I have tried to hold this in but cannot any longer...

Over the past three weeks, I (like most) have seen some of the most immoral and unjustifiable use of the MP's expenses system.

I am trying so hard to keep this blog from turning into a swear fest and focus on what I believe to be important.

However, today my blood has reached boiling point and I need to rant.

My simple rules:

1) MP's should not profit from their use of the expenses system
2) MP's should nto be put to personal financial cost by undertaking MP's duties

OK - nice and simple.

Thus, I have no objection to the ACA being used for a property if the MP is beyond a "reasonable" commuting distance from Westminster. What is reasonable? I'd say about an hour.
If they choose to buy a place and use ACA for mortgage payments - no problem....as long as any capital gain which has been funded by said mortgage is returned to the fees office at the time of sale. NOT just the CGT, ANY capital profit.

I don't mind them furnishing the property to a reasonable level - the limits on the "John Lewis" list sound quite high for some items - £750 for a TV? I just paid £300 for my nice 32" flat screen. I don't need any more so why should they?

One point on the furnishings - they should NOT be allowed to keep taxpayer funded furnishings once they cease to have a second home.
I'm not sure how this would be administered, maybe it would be better if they leased furnishings. Plenty of companies offer this service.
Failing that, they should be allowed to sell it furnished (and pay the capital gain) or they should be able to buy it off the taxpayer.

OK, onto other allowances.

Why do they get a payoff when standing down? I don't get one if I leave employment voluntarily. If they lose the election, then that suggests an assessment of poor performance from the electorate and thus sounds like a "reward for failure".
That should be stopped NOW.

As for the winding down allowance (intended to make their staff redundant, office leases etc); this should be claimed on a per receipt basis up to the maximum. Not just given a sum of money. What about that MP that has his office in his garage?

I don't mind MPs employing family members as long as employment contracts are in place with hours worked etc. If the MP is any good, they will put their staff to good use and therefore stay elected.

So they are my principles.

Now, who is pi$$ing me off beyond belief?

This may surprise some, but my "worst offenders" are the ones who have claimed in the most immoral way. Not based on a sum of money.

We are talking about principles here, the amount is insignificant in that argument.

Property Developers:
Anyone flipping or refurbishing a property for capital gain - included dry rot claims, phantom mortgages/properties,new windows, lavish bathrooms & kitchens - WRONG, WRONG, WRONG

Ridiculous furnishing claims:
£2,500 TV's, Duck Houses, iPods, iPhones all WRONG

Food claims:
£5,000 a year? £7,200 in the case of Ed Balls & Cooper. Why should I pay for your sodding food? WRONG

My personal bug bear with all of this is the sense of entitlement MPs seem to have.

"I haven't come into parliament not to get what is owed to me"
"So and so is doing it so I am too"

And it's not just the MPs.

How can Baroness Uddin moan about the lack of social housing when she is in one herself whilst the taxpayer funds an investment of a flat in maidstone.

They are not all bent of course, but it seems a high percentage (>20%) are.

It needs to stop, and it needs to stop NOW.

F***ing W******s the lot of them.

Still British Gas, Red Letter Days, Football, Politics and Health

Rant

British Gas

They called again on Saturday - apparentlt I'd called them during the week (I hadn't, they called me). I explained that I received a call to tell me the bill was on it's way when the "Customer Experience Consultant" (or whatever they are called these days) informed me he was trying to sort it all out. A long confusing discussion ensued. Ugh, they'll be putting me on their "friends and family" list soon!

Red Letter Days

Still no news - will call later, again at my expense!

Politics - Good old Politics

We need to draw a line under this expenses stuff. I don't mean those who have yet to be caught should be let off, I mean there needs to be a firm rule as to what the punishments are. These should be applied to those who have been exposed, and those who are to be exposed.

My simple rule is this:

An MP should NOT profit from being an MP (apart from their salary); conversely, an MP should not have to use their salary to pay for expenses incurred as part of being an MP.

Fairly simple really.

So what does this mean practically?

