Reply to: Tighter expenses rules 'harming MPs' mental health'

[Zoiderman]

Don't agree. I imagine being an MP is a very hard job if you GAS... long hours and lots of travelling, etc. £66k is pretty low for any job with serious responsibility.

Do they get to expense a full-time PA/assistant or does that come from salary?

I think they are allowed up to (I think) about £130k to 'staff an office'. They did that before, by employing theirs sons and daughters, and wives etc, and nearly all of them used 'almost' all of the £130k.

I agree they should be paid more, but also agree the furore would last a while. They could be smarter though in how the whole parliament thing is run though; in Sweden, they have a big old block of flats in which each MP is allocated an apartment, all paid for.

When offered this, they baulked saying they didn't want other MP's to be able to knock on their doors night and day.

I guess some would like it. How's the story on Dr. Fox going?

[d000hg]

Christ, they're a bunch of delicate flowers aren't they? If they find it so stressful claiming expenses, they should try claiming benefits

Try coming out from behind your keyboard and working with the bitter public all day every day, who are constantly either blaming you for everything or making snide jokes.

It's like blaming your doctor that you can't get an appointment...

[NickFitz]

Christ, they're a bunch of delicate flowers aren't they? If they find it so stressful claiming expenses, they should try claiming benefits

[d000hg]

Don't agree. I imagine being an MP is a very hard job if you GAS... long hours and lots of travelling, etc. £66k is pretty low for any job with serious responsibility.

Do they get to expense a full-time PA/assistant or does that come from salary?

[Arturo Bassick]

I also agree it would have been easier to pay them a decent amount so they don't need to have an 'unofficial top up'. Of course doing that now - raising from £66k or whatever it is to £100k - would spark national outcry from all the shelf-stackers on £15k.

For most of them 66K is more than enough. They like to think they do a comparable job to CEOs etc, but most do not. If any of them were that calibre then they would be doing that job. John Prescott for example. Ships steward (naval waiter) to deputy prime minister?
They may be ministers and they may decide policy, but it is the civil service that does all the hard work.

[d000hg]

the poor sods should award them selves £200k basics and then point to the numerous directorships they could be on instead trying to run the country for you.

I also agree it would have been easier to pay them a decent amount so they don't need to have an 'unofficial top up'. Of course doing that now - raising from £66k or whatever it is to £100k - would spark national outcry from all the shelf-stackers on £15k.

[vetran]

Wasn't retrospectively, it was always 'wholly & exclusively'.

If you built a website for your EMPLOYER and linked to your own private business then you would be lucky if you only got a slap on the wrist.

They used the expenses to supplement their earnings, again you would be shown the door for that.

They claimed for expenses for things that didn't exist. You would probably be arrested for that.

They brutally exploited the tax system for their own profit in a way a normal citizen would have been prosecuted for (flipping homes).

no sympathy. The judges saw it that way as well.

Now if they had put their earnings into a perfectly legal (at the time because most high earners were doing it and many lawyers wrote that it was legal) offshore trust then they suddenly said hey you owe tax because we don't LIKE what you are doing. However they were I suppose covered by artificial construct to avoid tax, but these were clearly declared to HMRC ahead of time.

So if they can find a few high profile legal experts to put in writing that cleaning their Moat, buying duck houses, claiming mortgage payments for a mortgage that had been paid off, for buying expensive furniture for a private home, renting porno movies or your sisters back bedroom when you never stayed there was wholly & exclusively then I'll start feeling sorry for them.

I don't have any investment in BN66 I thought it was trouble when I first saw it and preferred paying the tax. Now I know it was to feather multi millionaires nests I wish I had done that.

[Churchill]

Tou only need to look at how many people on the other boards are whining about BN66 because HMRC changed a rule retrospectively. So why is it fair to try and retrospectively change the rules on MP's?

