Show Us Your Expenses Nick
Nick Robinson seems quite chuffed with himself, having managed to provoke fifty odd MPs into signing an EDM after his well deserved dig at the Speaker:
Well let Guido dish it out a little more to our favourite public service broadcaster. This Freedom of Information request has just been submitted to the BBC's FoI unit.
THE REPORTING OF MR NICK ROBINSONNick accepts that "If you ladle it out, you've got to take it, as the old saying goes."25.02.2008
Kilfoyle, PeterThat this House deplores the innuendo of the blog of Nick Robinson, the BBC's lobby correspondent; calls upon him to substantiate the imputations he makes in his blog concerning the Speaker and hon. Members; and also calls upon the BBC to publish a full, itemised account of the expenses of Mr Robinson, in the name of transparency and accountability of public funds.
Well let Guido dish it out a little more to our favourite public service broadcaster. This Freedom of Information request has just been submitted to the BBC's FoI unit.
Dear Sirs,
Please could you send me, by return as soon as possible, a full, itemised account of the expenses of Mr Nick Robinson, in the name of transparency and accountability of public funds.
Am particularly interested in the itemised receipts for Shepherds, Le Caprice and The Atrium restaurants.
There is considerable public interest in this as evidenced by the Early Day Motion 1037* signed by over 50 members of parliament.
Please acknowledge receipt by return.
Yours faithfully,
G. Fawkes
Although Guido is with Nick on this, it should be a bit of fun to see his wine choices. Before you ask, Guido spends nearly all his pocket money on booze, the rest is wasted...
UPDATE : Curly reckons Nick is beginning to sound like Guido. Say it ain't so...
UPDATE : Curly reckons Nick is beginning to sound like Guido. Say it ain't so...
68 comments:
being a meedya type, Nick Robinson's form should shurely be to employ one of his progeny either at the BBC or in related media....
could be worse, immagine the stigma of being likened to gordon's bitch, marr !!!
"Chuffed with himself"? Status Quo, innit?
Still let's see what his exes actually are, eh?
As to Robinson "beginning to sound like" Guido Fawkes. I think you should be discussing this with your legal advisors. It must be libellous, surely?
Ho Ho, labour are so stupid they`re biting the hand that feeds them!
this is gonna get nasty,
isn`t that undemocratic EUSSR puppet liberal limpdick shagging his intellectual equivalent - a cheeky girl!
god help us!
That will make interesting reading Guido, but glancing through the list of signatories there are quite a few of the regular parliamentary numpties who warrant scrutiny - I'll start my letters now.
A late afternoon motion:
We, the people of Britain, deplore the way our country is run by a bunch of over paid and under performing members of parliament - especially that old big arse, Peter Kiljoy.
Who the fuck is Curly?
Those greedy cunt MP's, hemp and lampposts, hemp and lampposts, that's what would be in my budget.
As for Robinson, is he embarrassed about the similarity between Al Beeb and Pravda? Is his conscience nagging him? Cunt.
Mind you, having fifty-odd Labour MP's taking a pop at you via an EDM can't be bad for our Nick's street cred. And to think all those nasty people were accusing him of being too cosy with NuLab - seems our boy IS a professional and unbiased correspondent after all...
C'mon Guido , the idea is to kick some sense of responsibility into Mucky Mick and his grubby sidekicks
WHO ARE THE ORGANISERS of the pillaging of the public trough, whereas Slick Nick has to get his Xs signed off by some BBC mandarin.
"It ain't so" cos:-
(1) Robinson gets village cred only with a worthless EDM (even if signed by 600 MP's)
(2) Real blogwide cred for Guido if BBC forced to reveal Robinson's restaurant bill details (unlikely but at least possible).
QED
Why just Nick Robinson? There are many others, for example Peter Riddell of The Times who seems curiously unwilling to utter any criticism of those he is supposed to monitor on behalf of his readers.
O/T, I see Leninslime is enjoying the support of the lefty loudmouth Billy Bragg in his mayoral campaign.
Let it be known that Bragg moved from London to leafy Dorset two or three years ago to escape the shithole.
Oh dear
Bad week for the smug BBC Political editors
Slick Nick is unlucky to be the subject of an EDM prompted by hyper inactive Peter Kilfoyle, who according to his They Work For You entry has spoken in only 5 debates and has submitted only 8 written questions in the last year.
Obviously Toffee loving Pete is more assiduous in being a mudguard for Mucky Mick and his merrymen.
