Quote:
Originally Posted by nomadking
Is this the first MP/Peer accused of receiving expenses for a accomodation that they didn't use? If not, were those other people criticised(at least) for it?
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[May have been better if you had made a new post instead of a belated edit. More chance of being noticed ]
He is
not actually being criticised for "receiving expenses for accommodation that he didn't use"!
The issue is that the rules were changed to prohibit claiming expenses to pay rent to a partner, yet he continued to claim expenses despite his landlord also being his partner.
His defence is that he wanted to keep his private life private. He could have come out & officially lived with his same-sex partner, and claimed FAR MORE MONEY than what he actually claimed, but he didn't. He has apologised, resigned, and is paying the money back.
He
did use the
accommodation (as in,
the actual property he was claiming expenses for). It is just
assumed however that he probably didn't use the actual bedroom, given that he would presumably have been sleeping in a
different room in the same property with his partner.
Why are you so hung up over which bed he slept in? It was in the same property he was claiming for, & he would still need to pay rent regardless, who cares which room he was in?
If you want some actual examples of what I believe to be dodgy claims, then try these instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cash#Expenses_claims
Quote:
Expenses claims
Main article: Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament
In the swirl of stories surrounding the 2009 Parliamentary Expenses scandal it was reported on 28 May 2009 that Cash had claimed £15,000 which he paid his daughter, Laetitia Cash, a prospective Conservative candidate, as rent for a Notting Hill flat, when he had a mortgaged flat of his own a few miles away, which his son Sam Cash was staying in rent-free. 'It was only for a year, she was getting married, she wasn't there....my other flat wasn't round the corner, it was in Westminster. It was done through the rules,'[3] he said on Newsnight.
The following day Cash announced that he had agreed to pay the money back. Cash was rejecting calls for his resignation and said he was hopeful of getting a fair hearing. David Cameron was said to have ordered Cash to co operate or risk having the Conservative whip withdrawn[4] Cash faced a no-confidence vote by secret ballot by his constituency party, 2 July 2009. He was, however, re-selected with "overwhelming" support. Cash also received a personal letter of support from Conservative leader David Cameron before the meeting thanking Cash for "the tireless contribution you make to the work of Parliament. You have a long record of serving your constituents with commitment and integrity".[5]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gib...es_controversy
Quote:
Expenses controversy
Main article: United Kingdom Parliamentary expenses scandal
In May 2009, Gibson became embroiled in the MPs' expenses scandal detailed by The Daily Telegraph, who reported that he claimed for a flat in which his daughter lived rent-free before selling it to her for half its market value.[4] Subsequently, he was barred from standing in the next general election by a disciplinary panel of the Labour Party.[5]
Believing that after the panel's decision his position was "untenable", he resigned as an MP (by the traditional procedural device of becoming Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham), thereby forcing a by-election.[1] The resultant byelection was won by Chloe Smith, the Conservative Party candidate, with a majority of 7,348 (reversing a previous Labour majority of 5,459).[6]
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frogstamper
Personally I think that the fact that his sexuality is now common knowledge, there are quite a few unenlightened people who will use petty financial technicality's as an excuse to have a dig at him.  |
Yup
