Halls of Residence for MPs?
Well if coppers, fireman and nurses can do it, why not MPs? What makes them so bloody special? They are just another public sector profession with housing problems. Plenty of cheap property over the river in South London, even Peckham isn't too far...
72 comments:
There's loads of empty service married accomodation about why not use that?
Not even so grim. Why not a series of purpose built, perfectly respectable, one-bedroom flats. Market rent, rented out by a private sector letting agency, decent security of course (MPs are at risk, though not so much more than police officers, it's true). Easy. If they want to live there, they can do so at a market rate (or free, and it's knocked off their expenses). If they don't, then they can live somewhere else at their own expense.
interesting proposal , 5 star dining, excellent wine cellar, smuggling in the occassional member of the opposite sex , house parties .
bit of a security risk but that might not be too bad thing.
however would this just shift the corruption ??
Theres still plenty of old Met Police section houses going spare lying empty and decaying as a result of Kenneth Clarke's abolition of Police rent allowance back in 1994. Just the job for our beloved Politicans. If their lucky they could even share the accommodation with the asylum seekers that they all seem to adore so much. Funny thing was when the Police Officers moved out the Home Office rejected some of the accommodation as too sub standard for the asylum seeking community.
Should have been the solution a long time ago, and if anyone else but the MP's themselves had been put in charge it would have been suggested and implemented.
This is the biggest taxpayer con of them all, and its a cross party approved scam!
Nowhere is too far for these people. Suggest Antipodes Island, south-east of New Zealand.
They could paint a series of concentric circles on the front, with a big red one in the middle.
What about stackable portacabins ?
Cheap,
can be put anywhere,
easy to count,
they come ready fitted with outside loos...........
tachybaptus - fuck off, they'll be out there like a shot and claiming overseas allowances. It's bad enough when the cunts are based a short bus ride away.
I was trying to cost it.
Apparently the new Marriott hotel at Heathrow was built at a cost of £56,000 per suite. Compare that to the £23,000 they get PER YEAR to pay for their own flats, and we'd soon get our money back.
You could do it even cheaper than that. That was for a "four-star hotel with major conference facilities [not needed - they have the House] and a leisure centre [OK, some of them could do with losing weight], together with associated restaurant/bar facilities [again, not needed - plenty in the Commons] and parking".
Also that cost was for suites of 65 square metres each - that's a generous (by modern standards) 2-bed flat.
better yet stick 650 tv monitors on the benches and they can work from home,no travel no carbon footprint,no food allowance,no second home and always in their constituencys.their pay should then be the average for where they live so they have to live by the average voter.
I sense from Nick Harvey's comments that he sees the Taxpayers' Alliance as enemy No. 1. And he and Maclean do not seem to grasp the point that it's not just the cost of the ACA that annoys people, it's also the fact that MPs (and Peers) are enriching themselves from the expenses system.
Have you ever tried to sneak a couple of rent boys into a hall of residence?
It just wouldn't work.
Put them into the decaying military accomodation!
On a more serious note I do not see why the MP's staff are not employed directly by the House of Commons and paid against Civil Service pay scales. I also believe the MP's should be assigned appropriate Civil Service pay grades and paid against those grades.
An allocation of staff would be applied against each constituency with the provision that an MP can apply for additional staff if he/she can make a case that stands up to scrutiny.
When I used to spend time my head office in London. It was a 3* hotel and a fair meal allowance. As a regular I used to have a good discount. This is how it should be done.
Is not Holloway prison for sale? Would at least allay their security concerns!
Why not a tent city on the green!
A Mattress under the arches!
A cardboard box (with a free bowl of hot tomato soup.
Railway sleeper coaches could be placed on the Green!The whips could act as conductors!
Beds could be accomodated in the new office accomodation already provided. Thus saving the country a plenty!
Travelodge give a really good deal for long term residents!
The carpark could be used for sleeping purposes.
Westminster Tube Station. (Give them all that Blitz bonding)!
There are so many options for these incompetents.
I've said this before- one large halls of residence type building in somewhere like New Cross (that should focus minds) where MPs can stay FOC with breakfast/evening meal included (to limit the expense claims).
When they get elected they get a room; when they get booted out, they have to leave.
This way, only the taxpayer benefits from an increase in the value of taxpayer-funded properties.
They can then fund their constituency homes from their own income- like their constituents.
Who knows, they might even start spending some time in their constituencies.
The Scrubs. As an efficiency measure - it will save us time.