Going forward:
ALL capital gain on a property which has been funded by the taxpayer should be returned to the fees office. NOT just pay the CGT.
NO claiming for accountants.
NO claiming for food (apart from biccies for constituents etc)
A set amount for furnishing a second home, say £5 grand, renewable every 5 years.
Utility bills, council tax etc. all claimable
Mortgage interest claimable up to an upper mortgage limit (not the £1250 per month or whatever the govt is banging on about - what they going to do when the interest rate changes the dorks!) but up to say a £250K mortgage.

Punishments

Where an MP has done anything that is outside the law, then get the police/HMRC involved and they should be suspended immediately. Simple as it would be in any other organisation. If found guilty, criminal charges as per any other member of the public.

Playing the rules? I think most are guilty of that. Need to go think!

Politics, British Gas, Red Letter Days, Guitars and morals

Whooah - what a title.

Rant

British Gas

Having moved twice now within the space of a year, I can honestly say this lot do not have a clue about running a business.

I won't go into the history as I'll probably end up having a stroke, but today I received a call.

"Hello Mr. UB41, we spoke last week about your bill"

"Err, did we? I called yesterday to point out you'd read the wrong meter"

"Let me check my notes - ah OK, we're just calling you to tell you we'll be sending the bill soon"

"Thanks"

What a waste of 5 minutes of both mine and the caller's lives.

Red Letter Days

My better half bought me a Red Letter Day gift for my birthday recently.

It was for an Allen Carr stop smoking clinic (Imagine my delight when I opened it).

In all seriousness, I have found Allen's Easyway method the most successful one I have tried in the past.

So, I call the clinic only to be told that I have to book through Red Letter Days.

OK, so I try the RLD website only to discover that no dates are available, so I call.

"No problem sir, we're just loading the new dates on, they'll be on the web tomorrow and you can book".

That was Tuesday.

Had a look Wednesday and surprise surprise, nothing on their site, so I call again. I'm told to keep checking back on the website.

I point out to the "consultant" that it should not be my responsibility to check each day, the dates should be there and why can't I book it?

He promises to call me back as soon as practical.

So I get a call today. First available date is the 5th June. I ask if it is on the website only to be told "not yet".

I'm about to write down the dates, only to discover he's telling me about the dates in Staines and I want to go to Raynes Park.

....apparently he'll have to get back to me.

What a pain in the backside - all stressed now so I need a fag.

Politics

"Troughgate" continues today with more news of expense abuses, and in the case of Margaret Moran, a lot of dodgy stuff about "not for profit" companies gaining public funding only for Ms. Moran to claim yet more expenses.
Not right.

Brown is all over the place with his handling of this. One minute Blears behaviour is unacceptable, the next minute, she's his favourite MP.

I honestly think Brown is losing the plot. His style of micro-management/control freak or whatever you want to call it just cannot cope with the volume. His performance at Prime Ministers Questions yesterday was poor, everything seems to need a committee to decide. There's just no leadership.

The idea of some quango overseeing expenses is typical of Labour. There is nothing wrong with the current system as long as it is publicised. The electorate will decide if claims are "above board".

It is NOT the system that is wrong, it is the people that abuse it. End of.

Life

More guitar practice today - I've only been learning for about a month and some days it just flows whereas others I sound liek a chimp with a mandolin. Just need to keep at it.

No news yet on the job front but CV's dispatched aplenty.

I'm thinking of getting back into dabbling in shares, although given the S&P warning on the UK economy, does it have farther to fall? Think I'll hang fire for a few days and see which way the markets are trending.

Philosophies

I started off with a rather long post about right and wrong. I'd like to extend that today to Morals and Ethics.

Firstly however, I'd like to modify my definition of Wrong.

"To deliberately set out to hurt a member of society"

The diligent reader will see I have replaced "another member of our society" with "a member of society".

My logic for this is that you must include yourself in the definition. This is to cover things like drug abuse, self harm etc.
The other point is how to define "our" society. Who is "us"?

It's a good change because it means less words in the definition, which to my mind tightens things up.

I actually looked up in the dictionary the words "Moral" and "Ethic". They are words we use a lot in daily life, and I wondered whether I was using them correctly.
It looks like they boil down to the same thing - right and wrong.

