Why we have called the police in to investigate MPs’ expenses
May 2009 14

Why we have called the police in to investigate MPs’ expenses70

Following the latest – and most shocking – revelations in the MPs’ expenses saga, regarding Elliot Morley’s claims for a mortgage that had already been paid off, the TaxPayers’ Alliance have registered a formal complaint with the Metropolitan Police today. We have asked them to investigate whether Mr Morley is in breach of any laws, including the Fraud Act 2006.

After a little bit of confusion on the part of the police, who tried to suggest we should “complain to our MP”, they have registered our call with an Incident Number (CAD2149) and apparently police officers will be meeting with Parliamentary Officials today. We should hear more later this afternoon.

This is a serious step to take, but these are extremely serious allegations. The reports about Mr Morley’s sustained claims for a mortgage that he was no longer paying for take the issue out of the realms of greed, absurdity or flawed rules and into the question of the criminal law. Of course, anyone is innocent until proven guilty but there must be a full and proper police investigation of this matter to determine whether taxpayers have been defrauded.

As well as an investigation into Mr Morley, full transparency on all MPs’ expenses claims must occur immediately. It is essential to accountability that the taxpayers and voters of the land should be able to scrutinise these 1.2 million receipts and invoices for themselves. That process is also essential to identify which MPs have done nothing wrong, and which others should be facing criticism or even investigation like Morley.

Crucially, one of the many public services performed by the Telegraph over the last few days has been to demonstrate how essential it is that when MPs’ expenses are published the details revealed must include second home addresses. The Commons Commission’s planned release in July would not have featured that information, and so without the Telegraph’s leak we would never have found out about scams like house flipping, or Margaret Moran’s dodgy claims.

To that end, the TPA has teamed up with Freedom of Information campaigner Heather Brooke to launch an online petition demanding full and immediate publication of all expenses details.

If the Police do not investigate Mr Morley, or any other MPs who appear to have broken the law, or if the Crown Prosecution Service is not willing to take the cases on, then the TaxPayers’ Alliance will consider bringing a private prosecution. This is too serious an issue to ignore, and it is too harmful to our democracy to pretend that it can all be dispelled by waving apology cheques or claiming lapses of memory. If any of Mr Morley’s constituents behaved as he has with their employer’s money or with the taxman, they would be in extremely hot water – those same rules must apply to MPs.

Sign the petition for full transparency on MPs’ expenses here.

- Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive, TaxPayers’ Alliance

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  • Herbert

    The Alliance would be doing us all a service, and would certainly carry more weight than we would as individuals, if it reported every case as a possible crime. I am afraid that one or two scapegoats will be thrown to the wolves while the rest walk off.

  • renee

    No-one is innocent until proven guilty anymore. The police can arrest him without charge and detain him if they so wish.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0115708760e4970b mugclass

    I’ve already rung Elliot Morley’s office to ask why I they might expect me to vote for someone who has committed fraud. We’ve reached the stage where the public need to see MPs treated on an equal footing with the rest of us. If I’d done this at work they would have called the police, and rightly so. Paying money back is not the solution and the TPA should be encouraged to pursue these crooks.
    An additional issue is the employment of spouses, children and other relatives, without advertisement or interview, in what are effectively public sector, taxpayer funded posts. My MP employs her husband as a `press and media adviser’ at a salary of something like £40k (she refused to say the exact figure). I queried this as I thought it should be a post open to the public, but was basically told to `bugger off’!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f91759b970c minimiller

    Thank you so much.I wrote to Mr Brown and asked him to sack and prosecute the benefit- sorry expense fiddlers& cheats, tax evaders ect, ect,ect.
    As you say scamming/robbing the tax payer, what ever it is called expense, benefits, allowances is not acceptable and it DOES threaten democracy and law and order. ie why should we abide by the laws of the land if the makers of the law dont.
    Can we cheat the benefit system then say sorry. Can we claim housing benefit for a place our cousin lives in. Yes we can as long as we are ready to take the consequencies (whether we say sorry or not, and wave a cheque).court, fines, prison, arrested, loss of job ect.
    As i say thank you so much. I do hope the queen gets my letter and saves us all from hearing any more of the sorries and bandishes them all to the dole que where they can claim benefits all they like.

