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?

Oh yes, local government is ridiculous. And likely to get worse, now the local papers are shutting down and local TV news is disappearing.

June 4th.................

They played a system - some more than others - but it is deeply unrealistic to think any of us in that situation would have acted differently

They played a system - some more than others - but it is deeply unrealistic to think any of us in that situation would have acted differently

Hmmm. My knee jerk reaction is to say; double their wages and abolish all expenses/allowances, except travel expenses (for those who hold constituancies outside London and the Home Counties)

Vittoria on Sat 16-May-09 08:33:47 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.

Eh, really? Let's examine the evidence.

I selected an MP at random, 'Charlotte Atkins', MP for Staffordshire Morelands.

She received for 2007/08:

Additional Costs Allowance £23,083 (this is food, second home, etc.)
Incidental Expenses Provision £21,324 (this is pretty dubious, but is supposed to be expenses incurred doing the job)
Staffing Allowance £90,504 (she apparently employs four people. Are they related to here? Very common, and it's basically additional salary)
Communications Allowance £9,996 (this is used for party political propaganda)
Members' Travel £7,813 (normal people have to pay commuting costs)
Members' Staff Travel £1,536
Members' Spouse Travel £1,920 (eh?????)
Centrally Purchased Stationery £1,497
Stationery: Associated Postage Costs £5,501
Centrally Provided Computer Equipment £1,284

A total of £164,458, of which some tens of thousands are expenses that should come out of salary. Perhaps £50k? Which is £85k before tax. Add in £65k for being a junior MP (people with any responsibility get paid more) - an extra £13k to chair a Select Committee for instance.

And then there's the pension provision - they pay 10% for a 1/40th final salary scheme. This is ludicrously generous, and the government contributes an ADDITIONAL 28.7% of payroll to cover this.

And should anything go wrong, they will have to fork out even more. So the true cost is even higher. But as a base, say £19,000/year for the pension for a junior MP.

So we have a package of

£65,000 salary
£19,000 pension
in some cases over £100,000 of allowable expenses (including paying spouse)
and then there's the ridiculously cheap bar, subsidised food, and other facilities at the Commons.

Realistically an MP's package is close to £200,000 as a gross salary.

And what's her background:

Assistant community relations officer, Luton Community Relations Council
Research officer/head of research UCATT
Research/political officer, AUEW (TASS)
Press officer/parliamentary officer, COHSE/UNISON

So various union stuff. How much would she get doing that? £35k?

There are very very few MPs who would command that salary before entering Parliament (a few of the Tories are pretty loaded, like Alan Duncan, but they are not becoming an MP for the money).

The fact is that there's a massive queue to become an MP. They are therefore overpaid. There is no recruitment crisis.

It's no different to anything else. If you want to work as a journalist, you'll get about £16k to start off, because it's a popular and competitive career choice, so they have no reason to pay any more. Same applies for MPs. Cut their wages, cut their expenses, cut their numbers.

The money the Blair's would have been making as practicing briefs is way beyond that. It's not good selecting someone at 'random' - as I said you need context.

The system does need changing. All I am saying is it is unfair and unrealsitic to think politicians are a breed apart from us - and journos (the excesses of which really do need an expose). We are all nepotists, all look after our families and friends and loove pulling a freeby. That's human nature. Some people will and do have a grand time exploiting that to excess.

But you know, I want the best people, like the Blairs to go into politics. For them to forsake millions for hundreds of thousands. That is a choice very few of us have to make and the sums in discussion quite naturally make people on negligible incomes resentful. But that's not the issue either.

If we can get through the fake outrage that the press are drip feeding us day by day, keeping us constantly at defcon 2, in constant readiness for level 1, people might fidn themselves in a place where they can make reasoned judgements in the contexts that they occur in.

The money the Blair's would have been making as practicing briefs is way beyond that. It's not good selecting someone at 'random' - as I said you need context

Eh? Some MPs would struggle to earn £40k in the private sector, while some earn £400k.

That doesn't mean we need to pay them £400k! And as for 'the Blairs', Cherie wasn't an MP! And Tony was a career politician, because that what he loved.

I've worked with bankers on >£100k who've given it up to be a teacher. Their teacher's salary is just the same as anyone elses, and it's certainly not in six figures. They do it because they love the job (or the idea of it at least). Same with MPs.

Vittoria, but we come back to the same old point; if the money's the important thing, then they should be practising briefs or whatever they do that earns so much more than being an MP.

I really don't no how to respond to either of you. I am not making any of the points you seem to think I am

The image of the Blairs foresaking millions isn't really the picture I have of them.

If it wasn't for them being in public office, no one would buy Cherie's book, pay for his/her lecture circuits.

I don't think that public office was such a hardship for them.

Yes, MPs need adequate housing, living expenses, but it's a bit sickening that some are making a profit out of the public purse when my mil turns her heat off because she's paranoid about not being able to pay the bill.

Why do we have laws then leninG. It's to stop people exploiting others for their own gain. Yes fairness is a part of human nature, but so is competition. Those scales are not always on an equal balance and its actually the job of egalitarian politics to try to reach some kind of equilbrium - but that equilibruum is always at threat from 'free riders'.

I really don't see how saying people 'ought' to be fairminded and not explotative to any extent - and so create systems that can be exploited and - hey presto - are is the way to deal with this.

And also, it is just the worst kind of cynicism to assume the worst about Blair on the basis of this. Skepiticim gets closer to the truth becasue you are not clouded by your own idea of what you think the answer is.

And 43k for the PM over 3 years doesn't seem out of the ordianry to me