to just say "oh, sorry - I'll pay it back" - and that's that. Folk in regular jobs wouldn't be treated so lightly, I'm sure. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.170.66.115 |
They'd be prosecuted, Mick. Criminal conviction. Out of a job. I'd also just like to applaud Gary for his honesty and good morals re his expenses. Good man. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.170.66.115 |
Aly's right, far as i'm concerned. These MPs are either crooks or incompetent. And not one has said sorry, apart from Cameron, who's doing it on behalf of everyone else. The rest are saying it's okay cos they stuck to the letter of the rules. Like Fred Goodwin. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.151.125.173 |
I reckon he coulda had that second meal though..? gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
>>>The rest are saying it's okay cos they stuck to the letter of the rules. Like Fred Goodwin. My point precisely. I've just heard that the owners of the properties on the Royal Crescent here in Whitby have stolen the car park behind us, Mark. They've traced back the deeds to 1870 and found that a covenant anchored the land to these homes for delivery by horse and cart. So apparently they're legally entitled to claim this "public parking space" (ha!) as their own, and fuck everyone else. Just because something's legal doesn't make it right. Wankers. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Ah, wonderful humanity. It's like I always say: the majority of people are in it for what they can get for themselves. Mark - Cameron is apologising to make some political ground. He isn't sorry; they're sorry only for being caught. Back when I used to work for the local council, I used to laothe the councillors. They used to eat their free meals in the subsidised bar and laugh about it - bragging that they only turned up to meetings for the freebies. Utter tossers. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
>>>the majority of people are in it for what they can get for themselves. MPs. A minority without a majority. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.71.212.115 |
>>Back when I used to work for the local council, I used to laothe the councillors. They used to eat their free meals in the subsidised bar and laugh about it - bragging that they only turned up to meetings for the freebies. Utter tossers. I doubt any of that's changed. The Huddersfield council biscuit allowance was up somewhere in the thousands for council meetings . . . >>I've just heard that the owners of the properties on the Royal Crescent here in Whitby have stolen the car park behind us, Mark. They've traced back the deeds to 1870 and found that a covenant anchored the land to these homes for delivery by horse and cart. So apparently they're legally entitled to claim this "public parking space" (ha!) as their own, and fuck everyone else. Sorry to hear that, Gary. You are still allowed access to deposit your garbage there, though, I take it? Sheesh . . . | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
It's not the old bat's parking spot, Mark (that's a separate issue). It's the whole frigging car park behind our block. It has around 50 parking spaces (I used to rely on it frequently in summer - a first come/first served arrangement which suited me) and the cunts are bagging the lot. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Train your dogs to shit on it, G. That's what I would do. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.55.197 |
After all I have heard about the speaker blocking reform concerning expenses and watching the events of this afternoon unfold I think that the speaker should go. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.55.197 |
At the very least there should be a full debate and I should imagine that it will happen by Friday. Now everything is out in the open people don't want decisions behind closed doors - They want to see parliament in action. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
The problem with all the statements that they "didn't break the rules" is quite obvious. Who exactly made these rules in the first place? If i was to write expenses rules like that in a private company and then proceed to abuse the system whilst staing I hadn't broken the company rules, my bosses would prosecute me for fraud. The biggest problem is that the public now dislikes the current batch of politicians so much that the extreme parties stand the best chance they've ever had of sneaking in... | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.163 |
As this is happening when the world is hemorrhaging jobs and houses because people can't meet their payments. Some independant economics expert today in the Danish press said that now they believed that the meltdown might continue well into 2013, so government economists have either been lying out of their teeth to control panic on the markets, or they don't have a clue. And then this issue is just caustic on top of everything else. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.69 |
there's simple rules to apply to expenses; the person claiming them shouldn't profit by them, nor should the expenses relate to things that do not concern carrying out the job. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.69 |
As for the Speaker of the House, he was always the wrong man for the job. House tradition would have had it be a Tory (or other party) Speaker after Betty Boothroyd's tenure came to an end. But New Labour used its majority to shunt in a tame Speaker, and sod cross-party tradition. My hope is now that these expenses are being looked at, that the mood to end the gravy train is extended to Quangos (quasi autonomous non governmental organisations - or jobs for the boys, as Yes Minister so rightly put it...). The snouts in troughs there is astonishing... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
If the world has to start relying on rules to be a fair and decent place, it's fucked. Discretion makes the world go round. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.166.189.17 |
Humanity basically has a default line of selfishness. Many go with that flow. Others fight it as their form of selfishness is pride in fighting their own selfishness. Douglas Carswell - the Conservative MP for the area in which I live - is the instigator of the anti-Speaker motion. Therefore, I'm supoorting the Speaker, even though he is an old duffer (like me), completely out of his depth. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Humanity basically has a default line of selfishness. Many go with that flow. Others fight it as their form of selfishness is pride in fighting their own selfishness. Well put, Des. That sort of echoes my own theories. Gary - the world has been fucked for a long time. Right now, the pidgeons are simply coming home to roost. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211 |
Those pidgeons are priviledged. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.119.24 |
I see the Speaker is to announce he's going 'soon'. Can't quite work out why, thb. I guess he's some sort of sacrificial lamb, and the MPs think we'll love them all after he's gone. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"Humanity basically has a default line of selfishness. Many go with that flow. Others fight it as their form of selfishness is pride in fighting their own selfishness." No point in trying to do any kind of good if that's all it's about, eh? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.166.189.17 |
That can take us into deep water - of religion, self-awareness, doing-good-for-good's sake, doing-good-for-one's-own-sake, nihilism, Ligotti's 'conspiracy against the human race', good/evil (without one you can't have the other), mind over matter, matter over mind, mental health etc. But fundamentally I think what I said is a reasonable crystallisation of my own observations of humanity - and, meanwhile, I prefer good being done than otherwise, done for whatever reason, as long as we can agree on a definition of 'good' (and the definition is not clear-cut if taken from various angles represented by the list of angles I've given above on this post)... des | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I'm with you on this one, Des. I've long held the belief that there is no such thing as true altruism. IMHO, some form of self-interest motivates all human actions, and it's all just a matter of degree. This is why I argue that selfishnmess isn't necassarily a bad thing; it can, in fact, be a force for "good". | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Hang on. I've just realised that I've argued this case on here before, and nobody got what I meant... Just ignore me. I know what I mean.  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.166.189.17 |
I know what you mean, Zed, and agree with it. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.177.119.24 |
We all know what you mean, Zed - we've been watching you and your sandwich board for years! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Beef and onion with horseradish on a white barm for me please | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
oh, sandwich board, i thought it said sandwich bar. Damn I'm hungry | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.68 |
I think Zed's arguing a Darwinian self-interest cause for altruism and empathy, which is perfectly correct . . . probably. But there comes a point where you have to credit some form of will and self governance for the decisions you make, otherwise we're all clockwork monstrosities. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.166.189.17 |
will and self governance ============== selfishness is literally self governance is it not? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.72 |
Lot of redundancy going round right now, Des. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.254.109 |
The principle extends globally. What harms humanity's future harms every individual or their families. The one way of looking at it that makes no sense whatsoever is the sociopathic conviction that competing individuals and interest groups with no sense of the wider community, society or humanity will, through the magic of 'market forces', bring about a better world. History, not least recent economic and environmental history, has shown this to be a sick lie. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.69 |
Joel's blue mask has slipped: he's a pinky! | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.69 |
Some amusing cartoons in the paper today, majority of them along the lines of : (MP speaking: ) 'I've no moral values and have been grubbing after every penny I can get, therefore the Speaker must go.' Chief hypocrite in this case seems to be David Davis. |