General UK Politics Thread

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Constituency: Upminster

MP: Watkinson, Angela

Party: CON

Expenses

Second Home: £21,234

London Supplement: £0

Office: £10,238

Staffing: £83,910

Stationery: £874

IT Provision: £1,172

Staff Cover: £0

Communication: £5,579

Travel: £2,122

Total Expenses: £128,205

Although the total is lower than a lot I still feel there is no real need for a second home. Upminster is on the underground, although I will admit there may be times when if working very late and in execptional cercumstances it may be appropirate to stay in a hotel for a night.

however if you are going to have a second home surely one of your homes can contain your office. I really don't see why you should be able to claim for both.

What i would really like to see is a list of MP's who havenet taken the piss. Or right now I'd really like information about what the EuroMP's have claimed (and what the hopeful EuroMP's are gonna claim if they get re-elected.) It could help me choose where to cast my vote.

[williamjm]

What i would really like to see is a list of MP's who havenet taken the piss. Or right now I'd really like information about what the EuroMP's have claimed (and what the hopeful EuroMP's are gonna claim if they get re-elected.) It could help me choose where to cast my vote.

You can look at the full list (and sort it by expenses claimed) here. The least expensive MP is Conservative Philip Hollobone who only claimed £47000, followed by Tony Blair (presumably because he stepped down as an MP during that year), Dennis Skinner and Michael Martin (ironically).

The most expensive is Labour MP Eric Joyce, who somehow managed to claim more for travel than the Outer Hebrides MP, despite Falkirk being significantly closer to London.

It also reveals that the only MP who didn't claim anything for 'IT Provision' was Iain Paisley. I guess that means he doesn't know how to use a computer ;)

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Gordon's claimed £12,918 for Travel? and money for a second home.

Does he have to pay for his house in Downing Street? and surely he don't even need to take a bus to get to the office. (I am assuming that offical govenment bussiness of flying arround the world meeting foreign leaders don't come from his personal expensis)

[williamjm]

Gordon's claimed £12,918 for Travel? and money for a second home.

Does he have to pay for his house in Downing Street? and surely he don't even need to take a bus to get to the office. (I am assuming that offical govenment bussiness of flying arround the world meeting foreign leaders don't come from his personal expensis)

I think the travel would mostly refer to travelling to his constituency, which is 500 miles away. I suspect he doesn't have to pay for travel on official government business.

[HT Reddy]

mormont,

I agree with you and to be honest, I would be fair happier if MPs were only allowed to rent second homes instead. This is the rule in Sweden, as MPs get a nice allowance for rent, but they are not allowed to buy anything they can then make a profit off, since at least in my mind that profit should be the taxpayer's really. It seems the Swedish parliament agrees with me on this.

Plus it would have the added benefit of maybe making the MPs a bit more interested in making legislation for renting and letting a bit more stringent. :P

*sigh* you know, sometimes one does get a bit tired of the fact that Sweden is in almost all respects run better than the UK Lyanna :)

I applaud a government that does things which are good but unpopular. And I understand a government doing things which are popular and stupid.

But this government has a very strange insistence on doing what is both stupid and unpopular.

The Economist was talking about this recently, speculating that the government's insistence on ID cards might strike some as being principled rather than simply pigheaded, but I can't help but for the whole debacle to just make me mad at those in charge.

Since William has already put up Cmabridge's MP, I'll post my home MP, so-called 'Four-jobs Bob':

Constituency: Bromley and Chislehurst

MP: Neill, Bob

Party: CON

Expenses

Second Home: £19,108

London Supplement: £0

Office: £17,130

Staffing: £102,055

Stationery: £880

IT Provision: £337

Staff Cover: £0

Communication: £11,209

Travel: £4,538

Total Expenses: £157,332

Since Bromley is a commuter town*, I don't really understand the need for a second homes claim, but to be honest, it's not like I was surprised to see my home town coloured in red on that map, so I guess it's par for the course.

*obviously, Bromley has a long and distinguished history as an independent settlement blah blah blah, but basically it's a satellite of London.

[Maltaran]

The most expensive is Labour MP Eric Joyce, who somehow managed to claim more for travel than the Outer Hebrides MP, despite Falkirk being significantly closer to London.

He's only second when you sort by travel costs, behind the Orkney & Shetland MP (although only £200 less)

[mormont]

Apparently the man who arranged the handing-over of the expenses to the Telegraph has now revealed himself.

The attempts at casting himself as a noble whistleblower ring somewhat of 'protesting too much' to me.

He said claims records he had seen suggested that had the information been released through official channels, and not by a newspaper, much of the incriminating detail would have been censored.

Mr Wick said: "There was an un-redacted version and two redacted versions. And the briefing I was given is the fees office had sent them back twice for MPs to cover and take things out.

"[it was] not going to come out as you have been publishing it, because you'd get the third redacted version.

"The stuff that comes out... it would have been highly sensitised."

It's all 'would've, could've' and 'I was told'. The time for a principled whistleblower would have been when the redacted versions were released, if they were indeed unsatisfactory. Let's face it: this was done when it was for the purposes of selling copies of the Telegraph.

