At Westminster it’s “Carry On Thieving”

You’ve probably all seen the story about the “Right Honourable” Maria Miller – our Culture Secretary. She claimed about £90,000 in expenses to pay the mortgage for a home in Wimbledon south London where her parents lived in a blatant breach of the rules which are clear that expenses are for homes exclusively used by MPs. She also rented a smaller property in Basingstoke which she said was her main home.

The Standards Commissioner recommended that Miller repay around £45,000. But Miller’s fellow MPs over-ruled the Standards Commissioner and Miller only had to repay £5,800 and make a 32 second apology thus pocketing £1,225 for every second of her supposed ‘apology’. But surely if she really was sorry, she’d repay all the money she had stolen from us? As they say, “they’re all in it together”. In addition Miller and her minions are accused of obfuscation, lying and attempting to bully both newspaper editors and the Standards Commissioner.

It’s clear that our thieving MPs have learnt nothing from the expenses scandal and at Westminster it’s “Carry On Thieving“. In today’s blog, I’ll try to expose just a few of the many other ways our MPs are enriching themselves at our expense:

1. Massive increase in expenses MPs are claiming around £30m a year more now than before the expenses scandal broke – that’s equivalent to a lovely £46,000 tax-free a year per MP

2. Rise in staff allowances In 2012, our MPs gave themselves a huge increase in the amount they could claim for paying staff from £115,000 a year to £137,200 for non-London MPs and £144,000 for MPs with constituencies in the capital. A goodly portion of this money, of course, is paid to MPs’ partners, children, friends, lovers and various others with close connections to our MPs. Why MPs should need ever more money to supposedly pay staff, when the EU makes ever more of our laws and MPs have so little to do that Parliament frequently runs out of legislation to fill parliamentary time, is unclear

3. Wonderful pay rise While insisting that public-sector pay should only rise by 1%, our MPs gave themselves an 11% pay rise from £66,396 to £74,000. Yippeee!

4. The ‘government minister’ scam Britain has over 105 supposed government ministers. That’s over twice as many as Germany, Spain, Italy or France. Civil servants have repeatedly complained that they can’t find enough work to keep all these “government ministers” busy. Being a government minister means a salary of around £100,000 (click to see pictures more clearly)

5. Second, third and fourth jobs Many MPs have so little work that they have time for extremely lucrative second, third and even fourth jobs in addition to supposedly representing their constituents. Here’s a brief extract from Tory Tim Yeo’s busy schedule:

A reader has just pointed out that on 9 May 2011, Tim Yeo worked for 17 hours for two different companies, in addition to representing his constituents. What incredible sacrifices our MPs make to enrich themselves. 

6. Most MPs are unnecessary We have 650 MPs at Westminster – one for every 100,000 people. Yet the US has just 435 Members of Congress – one for every 680,000 citizens. With the EU now responsible for agriculture, fisheries, trade, business, social policy, immigration and much more, it’s hard to see why we need so many MPs any more.

So, that’s just a brief look at how our MPs are having a very lucrative laugh – at our expense. Are we being scammed? Yes we are!

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