Metropol

Fair play to David Cameron today. The whole expenses issue was never going to be easy, but I think he's done far more damage limitation than Labour have managed. He's showing a hell of a lot of maturity in dealing with this.

all new Phil wrote:Fair play to David Cameron today. The whole expenses issue was never going to be easy, but I think he's done far more damage limitation than Labour have managed. He's showing a hell of a lot of maturity in dealing with this.

Yes...just how mature can you be defending members who claimed expenses on having their moats cleared?

On a similar note, gav has made a name for himself among my facebook friends as an angry young man (I'd take that as a compliment) after he disagreed with an a stephen fry clip in my Facebook status that echos how little I care about the expenses thing. Anyhoo I think I summed up my view quite nicely there so here it is. The context is me saying it doesn't matter and is teeny in a numerical sense.

Gavin wrote:Trivial in a fiscal sense perhaps. Massively important as a point of principle.

The media are playing their own game here. The Telegraph's drip-feeding of detail merely ensures one good week of sales in a dying market. The television outlets will re-report anything in print - that's what happens when you have 158 hours a week of rolling news to fill.

But don't let media froth get in the way of the facts. The next time you're watching a politician get red in the face with outrage over something or other, remember that in the space of a single term in office he may well have bought, furnished and sold a London home while those like me can't get so much as a lunch bought for them.... Read more

Fry is bright, Fry is good.

But he's not always right.

There are some things that men should stand up and fight against - whether Stephen agrees or not.

Sput wrote: I don't often see a politician get outraged over something of their own volition. Usually it's something the media gets outraged about which drives the pols to say something similar. And while they're wasting time playing the media's game, there are more important things to be worrying about.

I get it though, you're outraged on this point ... Read moreof principle and I'm not, but for all your speak of media froth, since when did we ever trust a journalist's grasp of the nuances of a system that's not really changed for decades, with a hell of a lot of grey area? I mean, take your rose shite for example, you get money for a place to stay that you wouldn't otherwise have, that's fair enough. Makes sense you get money for its upkeep too. Gardening is upkeep isn't it? At what point then is buying stuff for the garden unreasonable?

Now if someone buys a YACHT I'd be annoyed, but I don't see that mindset. I can just see how this situation would come about through the not-worst of intents

Alexia wrote:

all new Phil wrote:Fair play to David Cameron today. The whole expenses issue was never going to be easy, but I think he's done far more damage limitation than Labour have managed. He's showing a hell of a lot of maturity in dealing with this.

Yes...just how mature can you be defending members who claimed expenses on having their moats cleared?

He didn't defend them.

I think that was the point Lex was making, that it would be wholly immature to defend them.

Sput wrote:On a similar note, gav has made a name for himself among my facebook friends as an angry young man (I'd take that as a compliment) after he disagreed with an a stephen fry clip in my Facebook status that echos how little I care about the expenses thing. Anyhoo I think I summed up my view quite nicely there so here it is. The context is me saying it doesn't matter and is teeny in a numerical sense.

Gavin wrote:Trivial in a fiscal sense perhaps. Massively important as a point of principle.

The media are playing their own game here. The Telegraph's drip-feeding of detail merely ensures one good week of sales in a dying market. The television outlets will re-report anything in print - that's what happens when you have 158 hours a week of rolling news to fill.

But don't let media froth get in the way of the facts. The next time you're watching a politician get red in the face with outrage over something or other, remember that in the space of a single term in office he may well have bought, furnished and sold a London home while those like me can't get so much as a lunch bought for them.... Read more

Fry is bright, Fry is good.

But he's not always right.

There are some things that men should stand up and fight against - whether Stephen agrees or not.

Sput wrote: I don't often see a politician get outraged over something of their own volition. Usually it's something the media gets outraged about which drives the pols to say something similar. And while they're wasting time playing the media's game, there are more important things to be worrying about.

I get it though, you're outraged on this point ... Read moreof principle and I'm not, but for all your speak of media froth, since when did we ever trust a journalist's grasp of the nuances of a system that's not really changed for decades, with a hell of a lot of grey area? I mean, take your rose shite for example, you get money for a place to stay that you wouldn't otherwise have, that's fair enough. Makes sense you get money for its upkeep too. Gardening is upkeep isn't it? At what point then is buying stuff for the garden unreasonable?

Now if someone buys a YACHT I'd be annoyed, but I don't see that mindset. I can just see how this situation would come about through the not-worst of intents

I'll take a compliment on the "young", for sure.

I think this "grey area" you speak of isn't grey at all.

The definition of second home expenses is very clear - and it was helpfully overlaid on-screen over a Newsnight report last night. Monies are available where it is "wholly necessary" to allow MPs to do their job.

I have a shared garden in my block of flats - but growing roses or turfing the lawn doesn't assist my life or work in any way. I would love to have it redecorated, but again this is not essential for my wellbeing or career.

If I want these extraneous niceties, I have to take money from my fixed salary and pay for them myself.

I work for a private company. If I were to charge to odd taxi to the firm rather than pay for it myself, then that would come out of my boss' pocket.

What the politicians are doing comes out of the public purse. Like it or not that's different. If nothing else, I expect them to demonstrate HIGHER standards than the public. Its nothing new, perhaps. There's stories of the Scottish government office near me where 10 people all heading to the same meeting up town will all take individual taxis rather than 2 cabs with 5 people in it. That's no better. Naming and shaming is entirely appropriate in these circumstances.

I'm frankly at a loss why you would find the whole thing so trivial, sput.

I've been wondering why this "within the rules" argument hasn't been more forcefully challenged in the last few days. MPs are claiming this "but it's within the rules" as a defence, when in fact in many cases they were not "wholly necessary for the job". They were therefore, in my opinion, fraudulent claims.

