359 Lords-a-Fiddlin'
Sam Coates in The Times has another research based snouts-in-the-trough piece. The evidence is that at least 359 Lords, that is the majority of the them, are fiddling their expenses. The evidence whilst circumstantial is particularly compelling. Can it be a coincidence that, according to the article;
359 of the 550 Lords who claimed “day subsistence” — a £78.50 payment for meals and taxis — claimed the maximum on 95%of occasions or more. - 272 of the 406 peers who live outside London and claim “overnight subsistence” for hotels — worth £159.50 — claimed the maximum on 95% of occasions or more.
- 338 of 514 Lords who claim office expenses, worth £69 a day, claimed the maximum on 95% of occasions or more. Unlike the House of Commons, secretarial costs are paid to the peer to distribute.
Essentially this is a tax-free fiddle with no receipts required. Guido has pointed to the prevalence of this fiddle before. Many of the same peers, particularly Labour ones, also get on a few Quangos as well to pad out their retirement as if the gold-plated, non-contributory pension benefits they voted themselves when they were MPs were not enough already. The gravy train flows thick and fast for many ennobled MPs.
What particularly irks and disgusts Guido, is that they claim £78.50 for "subsistence meals" per day and children in state schools get meals costing 40p per day. Shows their real priorities doesn't it? They really know how to look after themselves don't they?
46 comments:
Does anyone know where i can find a decent card shop in the soho area?
Upstairs at 37 Frith Street, ask for Maxine.
Talk about ungrateful. Years of public service and this is the thanks they get.
irvine's scam, saying he has one main address for some things and a main address in scotland for others. someone should report that to the yard. it's prima facie fraud, surely?
Overnight costs of 159 Quid...in London? You can only get a doss-house for that, excluding breakfast! The £78.50 is also not so much at London prices.
I live in Vienna, were these costs would be certainly OK, but having returned from a two day business trip to London last week, I can tell you that these allowances are probably just about break-even!
How can any organisation have an Expenses system without receipts?
I have to account for every penny of the Companies money I spend in the course of my duties - & I mean every penny, & quite right too.
It really irks me to think that our company is suffering & struggling to meet punitive & restrictive & regressive taxation - in part to pay for these Lords.
Hey GF: how about an occasional series of "Parasite of the Month".
Publish a list of contenders from the obviously dodgy and request info from their colleagues/victims/concerned members of the pub. Even if nothing substantiated surfaces at least they'll know we care.
To get the ball rolling, I suggest inclusion of that greasy corrupt turd Vaz.
£78.50 would buy a huge amount of food in our subsidised canteens and restaurants. They must be bringing the whole family to eat there!
Instead of subsidising the meals and then paying peers an allowance to buy them, why not just make the meals free? Oh yes, because they couldn't pocket the difference.
anon 2:18
great idea - can i propose Tony McNulty for the following week. there must be loads of dirt on that prat
Worse! they and their cronies in the Booby-See have egged on that cheeky Londonist telecook-chappie to vandalise the only thing about school meals that children liked - burgers and chips. You should hear from his own lips what my poor lad aged 13 is expected to eat these days! No pepsi, no sugar, no salt, no "red meat", no crisps.
"Uncoated chicken burgers" are about the least unexciting thing on the menu. They are sold out in 10 minutes and there is only pasta without salt, with undressed salad, most of which goes to landfill. The school even got rid of "turkeyburgers" as the meat was considered not "white" enough.
80-odd-nicker for subsistence sounds like they can go to that place, I can't remember its name, the IVY? They obviously like subsisting there. Bet Guido 5p that they don't have to clock in after lunch either.
Never mind Lords fiddling. What about the theft of £100,000 by Ed Testes from Sith. This bung, disguised as research, was paid by Sith, to Testes after he had left Treasury but before he was elected MP. C Grayling has reported this but wtf are Charity Comms going to do about the naked bung.