"Moral" mentions good/bad and right/wrong. "Ethic" mentions "Moral standards". All very "samey".

I won't include the definitions here as anyone can look them up.

If you're not with my train of thought here, you must be bored out of your mind reading this.

My logic is by defining these principles, I can apply them to any scenario and come up with an answer I can live with.

Most of us can generally describe something which appears "right" or "wrong", and that is probably an extent of our upbringing/education etc. So an automatic reaction.

But do we understand what underpins our interpretation of right and wrong? Hence the definitions.

So when our esteemed leader gives soundbites such as "moral compass", what he is essentially saying is to head in the direction that is "right" rather than "wrong". Viz a viz not to hurt a member of society, and in fact actually improve society.

All a bit obvious mumbo jumbo?

Maybe for now, but as I build on the definitions, we can use the principles to analyse events/politics/governments whatever to see if they are fundamentally right.

Another restructure

Still early days yet, but what I'm finding is I'd like to write about several things in one post, rather than saving them up for several entries.

So what I am going to do is split each post under three separate headings:

1) My daily rant - what is hacking me off

2) My life update (what, if anything, have I been doing that is worth writing about)

3) My philosphies (read long term views/principles etc)

OK, job's a good 'un and ready to go!

Expenses again - keeping topical

More revelations over the last few days. No surprises really.

What still beggars belief is the MP's sense of "entitlement".

The Malik "500 other MP's claim similar amounts". i.e. The maximum

The Speaker's alleged "I din't come into politics to not get what is owed to me"

...and I could go on ad nauseaum.

My assessment of the one's who are refusing to pay anything back, is that they are fully aware that they will not be re-elected, thus the gravy train has stopped for them. They know that giving anything back is futile (in terms of their election hopes) and it's thus a question of morals versus greed.

No surprises at the outcome of that one eh?

So where do we go from here?

Soundbites like "root and branch reform" yada yada are all well and good, but in practical terms, how does one go about achieving that?

I think what we are seeing here is just the tip of the iceberg. We've already seen other stories regarding the House of Lords (Baroness Udding, Howarth and Hollis) as well as the utterly corrupt Taylor and Truscott.

I'm sure the Civil Service has it's miscreants, and don't get me started on quangos.

So, here we have big spenders of public money which needs to be accounted for.

I personally subscribe to the "value for money" mantra, i.e. the benefits outweigh the expense.

I don't subscribe to political soundbites from out current government where "we've increased spending by xx billion on yy department".

I could quite easily increase my spending on my groceries bill by getting a taxi to a supermarket 100 miles away. Does that make my groceries any better? Nope. Have I spent more money on them? Yes.

So value for money is important to me.

How do we assess whether the money spent is adding value?

Clearly someone needs to check what has been spent, and whether it has delivered value for money.
Not all change delivers value for money, sometimes the projected benefits don't materialise or costs overrun, but the majority of change should deliver value for money, and we must learn from change that does not.

I'm sure Terms of Reference and Measures of Success etc. are all nicely written down and tracked by the various government bodies, but who are they accountable to? (Clearly the public, but who actually sits down and examines the detail?)
The government? Hmm, they're as honest as the day is long (i.e. Scandinavian Winter).

One to mull over for the day I think!

Wholesome goodness and hope

Having looked through the various blogs recently (mainly political I have to say) it got me wondering what is the purpose of this blog?

I've mulled this over for a few days now, and I seem to be asking myself all sorts of questions.

Some of them could be considered having a political basis (e.g. How can the MP's raid the piggy bank so much); however I think the questions go much deeper than that.

In the above example, is it right that the MP's get these allowances?

To then go even deeper, what is "right" (in any circumstance)?

It is answers to questions like this that build the very foundations of our society.

Sure one's answer to a question such as "is xxxxxx right?" can and will be influenced by one's upbringing, religion, political bias etc, however there must be a fundamental principle which underpins all of these answers.

I don't want this to turn into some pseudo psychology blog, but I do believe to start with the basics and build up from there.

