Dear All
When someone falls from grace in politics
it sometimes can be rather sad.
Someone who had everything and messed it
all up by their own hand, greed isn’t a particularly good trait to have in
politics.
Ex-Labour MP Denis MacShane has pleaded
guilty to false accounting over parliamentary expenses.
Like many Labour MPs before him, he went to
Court and during a hearing at the Old Bailey in London admitted false
accounting by putting in fake receipts for £12,900 of "research and
translation" services.
He should be looking at 18 months in
prison.
The former Europe minister used the money
to fund trips to the continent, I like Europe, who doesn’t but let us get
right, if you want to potter about the place; then use your salary.
After getting found guilty, sentencing was
adjourned until 19 December and he gets the traditional unconditional bail to
get his affairs in order.
Mr Justice Sweeney told MacShane, 65, that
"all sentencing options remain open".
What does that mean?
Well that is the polite way of saying; he
is fucked and looking at doing time!
The maximum sentence for false accounting
is seven years but it is doubtful he will get anywhere near that figure.
Denis MacShane was an MP for 18 years,
entering Parliament in a by-election in 1994; you would expect that he should
have known better, he was also a Government Minister that should have guaranteed
he should have known better.
For some MPs, expenses were treated like a ‘second
salary’ because the public wouldn’t stomach pay raises for MPs. An MPs salary
is pretty decent compared to ordinary people’s wages, and you can get expenses
as well.
If you have any doubt why it should be
prison; then remember he admitted filing 19 fraudulent invoices between January
2005 and January 2008.
Four MPs and two peers have been sent to
prison as a result of the expenses revelations from 2009.
It is a scandal that keeps on running; one
other interesting case was Labour MP Margaret Moran; she was given a
supervision order instead after suffering mental health problems.
Apparently we were paying expenses so she
could get shagged in Southampton by her partner.
I sometimes wish I worked in the Expenses Office
at Westminster, so I could have lively discussions with MPs on why they aren’t
getting some of their claims passed.
Personally MacShane deserves 3 years in prison
but he might get away with a lower sentence due to his age and the precedent that
no one has gone beyond 18 months.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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