The old tune of the Labour Party rings True here: "The Working Class can kiss my arse(ass in US) I've got the foremans job at last…" One wonders who to vote for ?
It would be interesting to see a comparison of the "expenses" claimed by the remainging herediteries and the "expenses" claimed by the Liarbour cronies.
I suspect I know which up with the lower figure
Great comparison with the 40p a day school dinners.
Cannot see Cameron or Clegg bringing it up, though, as all snouts are in the trough.
Anonymous said...
"How can any organisation have an Expenses system without receipts?"
Quite simple really. Most organisations I have worked for (private and public sectors) have a system of allowances for meals and overnight accommodation. These are set at very modest levels. They leave you scope to make a profit if you choose to eat at McDonalds, etc. but if you decide to eat well then you are out of pocket.
In companies I have worked for where they operate on an expenses reimbursement basis the employees are generally much more extravagant and so the company loses out.
No worries, Gordon and Darling will just instruct HMRC to perform a few more random investigations to make sure the rest of us haven't misdeclared the odd fiver.
Just goes to show nobody should ever be trusted to spend somebody else's money wisely.
Who was the twat who suggested that £78 quid was not a lot for supper? Ever heard of Pizza Express or the myriad of smaller restaurants who cater for those in London who don't take home a fat-cat salary?!
It's a digusting disgrace and just serves to illustrate why people cannot engage with politics these days. How can any politician effect to understand the lot of his/her overtaxed constituents unless s/he is living in broadly the same conditions?
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
Fucking scum! Up against the wall with the lot!
In principle, subsistence saves the taxpayer money because its based on an average expence and the recepient therefore has an opportunity to save money, pocketing the different. Going to an invoice only system often means expense claims go up as people lose the incentive to save money and they lose a perk of the job too.
Subsistence allowances are therefore a very capitalist way of managing expenses.
HOWEVER... the tax man ruled that as they were a perk they were therefore taxable, which means they have completely disappeared - except MPs and Lords!
Yet another example of one rule for them and another for the rest of us.
'Hey GF: how about an occasional series of "Parasite of the Month".'
Yes yes, a spiffing idea. Vaz would be good, McNulty too, but there's an embarrassment of riches. I nominate "Dame" Suzi Leather.
I've said it before and will say it again,
The whole lot of them should be marched out into Parliment Square and publicly flogged once a week.
And every one in twenty publicly beheaded.
W.W.
A system that makes it easy to fiddle expenses has its advantages for those in power. The expenses 'trap' is a time honoured ploy for dealing with intransigent company directors and others.
How many errant peers or MPs have been compromised over the years, one wonders?
"What particularly irks and disgusts Guido, is that they claim £78.50 for "subsistence meals" per day and children in state schools get meals costing 40p per day. Shows their real priorities doesn't it? "
Its only 40p per day in England . In Scotland its about £1 perday
ie a Scottish schoolchild is deemed to be two and half times more valuable than an English one
- by those same Lords
- ever heard any of them protest about this ?
Thort not .
It now appears that 76% of the biggest expense claimants in the Lords are Labour. Quelle surprise!!
As for Parasite of the Month, my nomination goes to that greasy, expense-milking turd Shahid Malik, closely followed by Ed Balls and his boyfriend Yvette Cooper.
Stanislav say a myriad times: is myriad, not fucking myriad of. Myriad mean a lot of, therefore myriad of is like saying a lot of of. Is fucking tautologous, innit. Honestly, some people on here display grasp of grammar which is positively McNultyish.
(McNultyism: to bluster aimlessly; to babble in phrases completely unconnected one to the other; to say the first thing that enters one's head, without reflection; to talk like a cunt. From Polish Plumbers' Journal. 2007, see also Harmanism, Jowellism, Smithism and other early twenty-first century belief systems in which incompetent solicitors, social workers and cookery teachers speak in tongues whilst shitting in face of taxpayer.)
Also worth having a very close look at some of the nulab quango appointments - la leather is not the only one on a nice little earner there.
