Margaret Moran, Labour MP for Luton South, has announced she will pay back £22,500 claimed to treat dry rot in the house in Southampton (100 miles from her Luton constituency) that she shares with her partner as a result of “constituents’ anger at the current fees regime”.  Constitutents anger with her more like.

Serfs cleared moats in feudal times, Douglas Hogg submitted a receipt to the fees office listing the £2,000 cost of clearing his moat, Sir Michael Spicer, claimed £5,650 in nine months for his gardening and hundreds of pounds for hanging a chandelier in his main manor house.

David Heathcoat-Amory makes us pay for his shit, literally, with £380 claimed for horse manure for his garden.

David Davis, who made his name as a hawkish fiscal disciplinarian on the Public Accounts Select Committee, disappointingly spent more than £10,000 of taxpayers’ money on doing up the house and buying soft furnishings.

Michael Ancram, (the Marquess of Lothian), claims tens of thousands for the upkeep of his £8 million of properties.

Sir Alan Haselhurst, the Deputy Speaker, claimed £142,119 for the upkeep of his country home, despite having no mortgage to pay.

James Arbuthnot and Stewart Jackson have the good sense to have promised last night to repay their pool cleaning claims.  Notice this is only for a few hundred pounds, not exactly a great hardship.

Sorry won’t be enough.  They should all pay back the money they have claimed for feather-bedding their nests.  Members are responsible for the probity and propriety of claims submitted. This bluster about it all being approved by the Fees Office, therefore it is not down to the individual MP, is spin and an abdication of responsibility by those culpable.  The rules are very clear, in signing for allowances, “the MP’s signature verifies that the expenditure was wholly, exclusively and necessarily  incurred in the performance of their duties”.

Swimming pools, roses and chandeliers are not necessary for the performance of an MP’s duties.  We want our money back, sorry won’t be good enough.  No matter how grand, no matter what the excuse, no matter which party.  If they won’t give it back, we want them sacked.

Alan Duncan is going round telling broadcasters that he was the first MP to publish his receipts online and has always supported transparency. Go to his website and there is nothing published there about his expenses.

Eh?  Guido called his office for an explanation.  Tory HQ calls back with a load of waffle.  He did, but he doesn’t now, it was published on an old website blah, blah, blah.  When we get down to it, and Guido is reasonably certain about this, Alan Duncan did not publish his receipts for expenses.  He merely published the annual totals.  The same unrevealing annual expenditure totals published by the Fees Office for the last five years.  So we didn’t discover from his “transparency” anything we can’t now get from the parliamentary website.  Spin and bluster…

UPDATE : According to this archive Alan told us:

Additional Costs Allowance – Expenses Incurred by Staying in London
In line with parliamentary allowances, Alan claims £19,722 per year to cover the costs of maintaining a second home.

Not very informative or transparent is it?

PoliticsHome polled its PHI100 panel of Westminster insiders for their assessment this morning and on a scale of zero to 100 Hazel came out worst. Is this reallynot just a factor of visibility? Blears has behaved disgracefully, but twice as bad as the next sleaziest government minister? Hoon’s sleaziness seems grossly underestimated…

A. One.  According to a claim made by “two brains” David Willets.

In the great scheme of things £100 for a workman to change 25 lightbulbs is trivial.  What it does highlight is the undeserved sense of entitlement that politicians have.  Whereas even a DIY dummy like Guido manages to change his own lightbulbs, politicians don’t need to worry about such trivia.  They just charge it to the taxpayer.

Until that culture changes and politicians realise taxpayers are their masters not their benefactors we will continue to have a parliament of petty pick-pockets. Our pockets…

The promised guide to how to become a millionaire in politics has been delayed in order to incorporate a lot more information. Don’t worry it will be published, but it will be a lot more comprehensive than Guido first envisaged.

To be frank, Guido is being overwhelmed with sleaze.  Dirt which has to be checked out, it all takes time.  Wouldn’t want to give a fiddling politician the opportunity to sue over a mistake…

Dave said sorry last night, Alan Duncan said earlier this morning “every MP must apologise for what has arisen over time”.  Gordon has just jumped on the apology bandwagon:

“I want to apologise on behalf of politicians, on behalf of all parties for what has happened in the events of these last few days. I want to assure you…we must have the highest standards for our profession.”