I think that for this to be taken seriously as an FOI request, you must formally state that you are seeking the information under Freedom of Information.
Have we a lawyer in the house?
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So Nick is useless when he does his job and useless when he does not? What are you going to do? "Today Nick is mainly going to be eating Baked Beans?"
Also couldn't we have more 25 year old Tory Totty rather than 25 year old stories?
Come on Guido raise your game, where has your Iron Broom gone?
Guido, before you outed yourself I thought you WERE Nick Robinson...
Guido,
Put the freedom of information request on http://foi.mysociety.org/ so that everyone can keep track of it!
Chris
Nick Robinson gets my full support for the stuff he wrote that guido linked regarding the speaker.
well done Nick, Guido give the man a deserved pat on the back when he finally does his fucking job!
otherwise you will just look bitter and envious!
Comparing Prezza to the hyper inactive Kilfoyle mentioned above, I see little sign of activity in his record. The debates referred to were when he was a Minister. Looks as if Pauline has him round her feet all the time now. Don't forget he's being paid. I wonder if he remembers where the HofC is.
From They Work for You:
Has spoken in 7 debates in the last year — well below average amongst MPs.
Has received answers to 0 written questions in the last year.
Has voted in 44% of votes in parliament — well below average amongst MPs. (From Public Whip)
Excellent stuff - this is like The Lord of the Flies. The vile members of our politico-media cartel are starting to turn on each other. I hope Polly Pugface is next.
I haven't looked at the list of MPs who have signed this EDM but I am willing to bet a whole 5p that Kaufman and Vaz are included.
Anonymong @ 6.08,
Guido said he was "with him" on this...
The Beeb reported yesterday that Gorbals Mick was received with cheers by MPs, were any of them not NuLab spivs?
The 'report' didn't make it clear if Martin had received cross bench support.
How many of the cheer leaders signed the ED Motion?
As for expesnes, I note that Al Beeb are hinting that Water Bills are about to rise by an average of 5.8%. Add on the projected rises in Council Tax, with above rises in precepts for the Police and Fire Brigade, McBean's mantra of 2%inflation looks like, and sounds like a loud of balls. However, it may help many NuLab councillors to search for paid employment.
Was the piece of slime who thought that the stunt using junior school children to publically castigate speeding motorists, a 1960s Maoist throwback?
On screen now J Bonninton Jagworth confesses to Year 5 of St Gordon's Primary School that he did knowlingly drive at 32 mph past their school whilst eating an apple.
Guido,
I am rather surprised that instead of jumping on the Labour shower bandwagon in writing asking for robinson's expenses you missed a beat by asking for Andrew Marr's and Jeremy Paxman!!
Now they would have been very interesting.
BUT please do not let the MP's and Martin get off the hook. They are a shower.
Did you say you had written to Customs and Excise about the tax on expenses?
Good for Nick - obviously drilled right through the nerve there! I gather John Spellar said his constitents "weren't interested" in his expenses - bet that's not still the case..........
Makes a change for someone from the BBC to remember they are supposed to be impartial journalists. Andrew Marr should be drawing his pay from the Labour Party not the BBC he is such a labour toady. His last Sunday programme was even more vomit-worthy than usual.
50 communist labour mps -
"One of our BBC moles has turned, what shall we do? How will we manipulate and control the fucking stupid public? perhaps he should take a walk in the woods Kelly style?"
Hee Hee , the Lib Dens read Guido
officil
Notice they took the suggestion of walking out on the speaker- only problem was that it was not Martin
What about you Cameron?
Have you the bottle to do it at PMQ when Brown answers a question with a question?
Alex: not hemp. Ask Guido, it's unreliable and hard to knot.
12mm braid on braid from any chandlers, ask them to splice a thimble in the business end.
Allows a faster turn around of customers.
I don't suppose we wlll find out who he had dinner with? That could be interesting.
Martin's partizan nature reveals itself with the stiching-up of the Lib-dems.
Oh, what are they going to do now? - Honour their manifesto pledge????
I am willing to wager that Nick has to back up his expenses with receipts unlike the MPs he speaks to.
This whole MP expense thing needs to be sorted out. When I worked for HMG, every minute detail of expenses incurred had to be vetted and justified, why do MPs think they are "above" the rest of us?
One easy and fiddle free option would to be give them (MPs) free canteen meals plus free accomodation in a purpose built block near the houses of parliament plus transport to and from the place of debate in a shuttle bus if required.
Shame one you Guido Fawkes for fcuking up your gunpowder plot all those years ago.
its because robinson now sees the writing on the wall for nulabour. he wants to be like guido so he can gloat when they get demolished at the next election!!