  • Alan Brown

    Given the MP expenses horror stories uncovered at Westminster it must now be imperative to force the main parties to fully publish the expenses of their MEP’s ahead of the European elections in June. At least then the electorate can punish those who have taken us for a very expensive ride.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f91759b970c minimiller

    Thank you so much, now we can all breath a sigh of relief. Someone is going to take out criminal proceedings, it should have been Brown and Cameron. The two men who hold the highest office.
    Fraud, tax evasion, misappropriation of public funds, ect, ect, ect. Thank you for our children and our children children.

  • DR MCPARLIN

    I would be grateful if you could extend your police complaint to all the MPS who have filled-one by one
    2error of judgement2
    “mistakes2 malarky etc etc

  • Heather Reed

    Has anybody realised that we are still being conned by MPs. They may be paying back the expenses but what about the INTEREST from when they were paid?
    If we are to go back 4 years (though personally I would prefer it from when they became an MP) this amounts to quite a substantial sum
    Apart from the taxpayer – know anybody else who lends money interest free??

  • http://www.robertbluffield.co.uk Heath Row

    High time for a total reform and a radical change in the way this country is run. Maybe these scumbags will not be re-elected and will allow for the normal citizen to have a greater say over how this country is operated.
    The MPs fail to act on our behalf and there is a growing belief that the police are being used as an instrument of the government and not for the public good.
    I wrote to Straw in January, and again in April over serious issues concerning the activities of the banks and debt collection agencies. I also wrote to his constituency office and the Ministry of Justice but I have never even had an acknowledgement from any of them. It is now with my Conservative MP to see if he follows it up but I doubt it.

  • Charles

    The first commenter is absolutely correct.
    Unless every single one of the alleged thieves is formally reported to the police then most will walk away from this.
    PLEASE PLEASE do it.

  • Jonathan Beavon

    With regards to the fact that we’re still being conned…it’s actually worse than you imagine. Whilst they are handing over cheques to the Inland Revenue to repay the amounts, as those amounts were all within the laws for MPs, the Inland Revenue will NOT be able to cash those cheques. They will all get sent back to the MPs, who won’t have paid a penny back at all.
    Its all a big show to make us think they’re paying these amounts back, when actually, they are not at all!

  • Sarah

    I gather that it is a criminal offence to make a claim and receive money for it while knowing that is is illegal/against the rules to do so
    Gordon Brown made a claim for children’s blinds which was turned down by the fees’ office. He then submitted another claim for the same items but changed the description to Noah blinds. It may only be a small amount [£108?] but it was done knowingly and with complete disregard and contempt for the law. This was not a ‘mistake’.
    Who is going to make a complaint against him?

  • Ken Hall

    Quod ad jus naturale attinet, omnes homines aequales sunt.
    That is the legal maxim for all men are created equal before natural law.
    There is no exception for MPs.

  • Susan Bayley

    Thank you for your attempts to have Mr. Morley’s allowances investigated. I have been wondering how, as an increasingly disenfranchised member of the tax paying public, I can hold someone to account for the debasement of our Parliamentary system.
    Having read The Telegraph (online) it appears that the property is likely never to have been worth enough to support a mortgage with interest at £800/month as claimed; and since when does a mortgage holder have trouble in getting a statement or agreement papers from the company involved. The Land Registry, although not recording the price paid for property until relatively very recently, will have documents they can release that will help prove what mortgage was set up when and who with. There will also be Transfer documents filed. This is the very least that any investigation should attempt.
    Please continue to push for the investigaton as hard as you can, as I feel the ordinary public do have to rely on bodies such as yours for help.
    Susan Bayley

  • simon

    Brown, Smith and Labour were only to keen to point out no MP is above the law in relation to the Damian Green affair. Congratulations for taking action TPA because we know we cannot rely on the Met for that unless Jackie gives them the go ahead…

  • a hartley

    It’s time for heads to roll to restore the voting publics confidence in any future government, OK it may disrupt parliment but what sort of state is it in at the moment with all this lying and cheating going on, the whole country is sickend by what is being disclosed.