Politics is not a profession Gordon, it is a racket, and this has been going on for decades not days.  Guido won’t believe they are sorry until they pay back the money they have embezzled.  Then they will be really sorry…

There is a heck of a lot to round-up this morning.  So first a bit of light entertainment:

Tory MP James Gray, who Guido can confirm from previous behaviour is a complete shit, is exposed today by the News of the World “as a greedy skinflint after claiming for Remembrance Day wreaths on expenses.” Iain Dale calls James Gray “a class one copper bottomed shit… I feel sick to the stomach that an MP from the party I support could even contemplate claiming money for a wreath, let alone actually going ahead and doing it.” So bad news for the Tory Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell, who also claims for wreaths.  They are both pretty much unashamed that their tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice is to put in an expense claim.

Guido alluded to LibDem CEO Lord Rennard’s troughing ways yesterday, the News of the World has found out about his lying to the parliamentary authorities about his place of residence so he can trouser £41,678 tax free.  Guido will be returning to Lord Rennard in the near future.  His troughing dishonesty doesn’t end with this, nor does his personal morality bear much scrutiny.

The News of the Screws has a competition , the winner can live like an MP!

Caroline Flint is posing as a diva in a fashion spread in the Observer.  The hard-hitting interview asks “Will she ever be able to improve on her number seven ranking in the Most Fanciable MP list?”  No questions however about the former Housing Minister getting the taxpayer to pay her stamp duty tax.

The Times reports that Baroness Thornton, a Labour minister in the whips’ office, with a £1 million family house near Hampstead Heath claims up to £22,000 a year in expenses by saying that her mother’s modest bungalow in Yorkshire is her main home.

Hazel Blears flipped her main residence and told a different story to the tax man enabling her to avoid paying capital gains tax on the £45,000 profit she made out of taxpayers.

Tom Watson, the mendacious Minister for Mudslinging and Digital Engagement, claims almost £100 a week for food.  Together with fellow Minister Iain Wright, he has used parliamentary allowances to lavish more than £100,000 on their shared Central London home since the last General Election.  That is one gold-plated pig sty.

• Taxman probes second-home profits to see whether MPs have side-stepped capital gains
• Kitty Ussher claimed £20,000 for ‘bad taste’ Artex ceilings
• Sinn Fein MPs claim £310,000 expenses for rent on flats in properties all owned by one Irish landlord
• Stephen Byers claimed £125,000 for flat his partner owned
• Kevin Brennan had £450 TV delivered to family home
• MPs’ Expenses: ToTony Blair’s £296,000 mortgage on constituency home he bought for £30,000
• John Reid sent a bill for £199 pouffe and £29.99 glitter loo seat
• John Gummer claimed £36,000 for gardening and mole-hunting at his estate
• The Speaker’s scapegoat: Official who signed off MPs’ expenses didn’t even have accountancy qualification
• Millionaire Tory Greg Barker made £320,000 profit on flat funded by taxpayer
• Keith Vaz claimed £75,500 for a Westminster flat while family home is 12 miles from Commons
• ‘I’m just too honest’ says Phil Woolas who ‘claimed’ for women’s clothes
• Commons boss who called in police has four homes in three countries, including grace and favour mansion
• Millionairess Barbara Follett had own private police force (paid for by £25,000 of your money)
• Solicitor General Vera Baird claimed for Christmas trees
• Uniformed chauffeurs to football club for Michael Martin
• Care services minister claims £37,000 on furnishing tiny four-room flat
• ‘Police probe’ Minister Tony McNulty still defiant

Something to mull over; HMRC allows £5 per night subsistence deductions to taxpayers for overnight stays in the UK.  MPs voted themselves £20-a-day tax-free subsistence payments.  Why is the rule different for MPs?  Do they eat 300% more than the rest of us?

UPDATE : Talking of Tom Watson, after reading the above a co-conspirator emails;

The first time I met him, after many bottles of vino and hours of him talking to my tits, he started telling me all about his second home in London and that he and Siobhan were looking to buy another one in the capital. I was thinking she must be loaded, but now that I consider it in light of current events, I have my doubts.

He is of course (like all MPs) loaded, courtesy of the taxpayers.

Police have been asked by a member of the public to investigate a claim that Tony McNulty may have ‘obtained pecuniary advantage by deception’. What would Father Dominic say McNulty?

Video credit : Tory Politico