Dear All
The Westminster expenses scandal done a tremendous amount of
damage to the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
A few people got put in prison, sacrificed to the baying mob
of public discontent.
We had a new regulator, and the promise of higher standards.
So, what does the Maria Millar scandal say?
It says that if you are a government minister and get caught
fleecing the taxpayer of tens of thousands of pounds, you get a slap on the
wrist and pay a small portion of the money you fleeced back.
Maria Millar has no business being a Minister of the Crown;
David Cameron should rcognise that her position is untenable and he should
publicly sack her.
Not let her resign, sack her.
In order to try and generate sympathy Ms. Millar has
gallantly said she expects to pay thousands of pounds in capital gains tax
after making a £1.2 million profit on a home.
Part-funded by the taxpayer, the cross-party Commons
Standards Committee has also ordered that she pay back £5,800 in over claimed
mortgage expenses and say ‘sorry’.
In my opinion, fuck ‘sorry’, she should be paying the other
£40,000 back that an independent report recommend and still sacked.
Her aides said she would not seek to dodge a bill.
How mighty big of her!
As to how ‘sorry’ Maria Millar is, that ran to a miserable 32-second
apology on the floor of the House.
32 seconds, if you blew your nose while it happened you
would have missed the bulk of it.
David Cameron in an extraordinary display of weak leadership
defended Millar insisting she was doing a "good job", good job when
not fleecing the taxpayer for tens of thousands?
Cameron also said he was "very open" to looking at
ways of improving the policing system for MPs.
If it wasn’t so serious, you could laugh, but the wider
point is that this episode erodes trust, doing nothing, erodes trust, and the
cross party lip service committee is unfit for purpose.
Miller bought the property in Wimbledon for £234,000 in
1996; she sold it for £1.5 million.
Parliamentary standards commissioner Kathryn Hudson says
that Millar should have designated it as her primary residence, and received
expenses in her Basingstoke constituency.
Labour has made a formal complaint to Kevin Barron, chairman
of the standards committee, about the way Tory MP Mrs Miller apologised for
failing to cooperate fully with Ms Hudson's investigation.
Whether that goes anywhere remains to be seen, but it looks
like politics rather than any real decision to not tolerate this kind of
behaviour.
Labour MP John Mann, whose complaint sparked the
commissioner's investigation into Mrs Miller's claims, said the Standards
Committee had "no credibility whatsoever".
He said:
"The general public is pretty much unanimous, if not
totally unanimous, that MPs should not sit in judgment on themselves. I totally
agree. The longer Parliament delays sorting this out, the worse it is for our
democracy and the institution of Parliament. Having the committee overrule the
independent commissioner means this committee has no credibility whatsoever.
Its power to sit in judgment over fellow MPs should now be removed. The sooner
the penny drops, the better."
£40,000’s worth.
Mann rightly said:
"The question I'm getting all the time is 'what has
happened to honour in British politics?'"
Well, politics is ruled by a career class political group in
the main, they have no concept of honour.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve told BBC Radio 4's The World
At One:
"I can't answer on Maria Miller's behalf. The Prime
Minister has explained his position and I don't think I have anything to add”.
So much for the Attorney General!
Although Cameron is backing Maria Millar, she wouldn’t have
the public’s support and come the general election in 2015, the people in her
area should get another MP, quoite simply, she has to go!
No one has a problem with legitimate expenses being claimed,
the problem is people who set themselves above the rules.
The offshoot of the last major Westminster expenses scandal
was the installation of the SNP in Holyrood, if Cameron doesn’t act and remove
Millar, he could witness the installation of Ukip as a force.
Something to think about, how does 'call me Dave' fancy a coalition government with Ukip?
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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