Mind you, if they lived in Peckham they'd all be wearing stab-proof vests the whole time.
May I suggest Here? £70k a pad is less (much less) than an MPs' annual expense claim.
As leader of the House, Harriet could be put in charge of issuing stab vests.
Aren't they also planning to knock down a shedload of Olympic accomodation after the games?
I think some run down MOD accommodation should do nicely, after all they are hardly key workers are they.
I've been thinking of this for some time. Perhaps something managed along the lines like a Travel Lodge would be about right. It should be in walking distance of their workplace so no need for claims for taxis or eating out. We could go for a z-bed in their offices which would the cheapest option of all. They would only have one decision to make too: "how do you like your bed sprung sir!"
Would the speaker still put in for a mortgage?
Can you imagine having to live in close proximity to George Galloway or Ruth Kelly or Jack Straw or Tessa Jowell or ...
Would they need one building for Labour MPs, one for Conservative MPs and one for the minor parties? If MPs are not segregated by political party, would Anne Widecombe and Ruth Kelly have pillow-fights each night? ...
I have started a petition on the Downing street web site for the removal of blog approval on this site.
I hear Gordon will be signing it this afternoon!
Peckham??
Does the budget stretch to full body armour for each MP...?
Hope not.
Surely there's a Travelodge local to the HoC? Why not bundle them all in there...
There's certainly no spare Service accomodation anywhere near London - except 2 or 3 very senior Officers, all Servicemen working in Town live in flats rented through an agency. The rent is paid by their employing Units. they never get to touch the money.
Seems to work just fine, although there was some resentment when the system came in a few years ago as it stopped some from living in a pit and claiming for a palace.
I's suggest something similar for MPs - if they don't get to touch the cash, and get decent digs, how can they complain?
This is a serious issue and the Government needs to put it's house in order. You are quite correct in that one of the building in Whitehall should be converted into 650 flats. There would be one flat issued for each constituency outside of the M25.
However, this should go hand in hand with a huge increase in MP's salery and the removal of nearly all allowences.
OT - Have just read that that mortgage-dodging, Blair-worshipping buffoon Tessa Jowell wants to see more women employed in the building industry.
If a woman wants to work in construction, and a firm wants to employ her, fair enough.
But does anyone believe that Jowell wants HER daughter to be a brickie? Or that SHE believes that being a sparkie is as enriching and ennobling as being a famed tax-grabbing war-monger?
Umm, isn't Dolphin Square pretty much exactly what you are talking about?
Single apartments with good security, big swimming pool for cavorting around with their catamites, free parking and not a stabvest in sight.
Why can't their troughs be made dual purpose - feeding daytime and sleeping nightime.
Hooray for common sense. BUT, it won't work, just because it DOES make sense. Politicians do not go along that way.
Why not rebuild on the Houses of parliament site (PFI of course)? The buildings are very old and high maintenance and well out of date for a modern democracy- witness Mike's huge bill for his bit of the building.
Some money could be made by selling the old buildings to the US to be rebuilt as a theme park with plastic politicians for all to view. A moving model of Guy Fawkes in the cellars lighting the fuse would boost attendance.
The new building would be much higher. To reflect modern politics the replacement building should be slowly rotating (spinning). Big Ben would be replaced by huge video screens where time display is interspersed with adverts. The Public would be able to select whether they wanted to hear Westminster or other chimes (credit card needed).
Move them all to the Thamesmead Estate in London to see what they've created.
Half the flats are empty, thanks to crooks from a certain hot country populated by oil ministers' widows with $60,000,000 to invest in a back account of your choice.
The remaining residents live on fish curry funded by benefits. They also play loud rhythmically-themed music all night.
Some time ago I suggested the Heygate Estate at the Elephant.
It's been thought of before:
http://listeningblogger.blogspot.com/2008/03/mps-allowances-modest-proposal.html
As you know I have been working along similar lines to this with Speaker Martin.
MPs are broadly agreed to this proposal as a one bed flat would make a quite good mistress/lover pad.
Naturally the second home allowances and other fringe benefits would remain but retitled
British Isles Taxpayers Expenses and MPs Entitlements.
or BITE ME for short.