So I'd like to include some thought provoking stuff and apply these principles to both situations in my own life, and stories in the media. No doubt my definitions of these principles will need tweaking along the way, and it will be interesting to see what influences those tweaks.

Right, a starter for ten.

What is "Right" and "Wrong"?

Clearly one is the opposite of the other,so in defining one do we automatically define the other?


Definition of wrong

My generic definition of "Wrong" would be:

"To deliberately set out to hurt another member of our society"

My reasoning behind this statement (and a few definitions) is as follows:

Deliberately
I chose the word "deliberately" as we may inadvertently hurt someone/something without forethought.
Example would be: Say you were playing golf and inadvertently hit someone with a stray ball. Yes, you hurt that person, but there was no intent.
In my view that would NOT be wrong.

Set out to
I chose the expression "set out to" as I don't believe it matters whether you carry the act out or not.
An example: Someone who plots another's murder, but is foiled for whatever reason is wrong.

Hurt
Next is the word "Hurt". How do I define that? There is obvious physical pain, but there is also psychological pain. So I think "hurt" means anything which makes someone uncomfortable, either physically or mentally.

Another Member of society
Obvious definition is another human being, but should it be that wide or that narrow a definition?
Some cultures have a class system whereby "another member of their society" would be a social class or a particular religous following. Is that too narrow?

Others may say that animals fall into this category. Is it wrong to beat a dog? Yes, in my opinion, but where does that end? Is it all living organisms? Is it wrong to cut down a tree? Is it wrong to eat meat?

Sometimes difficult to argue these points which is where I believe the definition of "Right" comes in.

Right

I could simply take the view that it is the exact opposite of my definition of "Wrong".
It kind of works, but the waters get muddied when one takes a series of actions, where the outcome is "Right", but we must do a few "wrongs" along the way.

An example would be:
You see someone being mugged. You go and thump the mugger.
You've set out to hurt the mugger (wrong), however the reason for doing it is to help the muggee (is that a word?) to escape (right).

It's one of those "the end justifies the means" scenarios, but does it? How do you assess beforehand whether the end would indeed justify the means?

A good example would be the Iraq war. Does the end justify the means?

OK, moving on, so what is my definition of right?

Definition of right

"To improve our society"

Likewise for "wrong", how do I define these terms?

Improve
This would be an easy answer if I jumped five steps forward. i.e. "Better quality of life, running water etc." but I need to stick to the principles.
I think "improve" means
Do less "wrong"s, and encourage the opposite of those wrongs (e.g. set out to help another member of our society"

Is that it?

Yes for today, that is it. I'm sure the above will need serious revision, but you have to start somewhere.

Looking forward, I intend to tackle (not necessarily in this order)

Balance of right and wrong
Morals and ethics
Religion
Politics
Economic models


...and I'll also blog about my search for employment, my relationships (friends and family), my goals (from financial success through to my hobbies such as golf & guitar) and some mickey taking out of the media stories.

Sorry it's a boring one tonight, but it is an important one.

UB41.

What can the party leaders do?

It is quite easy to accuse Cameron (and no doubt tomorrow, Clegg) of being spineless and not sacking MP's who appear to have abused the expenses system, however that decision should not be taken so lightly.

The key objective of each of the party leaders has to be to get into (or stay in Gordon's case) power, and then effect change from there.

The difficuties of these decisions is is probably best illustrated with an example.

If one of Dave's backbenchers has a nicely safe seat (even with the expenses issues taken into account), what benefit is there by sacking him/her? They'd have to get someone sharpish to stand in that constituency and put the seat at much greater risk. Which is an own goal given the key objective.
Thus in my view, it is a balance between how much damage has been done to the MP in question versus how safe their seat is versus the general public's opinion over the party's misdemeanours.

A different scenario.

One of the Tory backbenchers has committed a "mild" misdemeanour in the current context of revelations, but his seat is shaky.

Dave could sack him & would get a bit of good PR and the seat was at risk anyway, but the public will look at the misdemeanour's committed by that MP and demand that anyone worse than that must go also. Rightly so, you can't have double standards.

The above scenarios equally apply to Clegg, however Brown's position is somewhat different.