  • Hugh

    With only three weeks to the European elections I fear that these revelations have also had the unfortunate effect of distracting everyone from the equally, if not more, corrupt behaviour in Brussels.

  • Brian E.

    Some 40 years ago, when I was in the Civil Service, engineers of my grade were allowed first class travel on business. It was discovered that a few had been travelling second class and claiming first class thus pocketing a small amount. We were all told in no uncertain terms that this was fraud, if we were caught we would be fired and the matter would be referred to the police.
    So one law for the employers, and another for their employees!

  • iain rogers

    if they do manage to wriggle out of the more obvious charges of theft and fraud -lets face it they probably will – lets do em for ‘misconduct in a public office’ -someone should be doing time for this – it’s disgusting

  • http://jailhouselawyersblog.blogspot.com jailhouselawyer

    Of course Elliot Morley has committed a criminal offence. I note his pathetic excuses that it was a mistake and down to sloppy accounting. I also note that he has referred his case to the sleaze watchdog to state that there was no intent to deceive.
    A mistake is an unintentional act.
    To claim over £16,000 of taxpayers money on the basis of reimbursement for money which he is well aware he did not spend because the mortgage loan had already been paid off, discloses the necessary intent for theft.

  • Tony

    Absolutely right!
    This case with Elliot is the first one that oversteps the line between greed and criminal behaviour. Who does this idiot think he is fooling when says that he didn’t realise.
    How many people don’t realise that they have just paid off their mortgage?

  • Stephanie Campbell

    Why is everyone so surprised at the recent revelations? It’s called politics and is present everywhere you look, at home and abroad. If people think the dictatorship in Britain is behaving badly, they should take a look at the p…takers in Brussels!

  • Hardeep Singh

    This is a brillant little train of comments forming and I’d dearly love to add my name to the other posters who’ve expressed disgust at MP’s behaviour.
    They deserve it and don’t forget this is the New Labour culture of politics, take whatever you like, do whatever you wish and there’s nothing to pay back nor any accountability.
    They give Marie Antoinette a bad name! “Apology cheques” are for fools we can see right through you. However it’s also very telling how the public are outraged by this sorry episode and yet if they were to learn even a fraction of the utter wastage and abuse that goes on in our country they’d be a near riot.

  • http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/05/we-have-called-the-police-in-to-investigate-mps-expenses.html caz

    As individuals we don’t have a voice, so thank you to TPA for raising a complaint to the police. All MP’s who have ‘mistakenly’ claimed what is clearly not’ wholly, necessarily and exclusively’ necessary to do their jobs should similarly face an investigation by the police. They hold themselves up as role models but it’s obvious they are only really interested in lining their own pockets at the taxpayers expense. I think the government should be dissolved and a general election held at the earliest possible opportunity as the current incumbents have lost our confidence. We can then vote for those MP’s who haven’t abused the system and vote in some new fresh blood – on the clear understanding there is no longer any ‘get rich quick expenses’ on offer.

  • reynart

    I have read the statement from Elliot Morley and I find it completely incomprehensible – it is just not written in plain English. I think this is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth and I would welcome a prosecution to get to the bottom of this. A suspension is not enough.

  • akibitzer

    When will Jack Straw be reported to the police. He claimed twice as much expense (Council Tax) as incurred – not once but several years in a row.
    His repayment of the over-claimed amount (when he discovered the details would be coming out) should not make him innocent of fraud.

  • Nick

    The real problem is going to be where are you going to find a jury that doesn’t contain one of his victims.
    Nick

  • Graeme Pirie

    Good start! Let’s see what if anything our police force do about it!
    I’d like to see Brown on the list as well. We already supply fim with a free second home (and have done for the last 11 years). Isn’t it therefore a crime that he claims £17K a year in “second home” expenses? I also believr the cleaning he claimed for was for his wifes flat – not his own.
    This is even worse than those who claim the maximum – but actually need some accomodation!
    So much for the son of the manse..

