Transport Minister Sadiq Khan is in hot water this afternoon after it has been revealed that he lied to the press and to the Parliamentary authorities. He is paying back £2,500. Having had over a grands worth of greeting card receipts rightly rejected from his Communications Allowance claims, Khan then went back to the printers and had them create a new receipt, for the same amount, but without the birthday cards itemised on them. This fraudulent receipt was then accepted by the Fees Office.

Blatant and deliberate deception by the “Right Honourable” Minister.

Khan has form in this area, he had to pay back another £1,000 in  2007 for a Communications Allowance funded newsletter plastered in Labour roses. In November 2007 he told The Telegraph “I personally pay for the cost of sending out birthday cards to some of my constituents who turn 18.” A blatant “mistruth” given he made two claims, one for Diwali and Eid cards in December 2005 and one for 18^th birthday cards in January 2006. A cocktail of lies, deception and dodgy paperwork. Ministers have resigned for less.

Click here to view John Lyon’s full response to the complaint.

Telegraph is reporting that Lord Paul has repaid the £38,000 in expenses he claimed for a flat he never slept in. He says it is not an admission of guilt. So why is he repaying it?

Those oinking noises sound remarkably like Mark Wallace, official spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Alliance.  That sound will reverberate in their ears loudly for a long time…

Harry Cohen has benefited from Guido’s attention in the past.   The chippy left-wing MP who disgraces the Leyton parliamentary seat once held by Winston Churchill claimed substantially more for his second home  and expenses than any other MP in London, in fact his annual expense claims of £123,718 are £30,000 higher than neighbouring Walthamstow Labour MP Neil Gerrard’s claim of £92,228 and greater than Chingford Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith’s allowance of £104,222.

He claimed “I am almost certainly the most professional MP Leyton and Wanstead has ever had, and that includes Winston Churchill.”

Despite Leyton being a mere half an hour from Westminster on the Central Line tube, Harry Cohen claimed the maximum tax free second home subsidy of £21,63.  The Metropolitan Police has begun a criminal inquiry into Harry Cohen, who claimed more than £70,000 for a “second home” while renting out his main property.  Perhaps the Met Police might want to investigate other MPs doing the same trick. Guido has asked the question before: where is Gordon’s first home that entitles him to claim a second home allowance?

Gordon lives in grace and favour accomodation in Downing Street, he has use of the grace and favour Chequer’s mansion.  He pays nothing in rent or mortgage for those properties.  When he married he adroitly gave to Sarah the flat he bought cheaply in dubious circumstances from Robert Maxwell’s estate and Guido understands they now rent it out at a profit.  That leaves only his old Fife home.  It is clearly his real home, it is the only one he owns. Yet he designates it as his “second home” for expenses purposes.

See : Gordon Claims for His Second Home: Where is His First Home?

Never say that Guido is not willing to correct mistakes:

SWINSON, Jo to guido.fawkes
10:03 PM

In answer to the question you posed yesterday on the Guido Fawkes blog at 3:25pm: No.

I only claimed for one item on that receipt, for which as you report the Fees Office declined to reimburse me, a decision which I fully accepted.

As is perfectly clear from the claim form which is available for public view online, I did not claim for any of the other items on that receipt.

To be clear, I did not claim for, indeed have never even considered claiming for, any make-up on my expenses.

In light of these facts, I hope you will agree it would be appropriate for you to correct this posting on your blog.

Regards,

Jo Swinson

Guy Fawkes to Jo
8:47 AM
What was the item for which you claimed?

Will clarify.

SWINSON, Jo to Guy
9:12 AM

The tooth-flosser.

Nice to know that Jo thinks the taxpayer should take care of her gnashers…

Lord Rennard got off having to repay expenses he had fiddled by claiming his main London home was his holiday home.  He claimed he spent his weekends at his flat in Eastbourne.

Indicative of the truth is that he was spotted by an EyeSpier sweating in Millbank on Saturday night.

The respective frontbenchers will not be taking their grand pay rise but as sure as pigs squeal the backbenchers will be.  They will say it is fair and was recommended by the Senior Salaries Review Board and is based on comparisons with doctors and judges and such like.

Hang on a second – becoming a doctor requires years of training and is a high stress position where you literally make life and death decisions.  A judge is is a position of ultimate responsibility at which you arrive after many years in the law and for which you will have studied hard for years.

Any scoundrel can become an MP with no training and no experience.  Guido will cite the example of the lovely Chloe Smith, a nice enough person, but it is fair to say she became a Tory candidate after a gap-year working for former Conservative education secretary Gillian Shephard before going to university where she did a bit of summer work for Bernard Jenkin and was a graduate trainee at Deloittes for a couple of years before she became an MP.  She is now on a compensation package from the taxpayers of over £100,000 a year in her mid-twenties.  Nice work if you can get it…

MPs don’t deserve a raise, 52% of them were guilty of over-claiming expenses, the country is broke, the rest of the public-sector is facing pay cuts, the private sector is facing tax hikes and reduced incomes. They should be considering belt-tightening along with the rest of us.  Take the trouble to ask your MP: “Will you be taking your pay rise?  Why do you really think you deserve a pay rise?”

Forward any responses to Guido to publish with pleasure…

Guido thinks we may have found an example of a “scum sucking Tory pig”.  The troughing Wintertons are not standing at the election.  He thinks, like Lord Mandelson, that he deserves first class luxury on the back of the taxpayers, hasn’t he heard that for public servants it is the age of austerity from now on. Nicholas Winterton won’t be missed…

Listen to him defend his troughing on Radio 5:

The Taxpayers’ Alliance has calculated that the three Labour MPs charged with theft from the taxpayers; Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley, will share between them a pay-off totalling £151,552 come election day.  They will also get generous gold-plated pensions. This is an outrageous piss-take.

Given that they are unlikely to have their day in Court before election day, the House of Commons should pass a resolution that any member facing criminal charges for financial impropriety should have payment of resettlement grants and pensions suspended until the result of the charges are known.  If found guilty they should lose all their pension rights.  They will still be drawing their parliamentary pay every month in any event.

This is what would happen to a servicemen or police officer who was found guilty of gross misconduct.  It would be bordering on obscene to expect the victims of the crime – taxpayers – to pay hundreds of thousands to those convicted of thieving from them.  Guido completely accepts the principle that these three are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but can see no legal reason why the payments can not be suspended until the Courts have resolved the issue.

Is there not one good MP who will put a motion to this effect before the House?