Why don't they all just fuck off?
someone ring the candy brothers quick!!
stop them from knocking down chelsea barracks.
just think - its perfect- they have the illusion of a smart SW1post code mixed with the utter 70's dispair of exceptionly badly built concrete shoeboxes. North and south come together - both labour and tory happy.
if it was good enough for her Maj's finest then we can squeeze in a few other public servants.
we could even close off the Buckingham palace road twice a day for an mp's mass cycle to and from the commons.(led by boris as mayor) dave could have a break away peleton coming down bircage walk and members of the public could line the streets and cheer, maybe aiming the odd stick at blinky's front spokes....
Nurses' Homes and Section Houses have all been flogged off to property developers and money launderers. We could always get some Polish politicians in. I'm sure they be cheaper and do a better job . They'd tend to go back to Poland for the last 6 months of the year so that they could claim tax rebates but that might not be a bad thing.
More money could be raised by selling franchises in the block to say Tescos and John Lewis. This would also avoid the need for MPs to go outside to do the shopping; no more waiting for that No 12 Bus, Lord Snape. Of course, being public buildings no smoking would be permitted.
Dear boy, for those of you who commented about the difficulty of smuggling a rent boy into halls of residence, have evidently never had an Oxbridge education.
The ritual of smuggling a 'garcon de joi' into one's rooms is a time-honoured tradition (particularly at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford), and just the sort of formative, life-changing experience that leaves one well-equipped for a career in the Commons.
The palace authorities have never stopped MPs from doing this in the past, I don't see why apartment porters should be any different...
I see you now have a fan over on El Reg.
Their image link now point at you.
www.theregister.co.uk
Despite all the fun this peice has promoted there is a germ of a good idea here.
Halls of residence could be made very acceptable, green and cost effective.
This is the way forward and would go a long way to restoring the taxpayers confidence.
A have a simpler solution, a Hulk moored in the Thames right by the HOC. It would be cheap, comfortable, convenient and easy to sink or , when the glorious day comes just cast adrift so the useless cunts can float off to France where they fucking belong.
Dear boy, you talk scandalous, libellous rubbish about les jolie garcons at Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are mostly at Trinity College.
o/t i know..but would anyone like to know where GARY ELSBY LIVES?
in this period of glasnost where mps have to tell us their addresses i see no reason for not telling you all..........
Plenty of arches down by the river, don't see why we should give these arseholes something decent.
Living like downandouts and tramps might give them some idea of life generally, and make them more receptive to the demands of their constituents.
See they now want a £23 grand pay rise to compensate for loss of perks. What a shower of cunts.
Don't!
Please, Don't!
They might interbreed!
Can you imagine: a huge, evil-smelling, ill-mannered, political hybrid with no self esteem or judgement could emerge...
And become Prime Minister.
Hoddy
Cameron backs communists!
this makes interesting reading according to this violent extreme left wing communist group which Ken Livingstone is head honcho - David Cameron is a supporter!
UAF supporters include:
Ken Livingstone
Tony Benn
Peter Hain MP
David Hanson MP
Adam Price MP
Barbara Follett MP
Diane Abbott MP
John Cryer MP
John Trickett MP
Keith Vaz MP
Peter Bottomley MP
Alice Mahon MP
Alan Meale MP
Ian Gibson MP
Sir Teddy Taylor MP
Harry Cohen MP
Betty Williams MP
Ken Purchase MP
Alistair Carmichael MP
Laura Moffatt MP
Peter Bradley MP
Vera Baird MP
Bill Etherington MP
Edward Garnier MP
Roger Berry MP
Angela Smith MP
Brian Iddon MP
Anthony Steen MP
Mike Hancock MP
Colin Pickthall MP
Clive Betts MP
Janet Anderson MP
Neil Gerrard MP
Jane Griffiths MP
Brian Donohue MP
Helen Clark MP
Terry Davis MP
Janet Dean MP
Adrian Bailey MP
David Cameron MP
Louise Ellman MP
Eric Illsley MP
Kelvin Hopkins MP
Ernie Ross MP
Rob Marris MP
Martin Caton MP
Jim Sheridan MP
Martin Jones MP
Paul Tyler MP
Colin Challen MP
David Wright MP
Rudi Vis MP
Tony Worthington MP
Derek Watts MP
Julie Morgan MP
Rev W Martin Smyth MP
Diana Organ MP
Doug Henderson MP
Barry Gardiner MP
a communist anti democracy group whos supporters preach violence against young children as a anti democratic political tactic!
shame on you Cameron.
Anonymous (8:58) said:
"However, this should go hand in hand with a huge increase in MP's salery"
Bollocks.
MPs should get paid whatever their average income was in the 3 years before they were elected.
