Tony Blair’s expenses shredded

[Upwind]

"It has now emerged that some of Blair?s files covering claims for Myrobella, his constituency home, were destroyed by Commons officials after they rejected The Sunday Times?s FOI request in January 2005 to see his claims for £43,029 of public money covering a three-year period.

Norman Baker, who has campaigned for more transparency in his fellow MPs? expenses, said: ?How convenient that some of Tony Blair?s expenses have been shredded. This is either incompetence or obstruction of the Freedom of Information Act and should be properly investigated.?

The shredding of the files has emerged in documents from the protracted legal battle over MPs? expenses. So far the efforts by the Commons authorities to block disclosure have run up legal bills likely to cost the taxpayer about £150,000.

Last week the Commons authorities failed in a High Court appeal to block the disclosure of the expenses of 14 MPs, including Blair and Margaret Beckett, the former foreign secretary. "

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3953909.ece

So will there be a police investigation?

Yes, I hope they arrest all politicians and get the army in to run the country. Then it will be perfect.

Not surprising really. IMO this should be passed to the Fraud Squad but that will not happen.

as a local council tax payer, I'd like to know why my bill has gone up since he left rather than down, now that there are no security concerns

as a council tax payer in his NEW constituency, I wish he'd live somewhere that didnt require 6 policemen to guard his house around the clock. Sigh.

OMG!
It says in that article that MPs expenses AVERAGE 136 000 pounds a year!

I had no idea they were so big

Not only that nighbynight ... those 136,000 are tax free!

I am just wondering what the highest ones are, if 136 000 is only the average.

I remember reading Norman Tebbit (ex airline pilot) saying that his family were never well off the whole time he was in the Commons.
Is this expenses gravy train a new thing, or did he just not take advantage? Presumably he did not have a moat to clear, anyway.

Being a politician is not well paid in contrast to the jobs these people would have if they had not chosen to go into politics. You have to have some perspective about this.

vittoria, there is a big difference between being the chairman of a company, and participating in the legislature of your country.

One is about making as much money as possible and the other is about.....

Yes, I do see that. The people in politics are no better or worse than other people however. I can see what is needed are better systems and more openness. But to make this a party policy issue is to take the debate into a meaningless direction. Its about human nature to me, and developing policies that guard against inevitable human foible. Condemnation only creates ripples but it doesn't address the flow or the fundamental undercurrent.

£136 includes the costs of staff, though (Commons staff, rather than servants). It's not just personal expenses that go into their back pockets. Although some MPs employ their wives and husbands.

Btw, am not defending all the claims that have emerged in the Telegraph, just explaining the £136 figure.

And it is appalling-but-not-surprising that Blair's expenses have been hidden.

Who believes corruption doesn't happenin Britain? I don't. Where ever there are people and lots of money, there will be some degree of corruption.

I am holding my judgement about all this until we can get to see all the data and the context. Knee jerk negative reactions just don't help, imho.

It seems to be a widely held opinion that I have come across often amongst british people.

That might just mean that lots of people have unrealistic expectations

Many of them have business interests outside the house of commons anyway.

It is the hypocrisy that annoys me, and the belief that corruption doesnt happen in Britain, only shoddy foreign places.

Our MPs and public servants are probably less corrupt than those in plenty of other nations, though. Doesn't excuse snouts in the trough but compare the UK to Italy, for instance...

They need to change the system. The expenses were supposed to relate to their work or be the mortgage interest/costs of a second home. Why they ever alowed £400 a month for food I just dont' know. I bet that was never checked with HMRC. If they say you can claim £400 a month for food and then people claim food it's not too culpable to do so.

Also it won't put people off becoming MPs if the expenses system is changed to be less lucrative because either people will join once they have made their fortunes or else they'll be very poor working class people for whom £60k is a king's ransom anyway being 3x the average wage. They will still get good people.

Or they will hang onto their second jobs, despite telling us how hard they work and what long hours they do.

nighbynight- agree- the hypocrisy is astounding.
But not remotely surprising.

edam, I am not so sure about the comparison with Italy. They are just more open about it in Italy!
ime, local govt corruption is appalling in the uk, and has never been properly exposed.