Well Done Nick - keep the greedy bastards on their toes and noses out of the trough - as for Kilfoyle - now I wonder what he's hiding?
how dare they? do these MPs not realize that nick robinson is gordon brown's official and preferred rimmer?
the labour backbenches are littered with thugs and bully boys and I find this group baiting of a spastic like nick highly offensive.
Andrew Marr? - Now theres a nulab toady if ever there was one.
The House of Commons has been ordered to provide a more detailed breakdown of MPs' expenses, following a three-year Freedom of Information battle.
Claims made under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) must be published in detail, the Information Tribunal ruled.
MPs can claim up to £23,000 a year each to cover the cost of staying away from home, including food and rent payments.
Commons resources boss Andrew Walker had argued publishing more details could intrude on MPs' private lives.
But the Tribunal ruled in favour of Freedom of Information campaign Heather Brooke and two journalists - and ordered the Commons to release the information within 28 days.
'Lack of clarity'
The tribunal noted that the guidance available to MPs on what they can claim is "incomplete", that MPs are not trusted to have access to the list of acceptable costs "lest the maximum allowable prices become the going rate" and there are no "additional" checks on what MPs claim.
"If an MP claims the weekly shopping bill, his department assumes that, because it is claimed, it is additional expenditure necessarily incurred for Parliamentary duties," it said.
In its ruling, the tribunal said: "The laxity of and lack of clarity in the rules for ACA is redolent of a culture very different from that which exists in the commercial sphere or in most other public sector organisations today."
Stalker threat
But it said some details should not be published, including "sensitive personal data" such as MPs' health matters, MPs' bank, loan and credit card statements, individual numbers on itemised phone bills and details of contractors who had regular access to MPs' homes.
Security details will also be kept private, as will addresses of MPs who have a good reason - for example a known stalker, terrorist or "other criminal threat".
The ruling came on the same day that the Commons Members Estimate Committee said its own review of MPs' expenses will be completed several months earlier than planned - by July.
The tribunal heard appeals by both the Commons authorities and campaigners against the Information Commissioner's ruling on the cases of 14 MPs - that more details should be published under broad headlines.
The Commons argued it went too far while the three campaigners said it did not go far enough and claims should be submitted with receipts.
In a ruling on Tuesday evening, the Tribunal dismissed the Commons' appeal and allowed the campaigners' appeal.
Well done to Nick, personally I think you misread the mood of the public on this story Guido.
Your post sounds like sour grapes to me.
Over a four year period to 2006, Mr Blair claimed more than £60,000 in allowances for his constituency home, even though it had a very small mortgage. Over the same period, Margaret Beckett claimed more than £65,000, even though she had a grace and favour apartment in central London and did not have a mortgage on her constituency property.
It emerged last weekend that the Speaker received £17,166 in expenses for his home in Glasgow last year when the property does not have a mortgage.
Two further requests over the expenses of other MPs' were also considered by the tribunal and it similarly ruled that they should be disclosed. The MPs covered in the additional submissions include Gordon Brown, David Cameron, George Osborne, William Hague, Peter Mandelson, and John Prescott.
SHIT WILL FLY! I hope!
anonymong:8:31
''Well done to Nick, personally I think you misread the mood of the public on this story Guido.
Your post sounds like sour grapes to me''
Oiii muppet, lay off the fawkes! remember- Guido aint just for bonfires night, oh no, he's for every night!
anon 8.31,
'well done to nick.' you fucking spastic.
what a cunt.
It is now official. Speaker Martin is now doomed. He could survive for up to several more months, but a mortal blow was struck against him and his speakership.
Gordon Brown has given him his support.
'Bye Mr Martin.
"I think that for this to be taken seriously as an FOI request, you must formally state that you are seeking the information under Freedom of Information."
Not so.
One law for the poor...
From the BBC reporting the judge's remarks to a woman in Norfolk sent down for 2 years for benefit fraud:
"Passing sentence, Judge Peter Jacobs told Thompson: "In this particular case you are a very dishonest woman and they (the Inland Revenue) are a very inefficient department.
"The message has to go out. If people defraud the government on this scale, the rest of the public ends up paying and those people must go to prison."
I noticed that one of the MPs who signed the early day motion is the oily little turd Lambert Fuckwit.
Strange. Apart from fucking one or both Cheeky Girls, shouting: "Look out! There's lots of planets and stuff in space!!" and appearing on TV with aforementioned Eurotrash Slappers, one would have been forgiven for thinking Lambert Fuckwit had retired from active politics.