He has to continue to the country and so any action he takes results in a cabinet reshuffle. As the likelihood of Labour managing anything but a very poor result at the elections, is there any point?

There is another way to tackle this which I alluded to yesterday (and does seem to be growing legs amongst the community). MP's of moral substance appear to have already taken this up.

The Pay It Back campaign.

All parties have to do this, and those that don't face severe political disadvantage.

Pay It Back

Conspicuous by their absence in the media - who is the worst?

There are some MP's who are conspicuous by their absence in the Telegraph's revelations.

Some muse that it is because their expenses discretions are already in the public domain, but I'm not so sure.

The libdems are off the hook here (until tomorrow I understand) as they have yet to have their expenses revealed.

So who are the missing miscreants?

My bets for those to be revealed in the Telegraph's crescendo:

Jacqui Smith
James Purnell
Ed Balls
Yvette Cooper

Interestingly all Labour, however that is as much due to their public profiles than anything else.

Expenses - Increase. Sorry, increase? Did I read that correctly?

One of the stories regarding the MP's expenses has been buried by the revelations of what MP's are claiming for.

They have voted for a 17% rise in their expense allowance for this year.

Is inflation sky high ? Nope

Are interest rates punitively high? Nope

So why award yourself what is in effect another £25,000 each worth of expenses?

The cynics say that this will be the last year for many MP's and they want the trough topped up to the brim.

Difficult to argue otherwise with the current state of the economy.

Update: Six pence added to the minimum wage - roughly 1%. You couldn't make it up.

Expenses - What retrospective action to take? The Pay It Back campaign...

I don't think "Sorry" is enough given the outrageous claims that MP's have made.

That said, the "Hang 'em high" or "Head's on a spike" view is a little too extreme, although I understand the sentiment.

I think we should have a two stage process.

1) An amnesty
2) A thorough investigation


Whilst the defences to date have been abysmal, the "dissolve parliament" approach would cause chaos.

I think we should allow MP's a short period of time (3-6 months) to repay what they have claimed which they deem to be morally wrong.

They should publish what they have repaid (as in what claims they believe were morally wrong).

Following on from the amnesty, the investigation could focus on the outstanding claims.

Any issues of tax evasion etc. should be subject to the law.

Other issues of whether the MP still has morally questionable claims? Let the electorate decide.

Update:

Seems fellow bloggers have similar views.

Hat tip to Constantly Furious and Mark Reckons..

ACA Expenses - What are the solutions?

Iain Dale put forward a very simple solution on his blog which I support in some form.

http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/05/darling-hoon-are-two-most-serious-cases.html

I think everyone can sympathise with MP's whose constituency is beyond reasonable commuting distance from Westminster. They do need somewhere to stay whilst in Parliament.

So what are the leading options?


1) Strike a deal with a number of hotels
2) Purchase grace & favour homes for all
3) A standard overnight allowance which they spend as they choose
4) Carry on as is with some modifications

1) Hotel deal
Not sure this is the most cost effective. Assuming a negotiated price of say £80 per night, this would exceed the current second home allowance. Would remove the ability for the MP to profit personally (and avoid tax) as they do currently.

2) Grace & favour homes for all
A big bill initially (hundreds of millions) but an (generally) appreciating asset.
Would remove the ability for the MP to profit personally (and avoid tax) as they do currently.
Worth considering.

3) Standard overnight allowance
Hmm, allowing MP's to be in charge of money? Discounted as it would be open to outrageous ruses!

4) Carry on as is with some modifications
A bit like Iain's view really, but I'd like to add a few things.

MP's should not personally profit using taxpayers money. Therefore any second home (which has had the mortgage interest paid for by the taxpayer) which is sold at a profit should have that profit (or the relevant percentage if the MP was paying some of the interest themselves) paid back to the fees office. If the MP was paying some of the interest, then they should pay CGT on the relevant portion of the profit.

Food allowance - drop it

Furniture - agree with Iain - a one off payment at the beginning (say £5K) and then every three years or so.

Expenses - Where MP's went wrong

Okay, there's the obvious "don't claim for porn" etc, but what why are the public so outraged by it all?