  • gildedtumbril

    There is another fiddle which I have suspected for many years. I think we all know that Mps enjoy subsidised booze and baccy at our expense, year round.
    It is my suspicion that the turnover of Alcohol,Cigarette, and Cigar and fine wine at Christmas far exceeds what could be reasonably expected to be consumed on the premises. This would indicate ‘crates in the boot’. It would surely be immoral for such heavily, indeed I would say grossly subsidised goods to leave the house. Under the FOI provisions a disproportionate increase would immediately be apparent.
    The trouble is people spend their lives not thinking. If you can imagine a fiddle, those bastards have been doing it.Good luck

  • Steve Robson

    Remember that the TPA staff all went to the same schools as the Tories now cleaning their moats on expenses.

  • Charlie

    An MP earns £63K. An allowance of £23K , which if it was taxed at 40% would have equivalent salary of £38K. If the MP pays £40K to the spouse , then the total income equivalent is 63+40+38=£141K

  • Mrs Trellis (North Wales)

    The gibbet beckons . . . . . .

  • djh

    One obvious candidate for investigation that seems to have ‘slithered’ his way out of the limelight is JACK STRAW…
    This slimy weasel claimed for Council Tax he never paid…..
    THAT, MY FRIENDS IS FRAUD.
    Come on TPA go after another ‘greaseball’, the more that can be rounded up and sent off to prison the better.
    The UK will be a far better place without them.

  • Donald Wright

    I am considering starting an online petition for the police to be called upon to investigate the whole of the expenses issue. It is clear from the reportage and other evidence that deliberate abuses (not ‘oversights’) have taken place. It’s not enough that politicians plead ignorance or apologise when they’ve been found out. In any other place of employment sackings and police action would inevitably follow. This is a criminal matter and MUST be dealt with as such. ‘Flipping’ for example, is fraud (under the terms of the 2006 Act). Politicians can’t be trusted to police themselves, after all they largely set up the system in the first place. An online petition would show the weight of public opinion for a full criminal investigation. Let’s have this fully aired, with no token sacrificial lambs while the rest continue to pilfer the public purse!

  • JMee

    When will Tony Blairs expense claims be viewed and Mr Mandleson will also need to be considered.

  • Mark Johnson

    Poor Mr Morley, after his solicitor had notified him that the deeds to the property were available after the mortgage was paid off he must have suffered amnesia. After all physically submitting claims for £800 per month for 16 months must obviously mean the poor man forgot. It’s pure coincidence that he overcame this illness and remembered when the Telegraph was about to break the story.

  • John Murphy

    I am not an avid newspaper reader, nor am I involved in any way with any newspaper. However I would like to say that for once I am proud of the job currently being done by the Telegraph and the Sunday Times. In my view this is exactly what newspapers should be doing. They are in the position to act as the taxpayer’s eyes and ears and blow the whistle on ALL this type of dispicable behaviour.
    Now let’s see the police doing a similar “good job” by investigating ALL of these potential attempts to embezzle the taxpayer.

  • Granma Wuffles

    As someone over on Guido Fawkes pointed out, Bliar’s expenses were accidentally shredded but there should be a trail so as to clarify he was pure as the driven snow. Leave no stone unturned Dearies and Godspeed.

  • e. ashcroft

    Is anyone checking whether claims which were made and paid actually resulted in the work being carried out eg. £22500 for dry rot in Southampton by ms moran

  • Derek, Bridport

    The piece-meal responses of Cameron and Brown to this massive scandal are woefully inadequate to assuage public anger.
    We the people demand and deserve nothing less than a disolution of this corrupt and dis-honest Parliament.
    MPs must face the Court of Public Opinion. Any wishing to continue in office will need to present themselves to voters, who will have the all facts of the expenses claims before them.

  • John Murphy

    As taxpayers let’s not get deflected from the real subject by playing party politics. It makes no difference what party they come from, a thief is still a thief and should be subject to prosecution.
    This is just the tip of the iceberg and so long as public servants surround themselves with smoke and mirrors as they have been doing, there will be abuses of privilege.
    Good job T P A let’s flush out the thieves from public life wherever they are; Commons, Lords, Buck House or indeed Brussels. Its time we returned control of this country to the people, if we have to pay the piper for the banks stupidity and the politicians corruption then we should very definitely call the tunes. Public servants are what the name suggests; they are our employees who are entrusted to act on our behalf with honour and honesty. Is this what has been happening??