Small plug at this point, would all readers please sign up to the Tax Payers Alliance - they are doing more to consign this shower of shit to the margins of history than most !
I'm very surprised that people appear to be surprised at this revelation. It seems to be well suspected by the British public that Politicians have been at this for at least the last decade, in other words the length of the NuLabour misrule, so having seen their counterparts get away with it, why shouldn't they have a bash, after all the only people who will loose out are the silly taxpayers.
Have you noticed that Brown's getting fatter, paler, more fidgeting, and sometimes shakes uncontrollably ?
It's a side effect of the drugs they've got him on.
How the hell is Lord Three Shags of 'ull going to survive on less than £80 to spend on food a day?
lords may be bad , £300 for the day sounds a bit much train ticket £120 first class return £40 for a meal so wheres the other £140 , MEPs get good allownaces also.
just think its time we had a more ecnomical goverment , this lot are running around while we go tits up and saying its all wonderfull , mind you if i had £300 a day i would probebly think life is wonderful and patronise every one else.
its becomming over bloated and dysfunctional and we lose out greedy non jobs that some of them are.
£78 per day is approximately what, according to the benefits agency, a married couple are supposed to survive on per week. This is clearly one law for them and another for us. Another disgraceful piece of cynicism by this government.
Great comments, BUT - you collectively voted them into power not once, not twice but THREE times !
Where's Wat Tyler when we need him ?
Is it true that the old lot, the hereditary peers, never charged?
They appear to be following the example of the Met... but they're just amateurs.. the Met have lost £6M..
Shows you need to set a thief to catch a Lord... or is it set a thief and you'll catch none.
Yes, terrible isn't? Quite interesting in SW1 - but hardly worthy of a Times splash?! Must lose huge sales...reckon they just desp. for some kind of journo award, self-regarding or what? How about finding a real crime and/or a real victim?
does gordo look more like nixon every day? and look how that ended.
good job they are not on a training scheme organised by the dole.
There you get a voucher for £1.75 that has to be spent in a desigated sandwich shop and they don't give you change.
And the only travelling expenses they pay are if you produce a bus ticket. Though they only pay the cost of the fare after 9.30, despite having to be at the course by 9.15.
Used to work with a noble (hereditary)lord back when Ted Heath bestrode the Commons like a colossus.
Whenever his Viscountship got a bit tight for the readies- near the end of the month, bad time at the bookies etc etc - he'd toddle off to the House and cop his 'appearance money', as he put it. I think he made about six quid or maybe it was guineas.
Treated me to lunch there once. Very enjoyable although if memory serves, I paid.
I'll say one thing for him - if it came to debating poverty, he could speak from experience. What do they say about gentlemen not buying socks, they inherit them? Or was that furniture?
has anyone pointed out that apart from their 76 a day ordinary working peers don't get a salary?
and what kind of argument is it that the heriditaries (who have no claim to be there) claim less because they live off unearned wealth?
"and what kind of argument is it that the heriditaries (who have no claim to be there) claim less because they live off unearned wealth?"
Because they didn't cost the taxpayer any money and were independently minded. I'd rather have them running the country than Tony's cronies. And what's wrong with living off of unearned wealth? As long as it wasn't stolen they're entitled to do what they want with it.
Over charging for expenses is HIGHLY ILLEGAL, but when a Lord or an elected politician does it, its also HIGHLY IMMORAL.
It is steeling. There is no other word for it. Against the law of God and can get the common man time at Her Majesty's pleasure and fines of seriously disproportionate proportions.
It is every bit as bad as what Aitken did a pathetically very light sentence of 18 months in prison for.
We are not talking about a few extra pounds to cover the lost pennies, we are talking about regular, full time, full on, no excuses, straight forward in your fact ROBBERY of the tax payer.
I once had 2 tax inspectors spend 3 full days going though my accounts. Only to find a £4.50 under payment on my fuel scale charges which resulted in a fine of £500.