MP's had very lax expenses as a perk of the trade because the public wouldn't like to see them paid in the same league as some of the professions that the country might wish to attract people from. Before anyone starts moaning about that point, consider that the top end chaps here probably bring the best part of 150K a year in for dicking around with nothing more than electric Lego bricks !!

Despite the armchair politics discussed regularly, I don't see many people willing to dump their better wages to do an MP's role.

the poor sods should award them selves £200k basics and then point to the numerous directorships they could be on instead trying to run the country for you.

They (MPs) should take a leaf out of Dennis Skinner's book. I don't agree with his politics but he seems to be an honourable man.

[bobspud]

Tou only need to look at how many people on the other boards are whining about BN66 because HMRC changed a rule retrospectively. So why is it fair to try and retrospectively change the rules on MP's?

MP's had very lax expenses as a perk of the trade because the public wouldn't like to see them paid in the same league as some of the professions that the country might wish to attract people from. Before anyone starts moaning about that point, consider that the top end chaps here probably bring the best part of 150K a year in for dicking around with nothing more than electric Lego bricks !!

Despite the armchair politics discussed regularly, I don't see many people willing to dump their better wages to do an MP's role.

the poor sods should award them selves £200k basics and then point to the numerous directorships they could be on instead trying to run the country for you.

[centurian]

Try making a minor infringement on your expenses claim and see how much sympathy HMRC gives you!

On the contrary, I think HMRC give us much more leeway than that.

If you claim a laptop for business purposes, you wouldn't expect HMRC to go rooting around the files, looking for the slightest indication that it wasn't for business use - and if they found one single file used for personal purposes, the whole expense claim gets rejected.

You can make an error on VAT of up to 2K - and you don't even need to let them know.

I'm not sticking up for MPs, but I think on this one occasion, they are complying with spirit of the rules, while ironically getting nailed on the strict letter of the rules.

[Arturo Bassick]

In fairness to them, it feels like the latest press release is a bit harsh on MPs. About 20-odd have been found to have "broken the rules" by claiming expenses for their website.

What did they do - forge the invoice from the website supplier, double submit the invoice

No, the website included an image of the Lab/Con/Lib emblem on the site - not on the home page, but in some cases, buried deep somwhere in site, like on the "Other Links" page, providing a link to their parties home page. Apparently, this means it is "party political", so is not covered by expenses.

Some of the MPs have had to repay the money. These MPs will be forever labelled as "cheats" now, but it's seems a very minor infringement.

Try making a minor infringement on your expenses claim and see how much sympathy HMRC gives you!

MPs should be made to play by the same rules as everybody else.
100% used for business = 100% claimable.
n% for personal use = 0% claimable. (though some exes can be pro rata).
If they did that then there would be no need for another ridiculously expensive publicly funded body to check they are doing it right.

If that story is correct then some of them spend an extraordinary length of time sorting their expenses. If they cant work out their exes then they are not fit to run the country!

[centurian]

In fairness to them, it feels like the latest press release is a bit harsh on MPs. About 20-odd have been found to have "broken the rules" by claiming expenses for their website.

What did they do - forge the invoice from the website supplier, double submit the invoice

No, the website included an image of the Lab/Con/Lib emblem on the site - not on the home page, but in some cases, buried deep somwhere in site, like on the "Other Links" page, providing a link to their parties home page. Apparently, this means it is "party political", so is not covered by expenses.

Some of the MPs have had to repay the money. These MPs will be forever labelled as "cheats" now, but it's seems a very minor infringement.

[SimonMac]

I always thought anyone wanting to be an MP had to be crazy in the first place

[TimberWolf]

All he did was to agree to start a war and go along with certain Mr Brown to get this country into deep debt - nothing any other politician would not do in his place

You forget the part about him also being the anti-Christ.

[AtW]

Not looking at you in particular Bliar.

All he did was to agree to start a war and go along with certain Mr Brown to get this country into deep debt - nothing any other politician would not do in his place