  • bertie bassett

    Thanks to TPA for taking the action in respect of Elliott Ness sorry Morley (well I guess he though he was untouchable)
    Given that lots of us scrimp and save with the motivation to pay off a mortgage, no doubt on the day it happens we’d crack open a bottle of champagne.
    How this fraudster can claim to have been unaware that he was claiming for a mortgage that had been repaid I have no idea.
    Put it to the courts!

  • Joe Public

    By his actions in repeatedly delaying publication of expenses claims, Speaker Martin was, by implication either part of the conspiracy, or, strongly suspected the abuse. He is directly responsible for this ensuing constitutional chaos.

  • L B

    Elements of criminal offences Theft / Fraud are clearly made out in respect of Morley and nothing less that a criminal investigation is appropriate.

  • T Bootyman

    Please please do not stop at Mr Morley. Please bring prosecutions against any of the MPs who are demonstrable thieves.
    Is there fund ala “Private EYE” to which we can contribute?
    Is there website where we can check the claims of our own local MP?
    Thank you, Thank you!

  • Lemmy

    What about Cameron’s expenses? He claims some of the biggest expenses out of all of them.

  • Tim Kyle

    These people(MPS) say they are running the country and they can’t even do basic sums and accounting!! It’s no wonder the country is bust financially. What a shower of incompetents.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p01156f860d4f970c takingthemichael

    Well Done Tax Payers Alliance, you seem to be one of the few organisations that are bold enough to seek justice on behalf of taxpayers.
    Many ordinary tax payers work hard for their income, some struggle but still carry on trying to earn an honest living.
    To witness this staggering betrayal from the ‘Honourable’ ministers in Westminster beggars belief.
    I agree with some of the contributers that the Crown Prosecution Service will not take our case up; that the system is skewed against transparancy and accountabilty.
    I fear right wing parties such as the BNP will benefit from this fiasco, that our once proud democratic system is now the laughing stock of Europe, we look like a bunch of gulliable of fools.
    ‘this little piggy went to Harrods
    this little piggy had three homes
    this little piggy bought a helipad
    and this little piggy cleaned his moat
    and this little piggy went to his home in a plush gentlemens club in London!’

  • Alex Wright

    I sincerely hope the police actually do something, and the Director of Public Prosecutions (who is linked to the government) and Attornety-General (as a government minister) are not hopelessly compromised.
    Otherwise I wish you every success in the very hard, expensive process of a private prosecution, and suggest a fund is set up to contribute to legal fees.
    I think there is also a broadly defined common law offence of “misconduct in public office” that should also be considered as a charge against many MPs if they weasle there way out of a fraud charge.

  • Steve Crowe

    My Aunty Grace – 73 year old resident of Salford – is seriously thinking about setting up a protest ‘Tent Camp’ outside Hazel Blears’ home. She lives a couple of streets away (for clarity, I understand that this is her primary residence, not one of the many ‘flipped’ properties that she’s been troughing on). This demonstrates the sense of disgust felt by many of the ‘ordinary’ people that Blears is so fond of talking about. She’s a disgrace.

  • Jim

    AS Steve Robson (above) alluded to, what about the bigger scandal of the nepotism (complete con) of MPs ‘employing’ their on family to ‘work’ for them.
    That practice should be banned outright, and ONLY jobseekers sourced OPENLY through the MP’s local job centre and independendtly selected for interview by virtue of qualification should be able to access public money. MP’s Family members should be legally excluded.
    These recent small fry confessions are hiding the bigger scams, that they hope will not be discovered, and Margaret Beckett was clearly panicing when she mentioned on Question Time that MP’s were concerned that their Staff Details had also been stolen and sold to the Telegraph.
    Well if those staff details are of MP’s family members that is good news(and that is why they are concerned) and perhaps we will now find out from the Telegraph who is employing whom and at what cost.
    This SPIN that no Rules have been broken is a complete fabrication, and on hearing these rules on TV tonight, there are good grounds for prosecution of those MP’s breaking them.