I do not fiddle deliberately even one penny from my own accounts even though it is my own money in the first place.
Just so I can now say 'Fuck You' to the tax inspectors when they leave after intimidating me and my family often for days at a time.
I calculated that the cost involved for my company and the tax office for recovering this £4.50 underpayment was a staggering £2500 at least. Thats not including the inland revenues/customs and excise's legal costs. My lost time and the fine and the fine I payed for not paying the fine on time came to almost as much.
I hope any honest young person crazy enough to be thinking about running their own company has read this. Then gos and sees a doctor anytime he starts thinking such criminally stupid, self destructive nonsense, ever again.
My advice after 29 years of running my own show, would be.
Just be a bank robber, a drug dealer, a politician, or a whore, its so much easier, more profitable, less hard work, and the tax inspector never calls.
oh how the socialist labour party uphold their Marxist values!
time these money grabbing bastards were convicted,
i still dont understand how millions were conned from the public in TV phone in scams and no one is doing time! we are talking Millions of pounds in fraud!
must be some connection to the MPs and Lords somewhere that is protecting them!
Crooks in Ermine! Why so surprised?
Two technical points, Atlas Shrugged
Aitken served 7 months of his 18 month sentence, then went back to his Georgian town house, where he was tagged and had to be back in his own bed at night. (Just saying, that's all. Go have a drink of water, you won't feel any better in a minute, but you'll be less likely to bang your own head on the desk).
Whores do pay tax, and a very bitter argument it is too.
Iacobucci J, delivering the judgment of the majority, noted that tax authorities are not concerned with the legal nature of an activity. Thus: "it is well established that the deduction of expenses incurred to earn income
generated from illegal acts is allowed. For example, not only is the income of a person living from the avails of prostitution liable to tax, but the expenses
incurred to earn his income are also deductible."
This came out in a case at the Supreme Court of Canada, but it was cheerfully picked up by our own revenue. You would need to talk to a tax lawyer - I'm sure there is a passing one - who can quote the exact precedents, but for the purposes of your comment it is sufficient to note that if you wish to avoid trouble with the tax authorities, being a whore, drug dealer or bank robber won't save you any trouble on that account; they'll be straight round.
I couldn't say how much work is involved in any of those jobs, but I'm willing to bet that of the 3, being a whore gives a very poor rate of return on hours worked.They are also the most likely to end up dead in the course of the work, except when the drug dealers eat the stock they have not necessarily paid for.
Also, when you consider how many drug dealers are still living with their mums well in to their 30s, it can't be that fantastic as a paying proposition. Bank robberies have been reduced greatly simply by the fact of electronic money; banks just do not hold the cash sums they used to. Robbery pays badly and the take is always split between people who would skin you soon as look at you. It has been the case for the last 15 years to my certain knowledge that the crime you should be doing is fraud, not robbery.
This is because with fraud the chances of getting caught are low, and if you do get caught the chances of conviction are low, and if you are convicted, the penalties are low. Fraud does, however, require some thinking about and you may have to wait for an opportunity whilst manoevering yourself in to a position for a big fraud. There is no point in mumbling about with small frauds; they don't pay well and are more likely to be discovered than than a big juicy one.
Woman on a raft:
The other upside for a potential fraudster is that if they are caught, very often the company concerned does not wish to go 'public' and admit their company systems are useless.
This encourages the smaller fraudster. And - there is always the chance the company might actually employ him in security.
There was a guy in the US who was such a brilliant forger and general fraudster that the Fed did a deal with him to let him off he if he worked for them. And he still does to this day.
So you may be right. Crime DOES pay, but only when it's fraud.
Woman on raft
Thanks for the advice. Funny enough getting a glass of water was exactly what I did do after making that comment.
One thing. There are different types of whores, not all of them are not married. Many charge a hell of a lot more then £15 a blow. Paul McCartney's just cost him £25,000,000.
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