I saw Nick at the RTS awards the other night where he got himself a gong.
Despite the large amounts of champagne being quaffed - you could hardly hear some of the speeches for the sound of corks a-poppin' - Nick looked remarkably sober.
Judging by the price the Hilton were charging for the stuff I am not surprised.
If your in the question asking business mr F there's one I'd like the answer too.
Bearing in mind that our currently outraged by sleeze journalists have been sharing restaurants, whores, rent boys & holidays (thinking here of the unusually proportioned Kirsty Wark) with our mendacious MP's.
Bearing in mind that journalists have become MP's (the man in the white suit jumps immediately to mind)& so many ex-MP's have become journalists & columnists that it's hard to turn on a TV without seeing one.
Bearing in mind that MP's & journalists share beds - some even in a matrimonial manner.
Why the f**k are we only finding out about this in the last few weeks?
It's the supposed 'protectors' of the public interest we need to hear asked some stiff & searching questions, particularly the lobby.
Michael said...
"Why just Nick Robinson? There are many others, for example Peter Riddell of The Times"
Peter Riddell works for a private company. His expenses are exclusively a matter for him and his employer.
I've just asked my MP to publish his expenses and to ask his adjoining "members" to do the same if he and they are brave enough. I'll let you know if he has the moral courage to do so. My expectation level is low!
Yes Nick has caused a stir.
I didn’t know this until today, but it turns out that Nick was once one of the Thatcher Yoof.
He was a Young Tory in the 80’s. After nearly vomiting on this news, it occurred to me that it all now makes sense. A middle aged balding smug man - perfect Conservative parliamentary candidate.
He made a big noise about an MP expecting to have the expense of her Blueberry covered by MP expenses. But Nick is quite happy for me, a licence payer, to pay for his. Go back to ITV where tabloid journalism is the norm.
Thank god for Blairs FOI
Go on Guido admit it. Its the most powerful tool ever given to the public and you.
I'm currently asking the BBC to disclose who paid for Robinsons Blueberry.
Jac 6:35
As it happens, I emailed Spellar a few days ago, asking him to vote against the Lisbon Treaty, but my opening remark was that I had noted his expenses were (relatively) low, and congratulated him on that.
Therefore by saying his constituents aren't interested in his expenses, he has proved himself to be yet another NuLab liar.
Someone else noted Brown's support for the Speaker. I noticed that Brown said that Martin "has been" a good Speaker, not "is" a good speaker. I think that is politicians' code for - Bye Bye Martin!
Even the BBC can't ignore the inevitable
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7265744.stm
I normally don't post comments at 1 in the morning but we've just had a bloody earthquake here and the missus woke me up asking me to make the earth stop moving. Oh well, that's a first
thick as thieves said...
anon 8.31,
'well done to nick.' you fucking spastic.
what a cunt.
8:50 PM, February 26, 2008
Thick as shit, Guido has already said he is with Nick on this one, you just indirectly called Guido a spastic and a cunt and all Ironically due to your rush to be Guidos personal rimmer!
it does beg the question if the 50 mps that signed the EDM have the most to hide.
daily mail has had a go"they just dont get it do they"
if mps hadnt abused the system so much , and been so arrogant as to employ whole families (wheres the meritocratic society) they wouldnt be in this .
i am sure nick robinsons expenses are interesting , but i bet andrew marrs are more so .
although i would imagine the BBCs expenses would be a lot more than they used to be , as is some of the money they have thrown at some stars ,
i dont resent paying for talent , but i do resent labour themeing that is sold to us as talent .
anyhow commons debate got interesting (i want to see the lib dems storming out) pat cash illuminated the idea of "subsidiarity" which takes abit of gripping mentally , but it is true what is at stake is the power of our vote on our own countries affairs.
however it was late sitting and as i was mixing my coco the best came at gone midnight when ms dunwoody dlivered a savaging to lab mp healy on cheshire council changes.
despite some labour mps accusing her of making tory speeches , no one could criticise her points and her remark on seduction was pure self effacing genuius.
hopefully pat cash will develope his point more tommorow , and we have the protest day , the lack of labour debate is woefull , bob marris is just a lawyer earning a fee for client , he isnt speaking for his electorate , you know the people who he supposidly asked to vote for him to protect there powers.
they field a lawyer and idiots to make debate , none of them debate the powers that people have had in our parliment or how it will change .
in short they are decieving there own electorate about the change in there rights/power that will be as a result of the lisbon treaty .
