MP'S in pact to fight expenses payback

[spitza]

In todays news they are going to unite about paying back expenses, do you think we also should fight about paying council taxes? MP'S get payments for having gardens attended to when I was at work I had to do my own jobs like every working man why should they be different?
Regards

[jake-the-peg]

Because your job (presumably) didn't involve you working hundreds of miles from home for much of the time and often into the early hours.

MPs need a place to live in London and so it's reasonable that should be publically funded and maintained.

What is not reasonable is that they should profit from the arrangement and say Oh my second house is actually my one up the country - please maintain that one etc. etc.

[R1Geezer]

If we are unhappy with their antics we have a opportunity coming up soon to fire them!

[fredpuli47]

They are saying, inter alia, that they should be allowed gardening expenses, to the extent that these have been disallowed, because there was no limit set by the rules.Nice one! So if they'd claimed £100,000 for such expenses that would have been all right, would it? They are now being allowed only what is being assessed as reasonable expense.

That kind of argument shows that some have more greed than sense. What do they imagine the electorate thinks of it?

[Rollo]

Some MPs who arte going to stand for re-election are not going to get back in.

Their choice!

[jake-the-peg]

There were no set limits but there were limits.

For example the infamous duck house was disallowed at the time - just amazing he had the cheek to claim it in the first place.

It will be interesting to see if they dig into the Housing issues - if they do there will be some much more high profile cases.

The Lib Dems are currently calling for George Osbourne to pay back £55,000 he made out of that.

Wonder if Cameron will be up for sacking people quite that close to him

[anotheoldgit]

What a brilliant post by ahmskunnirt, totally agree with every thing he/her said.

Jake-the-peg states "Because your job (presumably) didn't involve you working hundreds of miles from home for much of the time and oftern into the early hours".

"PATHETIC" I say. There are many, many people who not only work hundreds of miles from home but also thousands of miles from home. Long distant lorry drivers and the Armed Services for example. They can't claim expenses for someone to do their garden, while they are away. Any way MPs get three months off that's plenty of time to attend their plot.

Regarding working into the early hours, late night sittings no longer take place.

[sp1814]

Nick Robinson (the BBC political correspondent) made a point the other day which I think should be examined.

Say you're working in a job and you have a set of guidelines to follow on expenses claims...you go to a conference in Aberdeen, and claim for your travel, meals and accomodation, following your expenses rule to the letter.

Then three months later, your boss calls you in and says, "You claimed fairly, but we're changing the rules and backdating those rules so that NOW, you now owe the company £1,755 for that conference trip".

You go home, and explain that to your wife, and she says, "So, did you fiddle your expenses? I know some others in your company did"

And you reply, "No...I followed the rules at the time!"

I don't really have any strong feelings about this one way or the other...just trying to play devil's advocate.
Oh, and I agree with AOG that people

[rov1200]

It seems the MPs have already united (at least the Labour ones) in letting Jaqui Smith off the hook in paying back £112000 she illegally claimed for her second home (the main one really). She is obviously trying to stick it out until the next election where she will be booted out by the electors.

[vulcan]

Nick Robinsons point is only valid if the MP's claimed fairly in the first place.
Principal no 3 in the Green Book:
"Allowances are reimbursed only for the purpose of a member carrying out his or her parliamentary duties."
Does an MP need a duck house to carry out his parliamentary duties ?
Does an MP need a home so that his daughter can live rent free to carry out his parliamentary duties ?
This entire fiasco has come about because the MP's saw a way of making money out of the tax-payer, they fought tooth and nail not to have the details made public,then,when they were found out,said we were only following orders[where have we heard that before ?]
and now they're fighting the repayments.They must think we're idiots.