Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaccers
Funnily enough, he's lost the party whip at Dave's request, and has been suspended from parliment for 10 days.
Not to mention he's actually appologised for any mistakes he made.
Stark contrast to more serious breaches of law from the government's ministers.
So he's been punished like this not for paying his son to do nothing, that's never been proven, so in this nation, if we uphold innocent until proven guilty, then we must take his word that his son did the work he was paid for, he's been punished for not keeping timesheets of his son's work.
Loss of party whip, 10 day suspension, chance of being speaker of the house gone, and having to pay £13,000.
Now, how long did it take Hain to leave? Was he suspended from parliment or lose the party whip? Nope, didn't think so.
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"Employing" his own family as members of his parliamentary support team is surely a conflict of interest.
If this were to happen in private industry he would be sacked as a minimum and would face charges of fraud since there is no evidence that his son did any work.
The punishment needs to be more extreme for a priveleged person on a good salary, generous expenses and a gold-plated pension.
Politicians are only public servants and it's clear that they do need monitoring. A totally independent organisation is needed for this as politicians tend to keep matters like this in house and can only be relied on to hide the truth.
As for Hain, he should have gone a long time and would have done if we had clear operating procedures & standards as well as a Parliamentary Ombudsman with powers to dismiss errant MPs.
MPs it seems are no longer honourable just self-serving.