Shameful Secret Repayments

 The Telegraph reports that John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, has allowed the widespread use of a controversial “rectification procedure” whereby a number of seedy MPs have secretly paid back falsely-claimed expenses without their names or abuses being disclosed to the public.

Sixteen MPs made secret repayments in the 2008/09 financial year and it's thought that dozens more mired in the expenses scandal have agreed similar arrangements.

However, it has now emerged that Mr Lyon is taking advantage of a little-known Parliamentary rule that allows complaints about financial misconduct to be settled behind closed doors.

The deals are made available to MPs who are willing to admit they have broken the rules and offer to make voluntary repayments.

They have to privately apologise to the Committee of Standards and Privileges, the group of MPs overseeing the conduct of politicians - but their misconduct is then not made public.

It is not clear why the identities of those making repayments are not made public in the same way that criminals pleading guilty who do not face a full court trial are named...
...Last night, a spokeswoman for Mr Lyon refused to disclose how many MPs had been privately allowed to repay money or who they were.  She also refused to say how many MPs were being investigated and their identities.

The Metropolitan Police are also understood to be growing frustrated by Mr Lyon’s intervention in cases involving potential fraud.

Lyon has justified using the procedure “where there was no clear evidence that the breach was intentional and it was at the less serious end of the spectrum,”  but it isn't for John Lyon to decide on intent or what constitutes 'serious' in the eyes of the voter and then do secret deals.  It's clear that voters must confront  MPs seeking re-election and question them directly.  If in doubt, kick them out.

The aftermath of the MPs' expenses fiasco has been marked by headless chickens instigating reviews and inquiries:  Sir Thomas Legg; the Kelly Report; John Lyon.  No wonder the Met Police claim to be 'frustrated' in their own enquiries.

Over to Brown, Clegg & Cameron who have all said that the Kelly Report should be implemented in full yet allow this rotten state of affairs to continue.  Name all the MPs who have abused the system and let their constituents decide.

Cross-posted

Shameful Secret Repayments

No sympathy

Another 17 Conservative MPs are likely to step down at the next general election amid plunging morale at Westminster, according to Eric Pickles, the party chairman.

Thirteen Tory MPs announced their intention to quit in the aftermath of The Daily Telegraph's expenses disclosures , but Mr Pickles said that "in total we might be looking at 30-ish Conservative-held seats" becoming available.

A spate of resignations among long-serving members would leave the party still needing to select candidates in about 100 constituencies ahead of the election, which is expected next year.

David Cameron has been accused of using the expenses scandal to root out backbenchers sceptical of his modernising agenda. He has reopened candidate lists to people with no previous involvement in the party, in an effort to attract outside talent.

Mr Pickles predicted that more MPs – including many with clean expenses records – would choose not to contest their seats.

"Some colleagues have found the process of expenses very wearing and they're very demotivated. They might not have had any problems themselves at all, but maybe they're feeling it's just time to move on," he told The Guardian.


So they are down in the dumps.
Low moral.
Tired and weary.

So if you have done nothing wrong they why be low on the old moral scale??
Is it you have just not been fully exposed yet???

No smoke without fire.
Is it that we now know more. Is it the fact you actually do not like having to account for it all?
Is it you know the gravy train is stopping at the next station and you must get off?

Goodbye, dont let the door hit you on the way out.
No sympathy at all.

No sympathy

Clive Betts Nailed

This opportunistic, money-grabbing scuzz-bucket passionately promoted a change to the system of MPs' expenses in his own favour and then milked it for all it was worth.

In 2003 Betts was suspended from the Commons for 7 days [yes, a whole week off work] after it was revealed that his new 'research assistant' was a Brazilian rent boy more than 30 years his junior. The MP helped him with a doctored document for use in support of his visa application and applied for him to have a security pass. On those grounds alone, how on earth could this man have been re-elected as an MP (Lab, Sheffield Attercliffe)?

Type	2007/08 (ranking out of 645)	2006/07 (ranking out of 645)	2005/06	2004/05 (ranking out of 659)	2003/04 (ranking out of 658)	2002/03 (ranking out of 657)	2001/02 (ranking out of 657)
Additional Costs Allowance	£23,081 (joint 148th)	£22,110 (joint 1st)	£21,634	£20,902 (joint 1st)	£20,333 (joint 3rd)	£19,722 (joint 1st)	£15,609 (joint 275th)

His voting record:
Voted moderately against a transparent Parliament.
Voted strongly for introducing a smoking ban.
Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards.
Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals.
Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.
Voted strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws.
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war.
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident
Voted very strongly for the hunting ban.
Voted strongly for equal gay rights.
Voted moderately for laws to stop climate change.

The convoluted twists and turns of his troughing are here

Clive Betts Nailed

Have Common Purpose Taken Control Of MPs Expenses Investigation?

When Cressida Dick stood accused of losing control of the situation on the day Jean Charles de Menezes was killed, many of us we thought this would be last we would hear of her. The whole controversy surrounding that fateful day when the Met Police actively engaged in shoot-to-kill policing is still nothing less than a national disgrace.

The fact that no-one has been found guilty or accepted responsibility is just another indictment of just how sick and diseased the forces of the state in this country have become.

For not only has Cressida Dick, a supposed Common Purpose graduate, not disappeared off the scene as one would have expected in days of yore, she has in fact been promoted to the position of assistant commissioner of the Met Police and is now on a salary of £180,000 a year.

But even better than that is the fact that, as part of taking over the role of assistant commissioner, Cressida Dick is also now in charge of the investigation into the MPs expenses scandal. Yes, that's right, a former trainee of Common Purpose, the shadowy charity that exhorts it's members to 'lead beyond authority', will be in charge of investigating our political elite who have spent far too many years at the trough, living it up at our expense.

I for one do not condone the actions of the Keens and the Conways of this world, for what they did was quite clearly morally wrong, if not legally. But, I do feel there is more to the expenses story than we are currently aware, and that the politicians themselves have unwittingly become pawns in the masterplan to undermine democracy in our country, and our status as a sovereign independent country.

Put it like this, if Common Purpose are following a very exact plan as indicated elsewhere on the internet, then who better to have investigating our MPs than one of their own?

The pieces are all starting to fit, and it'll be interesting watching how the investigation by assistant commissioner Dick proceeds. I have a few predictions but nothing I'm willing to commit to just yet, but it's worth pointing to the prominent role she played in the arrest of Damian Green.

Have Common Purpose Taken Control Of MPs Expenses Investigation?