1) It appears that there is one rule for "us" and a different rule for "them"

Most people who are given expenses as part of their job either claim by a receipt process, or where allowances are given, maybe taxed as a "benefit in kind".
For the self employed, tax deductible expenses have to be incurred "wholly for business purposes" or the expense is pro-rata'd with personal use.

Some of the claims that have been submitted by the MP's (although receipted) would be very difficult to justify as "wholly pertinent to undertake their duty as an MP".

A patio heater? A barbecue? Do you really need those to undertake your duty as an MP?

The flipping of homes and avoidance of CGT is the real money spinner here.
How can an MP profit from the rise in value of a property (where the mortgage interest is either partially or wholly funded by the taxpayer) full stop never mind avoiding CGT on the profit.


2) Why try to cover it up? It immediately implies guilt

The battle to get these expense claims in the public domain has cost a considerable amount of money. MP's have fought to prevent their publication using significant sums of taxpayer's money employing legal experts to try and prevent publication.

In the words of the government on the DNA database, "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"

Thus going to such extremes to prevent publication already implies guilt from the above mantra.

Interesting that the redacted (censored) receipts which are to be published by the government do not have address details on them. That would have kept the tax evasion on property under wraps.


3) The attempts at defending the claims has been badly thought out at best, at worst, pathetic.

Why did GB give his disastrous YouTube debut on this subject?

The government were desperate to get some actions in place which they could tout around to show they were the part of action and deflect attention from the claims themselves with "We're dealing with it, let's look forward yada yada"

The "It's within the rules" line just doesn't wash. They have totally missed the point on the public's outrage. There is a question of morality here which they have missed completely.

That said, there appears to be masses of claims which I would describe as "outside the rules".

A £3,100 TV? What's wrong with a £300 TV? And then to have the audacity to challenge the fees office suggesting they were unjust? It beggars belief.

What is it with Woolas? Five receipts that match the sum recompensed to the penny and he says "it proves nothing".
Sounds like something out of a Sweeney programme.
And on those receipts? Women's clothes (presumably for his partner - quick disclaimer!). How can they be relevant to him doing his job?
His other defence?
"I could have claimed more, but chose not to. I am too honest for my own good"
Is the man unable to judge right from wrong?

The "S" word. Whilst I'm sure it was purely political motivation which led Dave to issue the first "Sorry", at least he did it.

GB has made a complete fool of himself again by initially backing the "It's within the rules" line, only to switch to a "sorry" as appeared to be more acceptable by the public.


4) Ultimately it is taxpayers money

There is no such thing as victimless crime as I'm sure Madoff's investors would testify (including the charities).

MP's are paid out of tax revenue from the public and they should take public money very seriously. They should realise that they are accountable (yes, accountable) for every penny spent.

It's no good bleating on about what a difficult job they have because of the accountability and then not even display that quality with their own financial conduct.

It will be very very difficult for MP's to restore the public's faith. All we have heard on the subject of expenses has been spin and arguments over semantics.

They have a large hill to climb.

MP's Expenses - What a palaver eh?

Goodness me! Who'd have thought it?
Upstanding members of our society with an untouchable level of morality caught with their snouts in the trough?
Surely not?

Sadly, this does appear to be true.

It may be just me, but it does appear that politics has become more sleazy over the last 20 years. Or is it in the media age we are just more informed on such matters?

Either way, the current revelations in the media make interesting reading.

I suppose the MP's thought that the information would never go public and therefore claimed as they saw fit. Not very upstanding and moral judging by some of the claims.

I want to cover several aspects of this and rather than a huge post will split it into several.

My first post!

Gawd, how many people use that as a title to their first post. Original eh?

My profile is a 40 something who, whilst looking for the answers of what life is for/about is becoming increasingly concerned at the state of the world.

We all have an opinion, and the blogosphere allows us to share that opinion with more than just friends/family.

Hopefully someone out there will read this and voice their opinion too (either in agreement or disagreement).

Healthy debate seems less frequent these days!

I'll also throw in some things which make me smile!

Ta for reading!