  • H. Sorrell

    Gordon Brown is also in line for prosecution, flipping between his home in Scotland and his flat in London to enable him to claim a new kitchen for each.
    That is fraud and he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He did not meet the requirement that the expenses should be expended wholly necessarily and exclusively to enable him to perform his parliamentary duties. He is a politician, not a cook. A residential kitchen (actually 2 of them, hundreds of miles apart) has nothing to do with his parliamentary duties.

  • david warner

    i do hope for everybody that lives in this country you get a succsefull proscation for all mps on the fiddle

  • Matthew Bingham

    For such a supposedly clever bunch of people, (some of them, apparently, so bright that they could earn up to 65,000 smackers per day should they so choose) telling the rest of us what we should and should not do, they’ve made an unbelievable number of collective “mistakes”, “oversights” and “misunderstandings”.
    What? Who are they kidding? That’s what gets my goat – not the petty, and no-so-petty fiddling, but the lame pathetic excuses they trot out now they’ve been caught with their hands in the till.
    Do they think we’re stupid? Obviously.

  • Roger

    Some MPs made a capital gain on purchasing property funded bt the Taxpayer, so why do they not return the full amount of that gain, not just the tax on it?

  • John Stevens

    As a retired Police officer I emailed the BBC and The Daily Mail over a week ago stating that I could not believe that no complaint had been made, false accounting springs to mind, obtaining property (cash is property)by deception, I could go on and on the problem I for see is that over 500 MP’s being interviewed, solicitors etc will make a fortune, as they are friends of MP’s, solicitors,I assure you pee in the same pot! They will get the nod and things will not get investigated properly because the whole thing is TOO big. To many insiders to many individuals knowing each other, there will be no independence in the enquiries. HMRC should be looking into the tax returns of all MP’s I think a simple cross reference between those and the expense forms submitted will throw up so much evidence for anyone to see.

  • Call me Dave

    MP’s need to wake up and now. Prosecutions must proceed. Those guilty of “flipping” should be prosecuted. Those guilty of making ANY personal financial gain through expenses need to pay the full amount. Not only the capital gains tax they avoided paying before being found out but the full profit made by selling property funded through expenses.
    I NEED to see publication of MP’s who have behaved and claimed honorably. Those MP’s should be running the country. Fire / prosecute the rest.
    Thankyou.

  • MarkT

    Whilst utterly deploring the actions of a great many MPs with their greedy noses in the trough, many have treated the expenses system quite properly in the spirit of which they were designed (e.g. by renting a modest flat, etc) rather than for personal gain. It would be good to see a list of these MPs as well. This would include mine (Nick Palmer, Labour, Broxtowe, who I didn’t actually vote for…)

  • Ron Etherington

    We can demonstrate our despair re MPs financial behaviour without having to vote for some unfamiliar party. All that is necessary is to write something( polite!) on the ballot paper – I propose ‘I object to MPs financial behaviour’. Thes slips will be counted as spoiled and if sufficient people do this it will be clear that voters are in despair over the options available to them

  • NickD

    Have them all investigated! It feels like my hard earned tax has been personally used to buy TV’s, plush furnishings, Gardening services etc etc for these self serving vermin!

  • Domination

    Here are the economics behind the Elliot Morley scam:
    Suppose Elliot Morley had a £100,000 mortgage on which he was paying £6,000 a year in interest which he claims back as his parliamentary allowance entitles him. Suppose he also has £100,000 in the bank earning interest at £4,000 a year. With the mortgage, the cash and the allowance, he gets +£4,000 a year. For some reason he decides to pay off the mortgage. The cash is paid to the mortgage provider, the mortgage is over and now he is getting nothing. Why then did he decide to pay off the mortgage.
    Here is why. In this case he continues to get the £6,000 from the allowance. So he has increased his income from £4,000 to £6,000 per year.

  • Chris Tandy

    This website gives a reasonable amount of hope for a new era of honesty. I trust all MPs are looking long and hard at the postings, and are hopefully ashamed and sickened by their own appalling greed. I trust they are aware of how many signatures have being added in a mere two days.
    Any chance of the TPA transmogrifying into a political party?

