In my opinion there is very little defence for some of these MPs. Sure there are some that perhaps just claimed a little too much now and again, who have ended up having to pay back a two figure or three figure sum, (I think Lembit Opik was one of them..) but some of them totally took the piss, and I certainly donât buy this âthey were actually just acting within the rulesâ type of comment. Maybe some of them were,, but some of them most certainly were not... As dirtyprettything said, maybe it was the system at fault and things should have been checked more stringently than they were, but nobody can convince me that someone claiming thousands of pounds for a house for their ducks, or to clean out their moat, was just âacting within the rules,; or that those were justifiable expenses.â They know damn well that there is no WAY that they should be claiming for something like this, and there is no justification for the things they claimed for. And who on earth passed these expenses through anyway?!
In addition, several MPs, âemployedâ family members, often who lived with them (wife/daughter) as a âsecretaryâ or an 'assistant, 'and paid them 10s of 1000s of pounds salary that just went straight into their family pot of money. (In fact there is a rule now that they are not even allowed to employ family members!) Then some of them were doing shopping, raking in loads of petrol expenses (not just for themselves, but for their wife/husband and other family members,) and even claiming for rent for homes they werenât even living in. Also, there were stories released of people who were claiming for rent on properties that they OWNED, as well as for the property that they rented in London, and a I heard a couple of cases of them claiming for properties that one of their family members owned.
And also some of them were buying furniture for their âactualâ homes (not the rented one in London,) and having new carpets and getting the place decorated and all sorts: all on the expenses! Tell me how any of that are âjustifiable expenses?!â And how is this simply 'acting within the rules?' They are only supposed to claim essential expenses (rent for the place in London if they live too far away to commute daily, and petrol/vehicle expenses.) Yet, some of them took the piss, and they did it royally, and they got caught out. And the ones that really went to town (and in my opinion knew EXACTLY what they were doing: ) I hope they throw the book at them.
What pisses me off is the arrogance of some of them who think they had every right to do what they did and believe that they have actually done nothing wrong! They are that arrogant! As I mentioned earlier, if it had been us mere mortals who did something like that, we would have probably have been up in court and jailed. I know damn well if I claimed money from work for my food shopping, and clothes and paint and carpets for my home, I would get the bloody sack and probably be charged with theft and fraud! Why should these shysters be treated any differently?!
If someone gets done for âfalsely claiming beneiftsâ whether itâs dole or incapacity or whatever, they are demonised in the papers, and taken to court for theft and fraud and sometimes go to prison, so I canât think of one single reason why the worst offenders in this MP expenses scandal should not receive the same treatment.
Sure, not all of them are complete scumbags, and there were some who just pushed it a bit, and frankly, I wouldnât have a problem with someone buying a loaf of bread and a lightbulb out of their expenses, (which happened with one or two of them,) but when itâs running into tens of thousands a year, and they are completely scamming the whole system, then I definitely donât accept that theyâre simply âacting within the rules. â