Julie Kirkbride MP resigns saying she was just a working mother trying to make childcare work... Apparently

[TheDullWitch]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6374856.ece

Can't help feeling she is using the mum ticket so we forget about the ££££ in dodgy travel expenses and second home claiming etc.

That's why they have a second home allowance, Anna. On top of their salary.

MANY professions in which the majority of employees are women have terrible hours.

Healthcare, care work, some forms of retail, etc.

Plenty of female lawyers have 'deeply unsociable hours'. But their employer expects them to pay for their own childcare.

I don't see how a mother MP would be in a worse position than a father MP as regards childcare costs. Surely the whole unsociable hours thing only applies if the parent is either a single parent or if both parents are MPs.

If not, if the husband works at something different, then I can't see that the female MP is any worse off than a male MP whose wife works at something different. The partner who has the shorter hours will have to do more of the childcare, or they will have to pay for it. But how that is different if it's the female who happens to do the longer hours?

Anna, her and her husband were fidlling their expenses by each pretending that they each had different second homes.

No one is saying that they should not be helped with second homes, childcare, etc, in a fair and just way - but what they did was wrong in so many ways.

I am also a feminist but I'm not shedding any tears for JK and her ilk.

"I don't see how a mother MP would be in a worse position than a father MP as regards childcare costs. "

Because male MPs have wives who often give up careers to revolve around their husband or to work in the constituency. Jacqui Smith has this arrangement with her husband. But it is quite rare.

Mostly with MPs - as with the rest of marriages - it is the woman who gets dobbed with the childcare arranging.

anna, why would the husband have to give up work in order for a female mp to be able to do her job....there are many families wiht one parent away a lot, not all decide to go donw the one parent being sahp....those people have to pay for their own childcare arrangement, why shouldn't an MP?

'Mostly with MPs - as with the rest of marriages - it is the woman who gets dobbed with the childcare arranging. '

That's their lookout, not the taxpayer's.

not only does everyone else NOT get their childcare paid, I think I'm right in saying it's not even tax deductible, is that right? that's the way it was when I had a nanny

shameless cheek making this sort of claim, yes it's just to distract attention from everything else

she is plainly utterly, utterly shameless

Babybill's made a very important point - both Julie and her MP husband were on the take. Between them they were claiming second home allowances on BOTH their homes - so according to them they had no joint main home at all.

Very odd family if you ask me, each spouse allegedly living in a different house and an uncle doing the childcare (and apparently sharing the child's bedroom). An arrangement that only existed in order to milk the taxpayer.

Revolting woman.

Does anyone else think her husband always looks like he's wearing badly-applied mascara

She really hasn't helped her cause with her bleating. This isn't about feminism at all! it's about people screwing the system.

The real issue hanging over Julie Kirkbride isn't the brother as childcare thing (although she referred to him as providing it 'occasionally' which did make me wonder). It is, as others have said, that she and her husband were claiming a second home allowance for each of their homes. That's what has really got people angry surely? She and David Cameron pointed out that hers was in fact the more plausible claim, and perhaps she has been shafted due to her husband's dodgy claims, but I suppose public opinion is leaning towards collective responsibility on that one.

Well I think it's partly that TFM and partly the fact that she employed her sister as her secretary when she lives over 100 miles away and built a 50k extension so her brother could live in their house. And a load of computer equipment for him too.

The thing I find so staggering about all this is most of these MPs utter refusal to accept they've done anything wrong.

As someone else said some time ago, MPs are the first to come down on 'benefit scroungers' and yet they are scrounging to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pound, not hundreds.

Now, I can sort of buy the sister as secretary thing. Not sure it would pass the robust recruitment criteria, but it's pretty common, and well-documented, practice. The brother as childcare thing, well, as I said, I'd like to know just what I was paying for there. I write a large cheque out of earned and taxed income at the start of each month for our childcare too. So no, she's picking the wrong thing to complain about IMO.

Um, I have a big issue with the way this story has been reported.

JK had the extension built in 2008.
It cost £50k.

Those parts seem to be widely agreed.

Her mortgage was extended, adding either £250 or £500/month to what she could claim as expenses (I suspect it was £250 as interest, and £250 as capital she couldn't repay).

So far, the taxpayer has therefore funded something like 12-18 months for the extension, therefore (12x£250 or 18x£250). Call it £3750.

Now, you may think that's wrong, but why do all the headlines say that taxpayers have "paid" (PAST TENSE) £50k? They have NOT paid £50k for her extension.

F*ing sensationalist headlines.

This whole thing is going to backfire very badly. Only rich people are going to go into politics in the future on the back of it. That will be a great thing - Not.

urk, meant "capital she couldn't claim on expenses" in last post.

But if she had kept her seat until she had retired and this whole thing hadn't blown up then we would have paid wouldn't we?

indeed...they didn't bank (no pun intended) on being found out, they would have happily have the tax payer pay for it....

Yes, riven - out of taxed income, even if it takes the whole of one salary or near enough!! I think this is a total insult to the millions of working parents out there who don't get these perks and don't have this sort of standard of living.

llkjk, point is WE have been funding that £50k extension, as well as the rest of her mortgage. And she gets the benefit when she sells.

Haven't noticed anyone coming round and offering to pay for an extension on MY house. Or my childcare. Yet I'm supposed to pay for Julie's?

I actually think that the whole hounding of MPs for their expenses has got completely out of hand and, in the case of Julie Kirkbride, has got beyond ridiculous. How is any woman to be an MP when her DH is also fully employed in a job with dodgy hours unless her family helps out? And why shouldn't her family get paid for that help?
Quote from Anna

Anna, JK was elected to represent her constituents not fleece them

I have absolutely no objection to MP's having their childcare funded by the taxpayer.

As long as every other worker in the UK has the same access to the same quality of childcare.

She chose a relative to be her child's carer, because she considered that the most appropriate choice for her child.

Fair enough as long as she didn't expect the public to subsidise it.

I have my childcare subsidised by the taxpayer as well, in the form of child tax credits. I am required to select childcarers with certificates inspected by OFSTED, because that's what the government says is appropriate for my children. If I want someone more suitable, like a relative to look after them, who cannot or don't want to jump through OFSTED hoops, then I cannot claim CTC.

I don't see why Julie K and her children should be subject to different rules than me and my children.