  • Frank E. Wood

    I hear an MP vets MP’s expenses is this true?.
    If true is not the remit and the MP in question on all these so called abused claims for allowing them?.
    The solution for a new pay and expenses agreement should be, without any hesitation or excuse, be on the Terms and Conditions of the Civil Service Pay and Condition of Service, as I had to as a civil servant employed by the MoD.
    Indeed all MPs guilty of abusing the system should, as many ordinary public, be charged and suffer the consequences.
    Saying sorry should not allow any MP to be let off ‘scot-free’. And no MP deciding to retire or being sacked should not be allowed to retain all his financial gains and other expense claims and the second home. If the MP sells his/her second home, paid for by the taxpayer, the sale price should not go in the MP’s pocket but returned to the taxpayer.

  • Chris Tandy

    “To Steve Crowe,
    who said that “his Auntie Grace, 73 year old resident of Salford, is seriously thinking of setting up a protest ‘Tent Camp’ outside Hazel Blears’ home”…..
    I will willingly join her;
    is this going to be a ‘secondary tent’ and will she be claiming mortgage allowance on it?
    Actually, I’ll ‘flip’ my house in York, for a tent in Salford; I can always ‘flip’ it back….
    ””then I’ll claim £400 for a bit of food….;

  • donna stanley

    a few months ago tim aker and myself held a demonstration in morden as a result of myself being threaten with prison over council tax debt, and we were successful, now i read the same politicians responsible for setting ” central government guidelines” have been claiming council tax relief whilst us lesser hard working mortals beg in a means tested system to get help, the rules in the green book are not wrong, its the dishonorable members who are without morals and honour, with no sense of decency, and no clear meaning of whats right or wrong, they are all culpable of fraud and theft and should be charged accordingly.

  • Bryan Greenham

    “Why we have called the police in to investigate MPs’ expenses”
    Once the police have finished their investigation someone should investigate the police. I read that Essex Police have made massive savings by stopping their officers buying such overpriced items as “Oakley Sunglasses”. Why oh why are these urban cowboys walking around in expensive designer sunglasses at the taxpayers expense. After that the Telegraph should look into the gravy train legal aid system and then the Olympics Con. All information regarding public expenditure should be freely available so that there is not another cash grab of accountants and auditors fees policing public expenditure.

  • Guy Drean

    Totally shocked that Peter & Iris Robinson get MPs salary AND Stormont salary / expenses AND Peter Robinson employs both his children.How can that be right?

  • peter kay

    Wholeheartedly agree with all of the above comments. My only real worry is that this awful shower of corrupt, amoral officialdom will just brazen it out. There MUST be prosecutions and the momentum has to continue. Let’s out the crooks for good. This is a watershed for British politics and not before time. On a wider theme, as an NHS worker, I am equally appalled at the jaw-dropping waste, inherent in the system. There are thousands of extremely loyal, hard working staff in the service, totally frustrated by legions of appalling, overpaid management. Jobs for the boys with thousand of unelected Government friends. Unbelievable until you’ve witnessed it personally.

  • saffron

    Having paid off my mortgage some years ago,I was advised by the Building Society that it was paid off and did I want them to keep the deeds safely for me for an annual fee.They advised me that I needed to contact the registery office to finalise my ownership of my property.My point in this is:- Mr Morley is on planet Zogg if he thinks we will fall for the line it was an oversight.For him to claim taxpayers money on a mortgage that is paid off is fraud by any criteria,I would think that we still have crimminal law in this country that can be used to prosecute such oversights,or am I wrong in that such laws only apply to the masses.

  • John

    Let us not forget, if you didn’t already know, that the finances of the country belong to the Queen, the Privy Purse, and is managed by the Treasury.
    Members of Parliament all voted to introduce these allowances to subsidise their ‘LOW’ salaries, which are low due to their inability to a proper job proved by their inability to record simple work related cost records for expenses. If they make ‘MISTAKES’ on their expenses what chance do we have with them running the country.
    Even though I see it as a combined intent to defraud the Privy Purse through their expenses it should be treated as CONSPIRING to defraud the Queen.
    Politicians found guilty of misappropriation should have a life ban from any position of public trust but from past enquiries I cannot see that the Police will take any action but will instructed by the politicians to state that no further action will be needed.
    It seems that misappropriation which wouldn’t be tolerated in industry is quite acceptable in Parliament.