..they'd probably vote to abolish bacon slicers, and for triple rations of swill every evening. That's why farmers don't usually seek the opinion of the pigs regarding their living conditions.

A similar logic should be applied to the 646 greedy little pigs in the House of Commons.

Next week, Head Pig Hattie Harperson will haul herself to her feet and, eyes glittering with self-righteousness, inform MP's exactly how their cosy little lives are about to be shattered.

Yes, MP's are going to hear - as if they hadn't been thoroughly leaked already - Sir Christopher 'Ned' Kelly's proposals for a brave new world of expense policies.

This chilly and austere regime will include a ban on claims for mortgage interest on a second home, a ban on employing partners and relatives, abolition of the 10-grand-a-year-for-stamps 'communications allowance', and will stop MPs who live within an hour of Westminster claiming for second homes.

Hell, there's nothing wrong with any of that shit, the nation cries.

But MP's are slightly less delighted. In fact, they're squealing like pigs whose swill has been whisked from beneath their hungry noses.

Swinging his swill-spattered chops angrily from side-to-side, Sir Stuart Bell gives us the benefit of his opinion:

"The house would want to look at these recommendations very carefully, they will want to debate them and have the opportunity, should they so wish, to amend them."

Oh, would they? Would they fucking really? "..should they so wish, to amend them" - can't you just hear the fucking arrogance, the disdain and the overwhelming sense of entitlement packed into those words?

Here's an alternative suggestion, Sir Stuart: fuck right off, the lot of you.

You can 'look at these recommendations very carefully' for as long as you want. Stare at them until you're blue in the fucking face, if it pleases you. You can 'debate them' among yourselves all night, if you've really got nothing better to do.

But what you're not going to do, you greedy self-regarding bastards, is 'amend them'. We don't care what rules you'd like. You're going to abide by these rules.

But it's not sinking in, is it? Unnamed senior MPs have apparently warned that "there will be a major revolt" if Ned Kelly gets his way in one particular area, and removes the cash bung - the 'resettlement grant' - paid to the 112 MPs currently planning to stand down. "MPs will not accept that being withdrawn," said one.

What? If the 112 MP's who are stepping down - mostly because the fuckers know they won't be re-elected following their egregious expenses fraud - don't get a nice lump of cash to help them on their way, there will be a 'major revolt'? They 'will not accept that'? Oh yeah? What will they do? Step down? No, wait...

And, MP's, you're not going to get to vote on whether or not the recommendations are implemented either. Gordon Brown has already said - mainly for the sake of his own ruined reputation - that MPs will "have no right to vote" on the new expenses system. He wants this done, dusted and out of the way, so he can carry on saving the world and stage-managing the UK's now nearly unique recession.

Oohhhh, they're not happy about that. "Not democratic", "We have a right.."

But, as Anna Raccoon points out, they shouldn't be surprised. The Proceeds of Crime Act has been stealthily extended until Local Councils, the Rural Payments Agency, the Financial Services Authority, Transport for London, the Royal Mail, fuck, just about anybody can grab hold of our wallets and take our money as and when they feel the need.

Where were the protesting MP's then? Not in the house, 'debating' and 'amending', where they? No, tucked up in one of the many sumptuous beds we bought them, in one of the houses we paid for, watching the flat screen TV we bought them, remote control in one hand, Kleenex in the other.

You didn't vote then, little piggies, and you're certainly not going to vote now. You can't be trusted, see?  You've been caught with your fat little trotters in the till, so you don't get the right to decide whether we're going to padlock it.


Bad luck, piggies. There's no more swill, and the abattoir van is coming up the drive for some of you.

And we really don't care what you think about it...


_

Roy Hattersley, former MP, former Chancellor and former Home Secretary, has been sharing with us his opinions on the MP's expenses debacle.

And guess what? Guess what he thinks? He doesn't agree with Sir Christopher Kelly's findings, or with the new rules. Who'da thought, eh?

Roy, the man famously - and accurately - described by Tony Blair as that "Yorkshire Cunt", feels that the new rules and payback orders are

"..the price that the honest and hard-working majority have to pay for the excesses of their colleagues who exploited the system in a way which was part scandal and part farce"

Boo-fucking-hoo, Fattersley. Honest and hard working majority? Only about 3 fucking MP's came out of this with any dignity, and even Broon himself had to give back twelve grand.

