Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)
  • Speaker of the house
  • kimbers
    Full Member

    so the rt hon members want the speaker to resign coz he failed to keep them honest
    this bunch of self serving hypocrites are looking for a scapegoat hoping that they will then be seen as clean again
    so many have lept to pay back their ill gotten gains, not because they feel guilt or remorse just to save their own slimy skins
    investigate, dissmiss and prosecute every one

    tyger
    Free Member

    Amen!

    GNARGNAR
    Free Member

    It is just absurd how this has become “the news. If there is any argument for the speaker resigning then the argument for bent MPs who fiddle their expenses quitting should be ten times stronger. Cut their heads off I say.

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    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    I think the issue is that the MPs do actually recognise that there is a problem. On the other hand, the Speaker has clearly failed to accept the gravity of the problem and appears to be determined to maintain the status quo.

    He has to go.

    kimbers
    Full Member

    i think that the only problem the MPs see is that their reputations have been dragged through the gutter
    so many have been complicit in this scam for so long that they themselves are in no position to call for his resignation, even ‘600 quid for wysteria removal’ cameron hasnt got the testicular fortitude to come out and say it publicly, just let it be known that backbenchers have his support in doing it

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    the MPs see is that their reputations have been dragged through the gutter

    I’m not sure whether we’ve reached the gutter yet. I believe that as from July 1, MPs will have to declare all details of their earnings from second jobs. That will help to put their expenses claims into better perceptive.

    I can’t help feeling that the Tories will come out of that one particularly badly, specially when the income of some, from their second, third or fourth jobs, completely dwarfs what they are paid as MPs.

    rogerthecat
    Free Member

    Equally interesting will be the jobs they hold and with whom, am guessing there may be a few well represented interest groups in there.

    Garry_Lager
    Full Member

    Scapegoating of the first order. It’s laughable to see MPs like Nick Clegg, a study in mediocrity, trying to play the parlimentarian and call for the resignation of the speaker. Like the man is personally accountable for 600 MPs fiddling their expenses.

    freeform5spot
    Free Member

    bullying.

    vinnyeh
    Full Member

    Like the man is personally accountable for 600 MPs fiddling their expenses.

    I think the issue is not that Martin is responsible for the expense fiddling, but he has certainly done everything he can to preserve the expenses status quo, and to prevent any investigation either through the freedom of information act, or through the whistleblower used by the torygraph. He was still stalwartly defending the expenses system nearly a week after the publication of claims began.

    I can’t help feeling that the Tories will come out of that one particularly badly, specially when the income of some, from their second, third or fourth jobs, completely dwarfs what they are paid as MPs.

    According to the Times, one Conservative backbencher holds down 10 err ‘second’ jobs.

    jova54
    Free Member

    Now that all parties have finally agreed that the expenses system needs a complete overhaul there has to be a person to lead the process and that person is the Speaker of the House of Commons, current incumbent Gorbals Mick.

    Unfortunately he is the one person who has prevented previous reviews of the system, last July being the most recent, and MPs see him doing the same job again this time round.

    He also has a ‘bit of previous’ IIRC with his wallpaper and taxis for his wife’s shopping and his private dinner parties paid for by taxpayers.

    The move to get him removed from his position is to get someone without baggage that all parties, including the minorities, can trust a) to get the job done and b) more importantly sell it to the public.

    Nick Clegg did himself no favours in calling for Martin’s resignation as he is the leader of one of the three major parties and is supposed to uphold the democratic process. He should have left that to Ken(?) Baker who seems to be doing a pretty good job.

    I see that Vince Cable has been mooted as a replacement for Speaker Martin should he go. He seems a very intelligent and straight person who stands no chance of getting into government unless he changes parties but possibly has the nous to do the right thing.

    dave360
    Full Member

    testicular fortitude is a good phrase.

    Apropro of the status quo, I saw a snatch of a party political broadcast from the English Democrats. They were saying things that I would think a lot of people want to hear. Anyone know anything about them?

    Spongebob
    Free Member

    Mr Martin is guilty of trying to sweep the matter under the carpet and wishes to stifle free speech on the subject. That is why he’s the wrong man for the job!

    All the MP’s who have had their hands in the till should face the music, be it disciplinary action or criminal prosecution. MP’s should not be above the law!

