Caroline Spelman has paid her nanny out of her parliamentary allowance

[spicemonster]

Apparently while she and the tories are saying that actually she was doing parliamentary work for 30 hours a week and a bit of nannying on the side, the nanny has said that she was primarily a nanny who sometimes took the odd parliamentary phone call.

The whole bloody lot of them (all politicians I mean, whatever flavour) are corrupt expense fiddlers aren't they?

They don't, expat. There are shysters in parliament but it's neither true nor fair to say they are all on the take.

Very good point about contrasting attitudes to benefits fraud to MP's expenses though.

(I'm not an MP or married to an MP or anything, btw - just have known a few of them personally and professionally.)

Wotsisname ("I will keep on going on about the Belgrano until someone tells me the truth" but I can't remember his name) only draws the average wage, not his full MP's salary. Because he believes that MP's ought to experience life as their average constituent does.

But that sort are few and far between. We can all name them, they stand out from the crowd. Precisely because they are so unusual.

I was going to say exactly the same edam as I also know some MPs peronally.

do they all take the crackin' pension they're 'entitled' to, i wonder?

whilst the rest of us will work till we drop because we were taxed too much when the cost of living was so high there was no money to save at the end of the month?

Bob Marshall Andrews, for instance - I'd be willing to be a substantial sum of money that it'd be a cold day in hell before he fleeced the general public.

Yes I like old Bob. But again, he stands out from the crowd precisely because he's so unusual. An MP with a brain, a conscience and a sense of duty to his constituents before his career.

Unfortunately, he's retiring at the next election. And his seat is a marginal, I can see it going Tory next time.

She's not the only one though, on the Labour side Barbara Follett was expense accounting her window cleaner fees.

You can't get much more marginal than one vote, on a recount, after the sitting MP has already accepted defeat!

MPs who abuse the system should be shot at dawn, obviously. And the system has to be reformed to make it clear what the rules are - ridiculous to have a system that allows people to get up to all these sort of games within the bloody rules.

I'd like to see some serious reform of the European parliament too, bet they are costing us MUCH more. One of the ones who has been found out put 3/4 of a million quid through his family company! Problem with Europe is it is completely unaccountable - their auditors have refused to sign off the accounts for years and years but nothing is ever done.

But expat it is a fact of life that some people earn more money than others, that does not make them corrupt.

I earn an above average wage and as a teacher have quite a good salary, I don;t need to work in my old age etc. That does not mean I am corrupt.

As someone who may go into politics when I am older I am not doing it to fleece the taxpayer but to make a difference.

But MP's who fiddle their expenses and set their own wages are corrupt.

And the expenses system is set up in such a way, that they don't even have to be officially corrupt to be corrupt. Corruption is just built into the system, so that British MP's can congratulate themselves as we have one of the least corrupt systems in the world.

Of course we do, if the rules allow them to rob us.

Caroline Spelman's nanny was a secretary like my DD (6) is my secretary. She too answers the phone if I don't get to it first and tells me who called that day.

I am not excusing currupt mps but just saying it is not fair to say they are all like that.

So has crooked Caroline resigned yet?

dunno -isn't she up before whichever committee in parliamnet it is that deals with this kind of procedure issue? she sounded pretty unrepentant on radio this morning although they were saying if the committee finds against her DC will make her resign her post as chairman.

Interesting comment in The Times today about this. Some good points made I think.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article4092159.ece

Good points about the inequitites of the rules BUT the rules are the rules and Spellman broke them while the others did not (although David Cameron over claimed for his mortgage but it is not in the media's interests to knock him right now).

We do not get out of breaking the law because it is a silly law. Similarly Spellman should not get out of breaking the rules because they are silly rules.

I hate Tories but I think this is unfair.

MPs have to pay for their own office, office staff, stationery even. That's why they get such apparently large "expenses" allowances - because they don't even get free paper. They have to buy it themselves. Employees typically are not expected to buy their own stationery but MPs are.

Spelman's nanny has now said that she was doing so many hours a week of proper secretarial work. I don't know whether that's true or not but the point is, she wasn't being paid for childcare.

I know you'll all hate to hear this but MPs work harder than all of us put together. And on the whole they are not corrupt. (I know several, used to work for one, have another as a friend who worked 60-80 hours a week during the period of time in which she had her kidney removed). Seriously.

They are doing themselves no favours by arguing to keep expenses private but the truth is, it's a much, much harder job than any of us have to do. No free evenings. No free weekends, endless surgeries with constituents, endless travel unless you are a London MP, thankless work.

A lot of sense in that Libby Purves piece. Blairs fiddling on the remortgage of his home in Trimdon is a shocking abuse (not that I should be surprised). Rules are rules though.

Blair did not fiddle the remortgage. The house had risen in value. That is the way remortaging works.

I do not agree with the rules but the other examples in the article are all within the rules, it is not for Spellman to unilaterally disregard the rules even if they are very much in need of review.

MPs are not employees, so it's no surprise they have to buy paper. So do I, as a freelance, and I don't get a cushy pension scheme, or unlimited expenses, or free first class train travel or any of the other 1001 benefits MPs get.

They are not all corrupt but neither are they hard done by.

Thinking of it, do you mean buying paper for their constituency offices? Because HoC paper is, presumably, free?

It was ten years ago though. And she did stop when told to. I am more bothered by Tony Blair taking out a 90K mortgage on a 30K house so he could buy a millionaire's pad in Mayfair, while we paid the mortgage interest for him. And for paying for his sodding expensive kitchen etc, for Margaret Beckett's £6K rockery, and for Peter Mandelson's £3K shower! the ritziest shower in all of Hartlepool, I imagine. None of those things are remotely required to do their job as MP. At least helping to run the house, look after kids and take phone calls and sort paperwork is vital for an MP to do their job.

ie I agree with Libby Purves.

the rules.. it is just an outrage!

The whole system is endemically corrupted. It is a fxxcking disgrace that in this day an age members of parlament gang up to keep this unfair privilieges, have the most geneous pensions and we are told that we have to do everything by the book.

MORE TRANSPARENCY IN EXPENSES!

I feel ashamed to be British and have those bunch of morally corrupted members of parlament milking it up big time.
What an example to society!!!

"Prime Minister made us pay the mortgage interest on £90,000. He borrowed it against a house which - Mrs Blair writes - only cost them £30,000, plus the same again to do it up. Is that a legitimate expense? Did Blair need to spend that money in order to have a billet in his constituency? No. It was bunce. The loan - whose interest we paid - went to fund his future property in Connaught Square."

Within the rules? Yes. Slippery? Certainly.