[Daeric]

Just saw something amusing in the post today for my brother, whose never voted and doesn't give a damn about voting. So of course the conservatives have sent him a flyer going these are you your candinates for MEP. So much for the ploitcal parties knowing voting trends :P

[Slick Mongoose]

Just saw something amusing in the post today for my brother, whose never voted and doesn't give a damn about voting. So of course the conservatives have sent him a flyer going these are you your candinates for MEP. So much for the ploitcal parties knowing voting trends :P

I got one from the Tories today too! Didn't read it though. :P

The other one I got about a cider festival featuring The Wurzels looked much more appealing.

[Maltaran]

Just saw something amusing in the post today for my brother, whose never voted and doesn't give a damn about voting. So of course the conservatives have sent him a flyer going these are you your candinates for MEP. So much for the ploitcal parties knowing voting trends :P

I had one of those, and I got one from the Lib Dems as well. Nothing yet from Labour, though.

[VarysTheSpider]

Haha, the only campaign leaflets I've had are from the BNP. It had the slogan "British Jobs for British Workers"... sounds familiar.

[williamjm]

Haha, the only campaign leaflets I've had are from the BNP. It had the slogan "British Jobs for British Workers"... sounds familiar.

It was one of the stupider soundbites Gordon Brown has come up with, he should have realised it was a perfect quote for the BNP and other anti-immigration groups to throw back at him.

I've had campaign leaflets put through my door for quite a few parties, the Conservatives, Lib Dems, UKIP and the BNP. No Labour yet, though. Maybe they don't think any number of leaflets will help at this point, and they're probably right.

[Usotsuki]

Julie Kirkbride and Margaret Moran have announced they will stand down as MPs at the next election.

Ms Kirkbride, Tory MP for Bromsgrove, had defended her decision to re-mortgage her second home by £50,000 to fund an extension. Announcing her decision, she said she "must take into account the effects on my family" [insert unkind sniggers here].

In a separate development, the Labour MP for Luton South Margaret Moran announced she was also standing down. The Daily Telegraph alleged she claimed £22,500 for treating dry rot in her designated second home in Southampton - 100 miles from her constituency.

Ducks still missing. Presumed eaten. :cry:

[MinDonner]

My MP:

Constituency: Worthing East and Shoreham

MP: Loughton, Tim

Party: CON

Expenses

Second Home: £23,083

London Supplement: £0

Office: £17,618

Staffing: £92,413

Stationery: £556

IT Provision: £1,148

Staff Cover: £0

Communication: £1,759

Travel: £8,314

Total Expenses: £145,975

About average, or just above - I see he's taken his second home allowance as well as over £8k for travel. Now I have to commute to London from my constituency as well, and I don't need a second home OR an £8k travel allowance; an annual gold card for unlimited train travel on that route costs just over £3k (OK, this is without Tube, but that would only add on an extra few hundred).

[Daeric]

Got talking to someone yesterday at my training centre about the upcoming european elections while we were inputting the mail into the internal database.

My current plan is to probably spoil my vote. I have no real clue what grounds anyone is running on but I don't want to not vote. I did the same thing at the last local elections. Just because I don't pay attention doesn't mean that they shouldn't have to discard my vote :P

If pushed through I might vote labour/Independent.

[Slick Mongoose]

Are the Monster Raving Loonies not running? :unsure:

[Maltaran]

Are the Monster Raving Loonies not running? :unsure:

Unfortunately not - however, there should be an independent candidate or two if you want to throw your vote away.

[A wilding]

Voting for an independent is not quite the same as not voting or spoiling your paper. It reduces the share of the vote the winner gets. The semi official position of just about all incumbent politicians is that if you don't vote, that means you are happy with the status quo, so you can more or less be counted as having voted for them anyway.

[VarysTheSpider]

It was one of the stupider soundbites Gordon Brown has come up with, he should have realised it was a perfect quote for the BNP and other anti-immigration groups to throw back at him.

Stupid perhaps, but understandable. Since the BNP and its previous incarnations share not only a heartland with Labour but a lot of their old policies and/or principles, dog-whistle politics is pretty much all they have left to appeal to those people.

Personally I think the BNP threat is all overhyped. These things go in cycles; when Labour return to opposition BNP voters will gravitate back to Labour, just like they did in the 1980s.

[mormont]

Stupid perhaps, but understandable. Since the BNP and its previous incarnations share not only a heartland with Labour but a lot of their old policies and/or principles, dog-whistle politics is pretty much all they have left to appeal to those people.

Personally I think the BNP threat is all overhyped. These things go in cycles; when Labour return to opposition BNP voters will gravitate back to Labour, just like they did in the 1980s.

Um, no. By and large those people voted Tory in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher made a point of reaching out to them, in fact.

It's also flat out wrong, and pretty insulting, to say that the BNP share a lot of Labour's principles. They do not. They use some of them as camouflage for their racism, that's all (just as they do with some mainstream right-wing views). For example, the BNP do not believe in working-class solidarity - but they pretend to, so they can use it as a euphemism for white solidarity. The proof is that if they really shared these views, the comparison would work in reverse. It doesn't.