    I heard on the news yesterday that some Labour MP’s have said that the pressure on the Speaker to resign was due to his class (him being working class and his critics being rich tories). If the left wingers bandying this twaddle by playing the class card are taken seriously, we’ll be left with a system that excuses working class people from any public responsibility, purely because of their background. Utter discrimantatory nonsense! Further example of Labour’s jaundiced view of the world and evidence of their politics of jealousy. Bad for parliament, bad for Britain!

    surfer
    Free Member

    I think the issue is not that Martin is responsible for the expense fiddling, but he has certainly done everything he can to preserve the expenses status quo, and to prevent any investigation either through the freedom of information act, or through the whistleblower used by the torygraph. He was still stalwartly defending the expenses system nearly a week after the publication of claims began.

    Your right and he should go. However as the OP said. He is being used as a scapegoat and a sacrifice in order to “cleanse” all that is corrupt. The MP’s have acted disgracefully in this matter and whilst he deserves no support it is a bit rich to blame him for all of what is bad about this fiasco. It makes them look even more self serving.

    dave360
    Full Member

    “is it because I is working class”

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    I must admit that I hadn’t quite looked at it from this angle and I had been struggling to see why it was his fault that all this has come about.

    It also explains his actions yesterday when he seemed unable to understand why he was being singled out.

    Joxster
    Free Member

    I can’t help feeling that the Tories will come out of that one particularly badly, specially when the income of some, from their second, third or fourth jobs

    As long as the tax is paid, what’s the problem. I’ve had 2 or 3 jobs on the go and everything gets declared on my self assessment. The issue with the expenses is the interpretation of the wording with them being ‘relative to the job’ and from what I’ve seen none of the expenses were relative. I double check everything with my accountant before claiming.

    tyger
    Free Member

    The Speaker of the House, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor – top 3 positions, all held by Scotsmen – just an observation 🙂

    surfer
    Free Member

    The issue with the expenses is the interpretation of the wording with them being ‘relative to the job’ and from what I’ve seen none of the expenses were relative. I double check everything with my accountant before claiming.

    No the issue with the expenses IMO is this. They fly in face of public expectation and perception. MP’s have judged this poorly. The voting public are appalled by the amounts involved and the squirming and cowardly behavior that has gone on since they were “found out” will haunt every MP (even those yet to be elected) for years.
    They can discuss a variation on the Nuremberg defense if they want and we can have informed debates on here about the rights and wrongs but the bottom line is the majority of the population think the whole thing stinks. They will be the judge.

    woffle
    Free Member

    Apropro of the status quo, I saw a snatch of a party political broadcast from the English Democrats. They were saying things that I would think a lot of people want to hear. Anyone know anything about them?

    Two words : Gary Bushell. Personally I can’t imagine an party that thinks that having anything to do with that complete twunt will have anything to say that I want to hear.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    His insistence on trying to exempt parliamentary expenses from the freedom of Information act is hypocrisy of the highest order. Whilst MANY MPS did the same his position has brought an office into disrepute rather than an individual.
    He has to go many MP S have to go after him.
    Joxster…the problem with many jobs is that they are meant to represent the common people (House of Commons) given the average wage is about£22K and they earn £57,485 + expenses +office costs etc + other jobs it is hard to see how they live a life similar to the majority of the people they represent. Both front benches are full of privileged individuals (including those awaiting hereditary titles) and I would hazard a suggestion that the world they live in (as demonstrated by their reasonable expense claims and inability to see what is wrong with it) has meant that they are somewhat disassociated form the world that most of us inhabit…you know the one where we buy our own food, light bulbs, plugs and don’t have a moat to clean or an £8 grand TV on expenses.

    AdamW
    Free Member

    As long as the tax is paid, what’s the problem. I’ve had 2 or 3 jobs on the go and everything gets declared on my self assessment.

    Plenty of problem. They are paid to do a job for us and not bunk off. Furthermore due to their position they are in a position of power and privilege – making of laws – which leaves them open to accusation of corruption as they can vote on their second ‘jobs’ interests and raise laws based upon them. I don’t believe your second job has those perks… They can talk and meet with business – that is to be expected and needed – but not work for them. Pure corruption.

    I believe that the pay structure for MPs should be reformed – give them £150k, no ‘entitlements’ and no second/third/fourth/fifth jobs. And if they leave parliament via their own or voters choices then they cannot join an industry in which they were a minister for ten years. If they can’t deal with that then they can get the **** out of parliament because all they will be doing is feathering their nests on our tab and screwing up the legislature based upon who pays them the most money from their other ‘jobs’.

    Angry? You bet. Corrupt bar-stewards, the lot of them.

