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…

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?

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…

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

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…

Listen to him defend his troughing on Radio 5:

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?

So Legg has found 52% of MPs guilty of over-claiming from taxpayers, all three party leaders had to make repayments and some MPs should face criminal charges today.  They all face an election.

So judgement is coming in one form or another.  The British political class make excuses, they wriggle and they deny.  The inescapable truth is that they have been caught looting taxpayers for all they could get away with, they deserve all the opprobrium and more.  Imagine a private sector firm where 52% of the staff had been found guilty of cheating their customers.  It would be treated as a criminal enterprise.

So how should we describe our political class?  It is not right and it certainly isn’t honourable.

*Legg’s vetting of 752 MPs’ and ex-MPs’ expenses over the period 2004-09 resulted in a total figure of 390 being told to pay up. That is 52% of the MPs…

Hungry MP Rosie Cooper clearly wasn’t listening to the discussion going on at the Slimming World dinner for a hundred that she hosted in December 2007.  If she had she might have avoided putting that “mouth-watering array of sweets, crisps, cakes, ice creams and doughnuts” on her expenses. She really put her snout in the trough…

Guido is having a great time trawling the function room bookings. It is a gold mine of sleazy connections and favours.

Keep track of developments here.