"Expenditure for which reimbursement is claimed under the provisions of the Green Book should be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the performance of a Member's parliamentary duty"

The expenses system at the BBC is one that should be employed by the Commons. You log on to a web page to submit the claim. Within that page is a drop-down menu of things you can claim for, split down to specifics like "evening meal", "tube travel", "airport parking" etc. You enter the amount you are claiming. If it exceeds the limit for that particular type of claim you are told and must give a reason why you are exceeding the normal allowance. If you do exceed the limit it is flagged as an "unusual claim" and will be scrutinised, though if it is genuine and can be explained reasonably then it still may be approved. When you are finished, you submit the claim electronically, however you must also print the page and staple to it the receipts for ALL items. These are sent to the expenses offices in Cardiff and your claim is not paid until (a) they receive the receipts and (b) your departmental manager has approved it electronically.

It is actually a straightforward system that works very well and efficiently because what you can and cannot claim for is made obvious and explicit.

Next question: why is the House of Commons canteen subsidised?

Gavin Scott wrote:I work for a private company. If I were to charge to odd taxi to the firm rather than pay for it myself, then that would come out of my boss' pocket.

What the politicians are doing comes out of the public purse. Like it or not that's different. If nothing else, I expect them to demonstrate HIGHER standards than the public. Its nothing new, perhaps. There's stories of the Scottish government office near me where 10 people all heading to the same meeting up town will all take individual taxis rather than 2 cabs with 5 people in it. That's no better. Naming and shaming is entirely appropriate in these circumstances.

I'm frankly at a loss why you would find the whole thing so trivial, sput.

What I spend comes out of the public purse too, I'm not very organised so I wind up taking my own taxi at most conferences. Sometimes people co-ordinate but it's a ballache and draws focus from the actual job. The moment you get people fretting about how they're going to do their job instead of just doing it, there's going to be a price in productivity. You can claim that your taxi anecdote shows bad organisation but you can't call it malicious. I sincerely doubt ANY MP thinks they're getting one over the taxpayer by taking their own taxi. That'd be a shit scam. Taking a LIMO is a scam.

And there ARE grey areas, just depends how you see things. Here's an example: how do we know they don't read briefings in those taxis when alone? How does that productivity change offset the extra cost of the solo taxiing? We don't know, so to declare every single apparent "oh that's not substantially wrong but I have just one piece of information AND I DON'T LIKE IT" expense as some kind of huge moral abyss is just overreacting. You can claim it's not "in the spirit of the rules" but what exactly IS the spirit of the rules? To me it's just "right, I need a taxi, oh there's one. Lovely. I'll get there in good time and practice my talk, then claim this back as I don't really want to be here" so does that make me some awful thief?

Roses? Subjective. Certainly not worth the amount of coverage it got. I believe the guy did his own gardening; would it have been okay to hire a gardener despite it being more expensive? Here's my simile: I claimed for hair styling goo the other week because I couldn't transport liquids on the plane, but buying replacement goo on the other side is cheaper than checking the bag in. Now, if I actually mattered and that receipt was made public it'd look like I was squandering the public's money on vanity, but in actual fact I was saving money overall. Is that wrong? Should I not have done that? (No idea if that'll even be approved, hope so...)

I personally think there is a cost of doing business, be it politics or sales or science, and the worker shouldn't have to shoulder those extra costs (travel, housing and food they otherwise wouldn't have to fork out for). Is the oversight fucked? Yes. Obviously since some of those things shouldn't have gotten through, like the pool and moat stuff, but people are very good at rationalising things/self deluding so I just don't buy this "THIEVES" rhetoric and I just think they're doing what anyone would do, I DON'T expect higher standards from them because I realise that they have to make this shit up as they go along. That's politics, it's sales, it's science. That's what anyone on the front line of anything does. But if being inefficient makes them create better shit as they go along, then that's worth keeping.

As I said earlier, there IS a price of doing business and my feeling is that some unacceptable stuff went down but for the most part it's not that evil. There should be better oversight but I don't think all this navel gazing is helping us get over actual big problems like pandemic, economics, poverty and geopolitical instability. I'd rather like them to get back to it.

I must admit I'm partly with Sput and Widdecombe on this, yes some of them have bought overly large TVs and fiddled their second homes but I think when the telegraph goes "look, so and so bought a drill from B&Q" I see it as "so and so decided to fix an issue himself rather than getting in a tradesman".

Cleaning a moat however is ridiculous and that odious man who argued with Carrie Gracie is completely in the wrong too.

Also wrong is buying a TV on expenses for your second home, then claiming that your third home is your second home, and buying another TV on expenses for that home less than a year later.

Having said all of this, it's not a job I'd do for £63K a year.

I think there's also a fairness issue you're overlooking, Sput. Namely, MPs who earn many millions of pounds, but who still claim for things they, in truth, could probably afford.

It's hard to explain why, but I find that a lot worse than an impoverished civil servant trying to get away one or two extras, like you imply above. It suggests a culture of greed which is the last thing I want from the people in power - the rich stealing from the (comparatively) poor.

That's not on if you ask me, and I personally think they should pay for what they've done several times over.

The other aspect that makes MP expenses a far more imporant issue, is that private companies' employee expenses are scrutinised - the market ensures it. Bosses don't want to give away any more than they have to, so they get forensic accountants in to keep a close eye on it - look at marksi's claiming system. By contrast, there are no market forces to encourage economies in a government environment (in all sorts of departments, but it definitely applies to this one); only the electorate who, rightfully, are outraged.