If we're to believe partisan old Roy, it was pretty much only the terrible Tories that abused the system. He manages to mention Derek Conway, he reminds us about Douglas Hogg's moat, he can't resist talking about the 'Duck House' and even tries a quick smear on CallMeDave and the £237 he had to pay back.

But Roy, Roy, you missed a couple.

What about 'Justice' Minister, Shahid Malik, who bought an enormous flat screen TV? What about Elliot Morely, who claimed for a payments on a nonexistent mortage? What about, for Christ's sake, Jacqui fucking Smith, self-confessed "Poster Girl" for the whole tawdry scandal? Didn't you hear about any of those, Roy?

One of the issues Lardy Chatterley has with all this nasty transparency and openness is that

"..in the short term the result can only be an increase in the conviction that politicians cannot be trusted and that draconian regulation is the only way to keep them honest"

Well, fuck, yes. We've already got that 'conviction'. Unlike Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith et al, who should have fucking criminal convictions. Politicians cannot be trusted? Yup. We need to be keep them honest? Yeah.

Roysie goes on to condescendingly warn us that we should avoid

"..the pretence that all the new proposals are either right or reasonable. They are a response to the populist clamour that the exposure of previous excesses .. created"

Populist clamour? What the fuck? Is that a patronising way of saying 'what the people want', Roy? Is it? Are you suggesting we should protect those poor, poor MP's from our unreasonable demands? Bollocks.

Remember, all you MP's, we elected you, and you work for us. Don't listen to old Uncle Roy, he's pissed again.

You'll fucking do what we want.

_

Six months on, the expenses scandal refuses to lie down and die. And why should it? Those bloody MP's troughed for years and years. Finally they've been caught out, and their greed exposed for all to see. There's been deception, dishonesty and outright fucking fraud.

The thieving bastards have taken millions of pounds - of our money - and bought themselves houses, flats, televisions and all sorts of vulgar trinkets. They've even given some of our money to their spouses, to their children, to their sisters and in some cases, to their furiously masturbating husbands.

Right now, we couldn't think worse of MP's if they'd personally come round to our houses, stolen our tellies, kicked our dogs and shat in our teapots.

A few - far too few - have agreed to "step down", but as we all know, that just means carrying on with exactly the same pay 'n' perks until sometime in 2010. Not much of a fucking punishment, is it?

And now they've all been told to pay a small part of their ill-gotten gains back and, oh dear, they don't like that. They don't like that one tiny little bit.

Several have refused point blank to repay the money. Some are very angry at even being asked: Gordon Brown was actually - heaven forefend - heckled by his own MP's when they discussed this. Apparently Gordo is "desperate" to avoid further criticism from his own MP's.

It'd be nice if he was 'desperate' to end the recession, or reduce his governments' massive borrowings, or to end the war in Afghanistan, but no, he's desperate to avoid criticism.

So, what's the 'sol-you-shun', Gordon? What to do to mend the tarnished image of Parliament?

Here's Gordon's idea: Why not give the MP's a pay rise?

No, that's not some Armando Iannucci satire. Really. That is genuinely what the One-eyed son of the Manse thinks is the best thing to do right now.

He wants to give all backbench MP's - the ones who whinge the most, the ones over whom he has the least control - a lovely big pay rise. The figure being floated is 3,000 pounds per year, no less. Thats an increase of nearly 5%.

a 5% pay increase? That certainly pisses all over the recent average private sector pay increase, a paltry 1.5%. It's even, unbelievably, bigger than the outrageous average pay increase in the vast, bloated public sector, which was 3.4%

And who actually pays these rapidly-increasing salaries? Not Gordon, is it? No, it's us. The poor, beleagured, fucked-over taxpayer. These thieving fuckwits are supposed to be our servants, so we pay them for their woefully inadequate services.

And now, because they've been caught stealing from their masters' cashbox, because they've been fiddling the books, because they're getting sulky and stroppy at being caught out, and because some of them are saying nasty things about the head of the servants' quarters, we've got to give them an absolutely fucking massive salary increase? A bribe, to shut them up? For fucks' sake.


You.  Could.  Not.  Make.  This.  Shit.  Up.



++UPDATE++: great minds think alike: LFAT has written to Gordon on this very subject today.
_

Jacqui Smith, corpulent former cabinet minister and self-confessed 'poster girl' for the sport of extreme troughing, must be quivering in fear.

