Gary Gibbon
Expenses row: disks, Ws and duck houses
Tory high command is taking the view that David Wilshire’s expenses scandal in the Daily Telegraph is not an open and shut case like, say, Sir Peter Viggers.
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Gary Gibbon
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Gary Gibbon
Legg letters: Speaker couldn’t stop the ‘Hutton effect’
Ann Widdecombe was having a bit of a go at the Speaker, John Bercow, yesterday for rolling over and not standing up for MPs’ rights against Sir ThomasLegg. I’m told that Speaker Bercow twice tried to persuade Sir Thomas to drop the retrospective elements, constructing caps for spending on gardening and cleaning second homes when…
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Gary Gibbon
Some Legg letters are still unopened
20 or so MPs have yet to pick up their envelope from Sir Thomas Legg, but there is rampant confusion among those who have.
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Jon Snow
Three months in which MPs and peers finally lost the plot?
I have two close friends who happen to be life peers. Upon entering the House of Lords they were button holed by those already there. One had a house in the Hampshire countryside; the other had a place in Scotland. They joined the House in the last twelve years. In both cases their “button holers”…
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Gary Gibbon
Legg ‘damns MPs as criminals’ but how many will revolt?
MPs are hoping for co-ordinated action that will see Thomas Legg back down on the issue of expenses and stop making retrospective cash payback demands.
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Gary Gibbon
Expenses: MPs await letters from Legg
The Legg audit is judging the fees office as much as the MPs, but what particularly annoys MPs is that Legg has put what they think are arbitrary numbers on what constitutes breaching the spirit of the rules and what doesn’t.
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Gary Gibbon
Young’s appointment shows Cameron’s pragmatism
Sir George Young’s promotion to shadow leader of the Commons shows is likely to reassure some of those in the Conservative party.
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Gary Gibbon
Days are numbered for MPs’ £25 unreceipted allowance
The £25 per day subsistence allowance for MPs splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph today has been claimed by MPs since it appeared in the Green Book of expenses rules in March 2009. But don’t expect it to last much longer. Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life produces its reforms in…
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Jon Snow
End of term and more
Bye Bye to my member, and a word to Chris, Joe10 and Ken on yesterday’s class war blog. That’s it, they’ve gone! Eighty two days now before we see another MP in the House of Commons chamber on October 12th. And in what a parlous state they seem to be leaving British politics. Tomorrow, The…
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Gary Gibbon
Legg’s expenses inquiry could mean more pain for MPs
When’s Legg over? A traditional summer holiday question… now being asked in the corridors of Westminster. Sir Thomas Legg is the man heading the inquiry into all MPs’ expenses claimed over the last four years. This is the piece of work that Gordon Brown called for and it could mean still more pain for MPs…
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Jon Snow
Rescued by a scrap metal merchant
Cycling in to work this morning, one of those wretched plastic bags blew into my derailleur gears, clogged them, tangled the chain, which flew into the pedals and jammed. I deteriorated from trying to unscramble it using Kleenex and litter that I found in the street, but realised after three minutes that I’d need to…
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Jon Snow
Expenses backlash for foreign office minister
The following correspondence has come my way…it shows the new foreign office minister charged with looking after Latin America, reaching out to Latin American interests in the UK. I’m wondering how many other ministers, opposition front benchers and MPs are in receipt of such anger from voters?
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Gary Gibbon
Totting up the Tories’ second job earnings
David Cameron’s self-denying ordinance on Shadow Cabinet outside interests will look to many in his own party like a bit of tokenism. At his press conference this morning David Cameron made the argument FOR MPs having outside interests, even mentioned that he used to have some himself when he was Shadow Education spokesman. Then he…
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Gary Gibbon
Cameron speaks on transparency – but show us the expenses!
I am at David Cameron’s speech at Imperial College listening to a paen of praise to the virtues of transparency, free information, transparency and accountability but at time of writing we have not yet been given the new additional list of Tory MPs who have had to pay back another £125k between them. We will,…
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Gary Gibbon
Brown must fear a badly timed Chilcot report
Gordon Brown has a habit of upsetting people he’s asked to conduct inquiries. Adair Turner didn’t look like a man who’d like to take up another commission from Gordon Brown after his pensions inquiry. More recently, Sir Christopher Kelly’s team looking at MPs’ expenses was repeatedly publicly harried by No.10 and didn’t appreciate it.