That way if someone competent gives up their well-paid job to be an MP, they will be compensated. But we will have no more of the unemployably useless trying to enrich themselves by seeking office.
from the Daily Telegraph -
Q: Mr Paddick - have you attended a ‘Common Purpose’ programme and if so, who paid the fee? I only ask because I have posed the same question to the other politicocelebs Macaroon, Boris, Shama Chakrabati from Liberty, and Nick Clegg of the LibDems. who have been invited here to answer questions. That they didn’t answer this question implies they have all attended a Common Purpose programme. Shall I expect your silence on the matter, too?
BP: I attended one two-day programme, funded by the police, but I have never been invited to any others. I think I was too much ‘my own man’ for them and was unconvinced by what they were trying to tell me.
So there you have it folks - the police (ie: we taxpayers) are funding top police officers to attend an ideological communist training course which is to be used against us!
a secret EU Communist society that if you do not sign up, your career is in trouble.
what the fuck have we been reduced to? and you wonder why we are governed by a shower of shit and why our country is to be enslaved by the globalists through the EUSSR! no doubt the fucking career polititian Conservatives are in on the act!
So which paper or heavywieght blog has the balls to get some freedom of information requests going and expose the whole corrupt stinking house of commons to the British people.
does this country still do heros with courage? or are the media also a part of this corrupt shitfest!
I too (genuinly) know where Gary Elsby lives.
I was his rock.
"Always remember Paul, the splendid view from the hill of Badderley Green" his dying words in a Parisian underpass.
But...my lips are sealed...maybe in the next book.
Mr Beast @ 11.19 - what have the Frogs done to you sir? It would be far too close - transportation to the frozen North would be best as you can get more in the hulk if they're rigid members.
I've been punting this idea for about a year now. Not that I get any credit from the BBC. Bastards!
My preferred option would be to house the MPs in military barracks. Crown Estates or whoever would administer the facility would then be instructed only to maintain the MPs accomodation to the standard of the worst barracks used by soldiers.
At least then the army might get some decent accomodation.
gary elsby
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:b_Y2db_ZOGIJ:www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/download/asset/%3Fasset_id%3D1469608+%22Gary+elsby%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=20&gl=uk
scroll down to page 6.......
it's all on the net so anyone can write to him........
just love foi
Richard said...
Anonymous (8:58) said:
"However, this should go hand in hand with a huge increase in MP's salery"
Bollocks.
MPs should get paid whatever their average income was in the 3 years before they were elected.
That way if someone competent gives up their well-paid job to be an MP, they will be compensated. But we will have no more of the unemployably useless trying to enrich themselves by seeking office.
12:07 PM, April 03, 2008
Richard, you just came up with the perfect and fair solution! thank you.
Why do I somehow not see this happening?
Fuck all this talk of housing them guido, where is your fucking fireworks? Off with their fucking heads and bollocks please, blow the fucking useless shower of shit up!
And do it bloody right this time!
Ho-yuss. Get all the rascals corralled in one place. Then get someone generous like Jeffrey Archer to throw a lavish party, which all the hypocrites will attend [while deriding their host]. Cue the suicide bombers. Then, once the rats and crows have finished feasting on the carrion, re-populate the Commons with people who are not quite no nakedly riding the gravy-train. Job's a good 'un.
[Yes, for some reason I'm feeling especially sour and angry today!]
can you imagine the rise in the crime levels in the local area surrounding these proposed halls of residence were it to happen? Fraud up 1,000% perhaps.... doesn't bear thinking about.
I like a lot of your ideas and chasing up of corrupt MPs Guido, but this is nonsense. You can't treat our MPs like boarding school kids and still expect to attract to politics individuals of the calibre you and every other voter expects.
Paying MPs bucketloads of cash hasn't succeeded in attracting many people to the Labour benches with brains or integrity so perhaps we should try paying them bugger all and see if the quality improves. The extravagant lifestyle they've got at the moment has attracted an above average number of greedy fools and charlatans.
"You can't treat our MPs like boarding school kids and still expect to attract to politics individuals of the calibre you and every other voter expects."
What, as opposed to the cunts we've got now do you mean?