So the financial disaster that the snotgobbler helped jolly along won't affrect the real economy.
Tell that to all the people now being fired.
Gordon you are a useless cunt.
Anonymous comment 10.52 pm asks the pertinent question. Why has the media- in all its forms but press and tv ( especially BBC)- not brought to public attention the conduct of MP`s to the extent of that disclosed in recent days. That a retired policeman did the trick one can only agree with 10.32 comment that the media has to give some straight answers and perform better in future
JH
Perhaps it's time to consider blowing up the house of commons fairly soon and about 5 minutes into PMQs.
I'm surprised that nobody has thought of this before...
This whole thing smacks of school children hounding their teachers having discovered some piece of Common Room scandal.
The furore may end up forcing MPs to clean up their expense claims (which can only be a good thing) but I suspect it will do little to improve the overall quality of government in the UK.
Anonymong 12:06,
Yes FoI is a small but significant rebalancing of the individual and the state in favour of individuals.
Guido would prefer that all publicly funded papers were put in the public domain and that the presumption was that this should be so except when an exemption was requested. Obviously national security would be exempt. Why can't our democracy be conducted in the open?
Why can't we listen to cabinet debates? The infantilisation of the public by politicians is not government of the people, by the people for the people.
Also all contracts with the public sector should be published - there should be no commercial confidentiality from the people paying.
The BBC's top 150 managers are gathering for a special three-day "leadership" conference in Birmingham this week.
As the BBC enters the final stages of negotiating redundancies following a lower-than-expected licence fee settlement, the director general, Mark Thompson, is gathering his top team at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham for a series of discussions about the corporation's business plan.
Rooms at this hotel are minimum £140 Breafast is smoked salmon and scarmbled eggs so how can we ever hope to achieve any balance of transparency when the bean counters are at it too...
I imagine they get a very cheap corporate rate and the smoked salmon isn't compulsory. I imagine some of them will have corn flakes. Wakey-wakey, real world calling...
This is Nick Robinson's spin on this Information Tribunal ruling
"A dilemma faces the Speaker and the cross party group of MPs on the House of Commons Commission. Should they accept last night's Information Tribunal ruling which ordered the publication of a detailed breakdown of MPs’ second home allowances or fight it in the courts?"
At the end of his piece he says
"There are only two possible escape routes I can see. Firstly, FOI campaigners tell me that the Commons destroys financial records regularly rather than keeping them for years. A legal delay may mean that the receipts and the lack of them can no longer be revealed. Secondly, in certain circumstances, the Speaker has a veto on FOI requests. It does not appear to apply in this case but that's what lawyers are paid for, isn't it?"
Surely there's only one possible outcome? 'Fess up, do your time, be careful not to drop the soap in the shower.
It's we who have two possible choices
Hang em or shoot em
Along with the worm who turned and the rest of the Beeboid scum
Andrew Marr's restaurant expenses will be fairly low as he gets all his nourishment suckling on Gordons cheesy cock.
The FoI is a smoke and mirrors piece of bullshit if ever there was one.
Is it not perfectly clear NOW that the very people that brought this legislation in, never intended it to change anything important whatsoever. Apart that is from helping them get elected on a tide of seeming political reform?
If The Freedom of Information Act did what it said on the tin and by implication was ever intended to do so. We would NOT have been allowed to have it in the first place.
The ONLY repeat ONLY time I will start to gain confidence in the present system, is when important politicians, bankers or members of the British establishment start getting long prison sentences. Even short ones would be a start.
However this, if it happened, should also concern us.
Because this type of extremely rare event ( so rare in fact that I for one can not think of a single example of it EVER happening before in our entire history, ) could well turn out to be the final curtain call, for our representative parliamentary democracy.
So we must be aware, not to throw our own horrendously ugly, mentally challenged, deformed, criminally inclined, baby. Out with the highly polluted and systematically corrupted sewage water.
ATLAS shrugged.
And now Robinson is saying that this is prurience on the part of those who wish to see the detail of MPs expenses.
Does this man not understand that a) we pay for these unprincipled bastards (and one might include him in that category), and b) we have every moral right to examine their expenditure of our cash. Legal right is something else, of course.
But you can certainly expect that the Information Tribunal will be getting in the earhole from all and sundry. Have they got the bottle to stand up for themselves? We shall see.
My MP's gimp has just got back to me, you could not make up his response.
"Where do you live??""
Any chance of getting a list of who he took out to lunch?
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