Quote:
Originally Posted by ntluser
"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.
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Employing family members happens in hundreds of thousands of companies all over the nation, and mostly just as a tax fiddle where no actual work is done by the "employee"
Company secretaries, tea boys, perhaps you've never seen a company name followed by "& sons" then?
Get real!
Of course people should be allowed to employ family members if there is work to be done, especially in roles where you're likely to be far away from your spouse for instance.
The issue here is that there were no timesheets recording that his son (who lets not foget was being paid less than he could have been paid) actually did the work done.
Now, feel free to throw innocent until proven guilty out the window, personally, I like living in Britain where that persumption still holds true.
The comittee were unable to prove that his son did not do the work, they even agreed that the work needed doing and his son was qualified for the role.
They've only disagreed with the bonuses paid, and are unhappy that there is no record of him actually doing the work, but think about most people's work, if they're part of a team, how do they prove they actually contributed? Especially if there is no requirement for them to do so until one is brought in at a later date.