Many horrible and right horrible cunts use their membership of the commons simply and shamelessly as a conduit to more lucrative employment which they would otherwise never have obtained; why on earth should we pay the housing costs of the vice president of British American Tobacco, Mr Trombone Clarke ? Or of twittering spit-flecked, know it all gabshite Mr Gove, employed by Mr Murdoch and the BBC; or of Mr Pussy Galloway, newspaper columnist, radio presenter, showbiz rent-a-clown and BBC regular, or of Mr Foetus Haig, notorious for his cack-handed leadershuip of the Tories and now earning a fortune entertaining social climbers and the very easily amused. Former unemployed pot-smoking layabout Mr Milburn, flogs his health department contacts to PharmaCorp, his seedy, grandiose, bombastic memoirs to all comers. All of these greedy fuckpig cocksucking thieving shitbag hypocrites owe their enrichment to their election to the house and their subsequent brazen neglect and abandonment of their duties in favour of sinecures more lucrative; showing up when it suits them. No wonder they all stood and applauded Blair as he went off to collect his extra-parliamentary remuneration from Uncle Sam's war machine.
Who in their right mind would give a flying fuck for what babbling lardmountain Diane Abbot had to say on any subject under the sun, yet her membership of the house gets her aboard the BBC gravytrain and into the 'papers.
Shit-eating moron above - maradona or somesuch - would claim that MPs need to do other jobs in order to make them better MPs, tell that to the nurse, you fucking imbecile, when she leaves you mid-op, I'm just off to another job; or the teacher, back next month kids, amuse yourselves, make sure they keep on paying my cheque in, and my exes, don't forget mu exes.
The idea that I should pay a brass farthing to house these fucking whores, charlatans, pissheads shit-eaters, freaks and degenerates who don't even turn up for work is absolutely outrageous.
Never mind housing, what they need is Up Against The Wall MotherFuckers.
Stanislav,
Brilliant!! To me, you are a verbal Banksyesque graffiti artist ......keep 'em coming!
This thought occurred to me a few weeks ago, but with relation to young single mothers.
Rather than rewarding them with a council flat and cash, build a 'travel lodge' and move them all in there. You could have Social Services onsite, education for both child and mother, *single beds*, no male guests, curfew, etc.
Let's face it, they are dependent upon the Tax Payer, so we should call the shots...
I think that could be a vote winner!
grimer,
We had them; they were called Workhouses. Sounds like a good idea.
You are right about Peterhouse Coll - most of the dons were 'suspect'. In the candle-lit Senior Combination Room after Formal Hall, one took care not to bend over to pick up anything dropped on the floor.
In the meanwhile, what about the mortgages and furnishings for the second house/flat?
Shouldn't the taxpayer receive some of the 'profit' made on a second home once the MP resigns or loses his or her seat?
Shouldn't we end up with a warehouse full of second hand John Lewis furniture and gadgets which can be reused for incoming MPs?
If not then surely the MPs have received taxable benefits rather than expenses?
Speaking as a former Petrean I feel that I should set the matters straight. I do recall some of the fellows' dinners and the ensuing joyful renderings of such timeless classics as "Ich hat ein kamerad" and "Horst Wessel Lied" (funny, how I never recall them singing any British songs) with a number of fellows (no names mentioned chaps) wistfully raising their right hands in remembrance of authoritarian times long gone. Certainly there must have been an amount of "the nameless love" exchanges at Peterhouse but I'm pretty sure that there was not much more and undoubtedly certainly less than you might find at certain other well-known Cambridge and Oxford colleges.
I do, for example, very clearly recall a number of very public scandals involving lesbian rape allegations at Newnham in times past.
Wow, lesbian rape. How do they do that then ? Is it with dildos or do they get a bloke in to help, do the raping part, one of Dave and Boris's Bullingham chaps, perhaps. Seems very exotic at Oxbridge. No wonder they make such a fuck-up of running the country, if that's the sort of thing that goes on.
stanislav, I think maybe you should spend less time on here and more time with your therapist.
The fact is, you get what you pay for. Let's halve the number of MPs and double their pay, and at the same time make the punishments for breaking rules regarding expenses very harsh and the issue of expenses totally transparent.
I'm not saying that no MP would ever cheat the system again, but ut would make it much more difficult and it would be easier to attract a higher calibre of individual to politics.
By the way, I understand that people come on this site to corruption in politics unearthed, but the sheer hatred for MPs expressed by some people on here only makes them look like bigger idiots than they think MPs are. May I suggest that if you want to live in a country without MPs you go and live in a dictatorship. You won't be able to express your extremely constructive views on blogs anymore of course, but I'm sure that's a small price to pay for being rid of parliamentary democracy.
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