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    And no matter what colour the rosette you pin to it, it is still sh*t and it still stinks.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    This is essentially a giant public-relations fiasco. There has been little actual illegality, no corruption in any meaningful sense, just a bizarrely stupid expenses system which a lot of people have played rather hard intersecting with the growth of the peculiar idea that MPs should have been wearing a hair shirt for the whole of the last decade when the rest of the population was buying gigantic TVs on interest-free credit cards and letting the good times roll.

    It has none of the serious features of a genuine crisis except popular hysteria and a press on the attack, but has been allowed to turn into one due to duff handling when it ought to be playing out by now if decisively dealt with. The speaker, while he has not done anything egregiously wrong, has shown a remarkable failure to understand the PR risks of the issue.

    He needs to go, but only in the way that the controller of Radio 2 needed to go when Woss/Bwand got out of hand. Someone needs to take the fall, and quickly, to defuse the situation. Sacking ministers is not working, as they can only really take the rap for their own behaviour.

    “Trial by media” is problematic. What we are currently seeing is something a bit like “coup by media”. I am suspicious of both phenomena. 🙂

    mudshark
    Free Member

    BTW, I saw something on TV the other day (so must be true!) saying that MPs pensions were the equivalent to us earning an extra £50k pa. They get a full pension after only 20 years.

    joemarshall
    Free Member

    This is essentially a giant public-relations fiasco. There has been little actual illegality, no corruption in any meaningful sense, just a bizarrely stupid expenses system which a lot of people have played rather hard

    ‘played rather hard’? They’ve blatantly broken the rules of the expenses system, most obviously the main one that expenses are to be solely things vital to allow them to do the job. Unless they’ve got a special exemption to allow them to commit tax fraud, not paying tax on perks (excepting job related expenses) is against the law no?

    Joe

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    I’m afraid I think most of it is “playing rather hard”. MPs expenses are not charged to income tax I don’t think (query of course whether they should be, but they are not). Most of what has gone on is within the rules, but the rules are, when looked at hard, pretty absurd.

    You can see why people thought it would be better presentationally to give them a housing allowance rather than a large increase in salary, but in fact it has made matters worse not better. What has happened is that many of them have treated the allowance as additional salary, and claimed as much of it as they sensibly could. Inevitably a lot of the individual items claimed have annoyed people.

    The practice of flipping the home on which people are claiming is unsavoury, and needs stopping. The stuff about capital gains tax treatment of sales in the press has been mostly wrong though.

    Like I say, I’m not keen on any of this stuff, it looks bad. But to my mind the reason it’s bad is that it’s going to result in a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The perception of massive corruption when actually there’s just some rather unimaginative greed risks causing a huge fuss when actually as far as I can see a few people need their heads knocking together and the pay, expenses and interests system needs an overhaul and an improvement in its mechanisms for scrutiny.

    Jon

    konabunny
    Free Member

    “they earn £57,485 + expenses +office costs etc + other jobs”

    And, of course, all the ego boosting you can handle, and plenty of post-Parliamentary book writing, consultancy, directorships opportunities. That’s when you can really rake it in…

    kimbers
    Full Member

    mps pensions are also inflation-proofed unlike ours
    should infact get the state pension!
    they should get a bigger salary, say inline with a bbc newsreader

    a room in govmnt owned apartment block for the duration of their term reasonable travel expenses between london/ constiuency

    no 2nd jobs whatsoever

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    If the left wingers bandying this twaddle by playing the class card are taken seriously

    Only a fool or a denialist would say that that the Speaker hasn’t been the victim of class prejudices. Even on this thread the contemptuous term ‘Gorbals Mick’ has been used to describe him.

    But yes you’re right Spongie, his working-class origins is no excuse. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, they make it worst. It appears that power, wealth, and privilege, has caused the speaker to forget where he came from – not something which I’m quick to forgive. I’m much more relaxed about Tories with privilege upbringings carrying on to exploit the privileges which come with high office.

    Further example of Labour’s jaundiced view of the world and evidence of their politics of jealousy.

    Complete bollox, and a further example of your jaundiced view of the world and evidence of your political pettiness. Labour has a working majority of 63. If Labour had decided to back Michael Martin a vote of no confidence would have failed.

    .

    As long as the tax is paid, what’s the problem.

    The problem Joxster, is that it puts the expenses row into a whole new perspective.

    It’s one thing claiming for food when your sole income amounts to less than that of a self-employed plumber, and another one completely, when you’ve got 4 other jobs on the go and you’re asking the tax-payer to fund the new heating system for the moat round your 12th century castle.

    It also begs the question of how committed they are of doing their job as MPs effectively, when they’re earning mega-bucks from four other, time consuming jobs.

Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 30 total)

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