Today's the day that the six-month - six month? - investigation into the expense claims of the former 'worst home secretary, ever' are due to be published.

For those with short memories, and CF's fans in the goldfish community, a reminder: Ms.  Smith filled up her shiny authoritarian jackboots for years by designating her home in Redditch, where she lives with her husband and children, as her "second home" on which she claimed expenses - while saying her "main home" was a bedroom in her sister's house in London.

For this breathtaking, blatant scam, she pocketed £22,948 in 2007-8 alone, part of the total £157,631 she milked from the taxpayer to keep bread (and pies) on her table.  This wasn't a little 'misunderstanding' of the rules, this was fucking fraud.

So, she must be expecting the book to be thrown at her round, empty, infuriating head, mustn't she? She's already resigned from Cabinet, but now she's going to be deselected, surely? And she'll have to pay back all the money she stole, won't she? Is Plod already on his way to one of her houses?

Nah.

The results of the report have already been leaked, and Labour's spin machine knows the verdict. The mouthpiece of the spin machine, the BBC, "understands" (a euphemism for "has been told by High Lord Mandleson") that

"Ms Smith will face criticism for saying that her main home was in London rather than in her Redditch constituency"

"face criticism"? Oh no! That poor, poor woman. The anguish. How terrible, after all she's already been through, being forced to endure "criticism". Be strong, Jacqui.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, who carried out this investigation, feels:

"..that on balance the principal family home was in the constituency"

So, bang to rights. You done wrong, Jacq-boots, and now its pay-back time.

But, wait, what's this? Oh. Hang on. Lift your tearstained face, Jacqui. Chins up. There's a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, shining just for you:

"..it also seems she will not be asked to pay back any expenses"

What? What the fuck? She did claim wrongly, but she does not have to pay the money back?

Dear God.

This takes the fucking biscuit. In fact, it takes the biscuit, shits on it and then crams it into our unwilling mouths, before stealing our wallets to buy a load more biscuits.

What was the fucking point of a six fucking month investigation, costing thousands of pounds of taxpayers money, then? Why, if she did wrong, does she not have to pay back the money?

And if she didn't do anything wrong, why did you say she did? Why did she resign?

For fucks sake. What do we have to fucking do to get our fucking money back?


++UPDATE++: confirmed: No further action. But Jacqui "has been told to apologise in the House of Commons". Oh dear. Will this poor womans horrendous suffering never end?

_

Frenzied excitement sweeps the nation as Gordon Brown's great reshuffle commences.

"Last chance for Brown", cry the media; "Last ditch for Gordon", oblivious to the fact that we all know the bastard has no intention of going anywhere, regardless of who quits and when.

Plenty of time to re-arrange the deckchairs on this vessel. Icebergs are forbidden by the party's constitution. And even if an iceberg is struck, it can't be the Captain's fault - he's getting on with the job, sailing us to a new better land.

So the reshuffle details dribble out. The BBC are fucking desperate to inject some drama. Great big red 'n' white scrolling text on the website front page: "BREAKING NEWS: bloke to stay in same job". OMG! Be still my pounding heart.

But hang on, what was that? Did someone whisper something? Speak up? What did you say?

"The Metropolitan Police says it is 'highly unlikely' any MPs will be successfully prosecuted over expenses."

What the fuck? Did Scotland Yard really just tell us that they're going to let 'em all off? Well isn't that just fucking fine and dandy?

While we're all distracted watching that bastard sack of fucking weasels that is our current Government scratching and spitting and fighting for their survival, last weeks huge, world-changing, unseen-ever-before, only-in-your-Daily-Telegraph story is quietly being used to wrap our chips.

Last week we believed that Hazel Blear was a very bad chipmunk, who'd lied to HMRC and actively evaded paying tax until the spotlight shone upon (well, just above) her little red head. "Too late to pay it back now, love - you're going down".

Now we all think she's a feisty wee thing, who was brave enough to stand up to the vile McDoom, all the while sporting a hilariously funny little badge about 'rocking the boat'. Oh my sides..

Last week we were convinced that Alastair Darling was going to be fired, arrested, hung, drawn and quartered and then spend eternity roasting in the bad fire. He flipped houses four fucking times, squeezing every damn penny he could from us.

A week later, we've forgotten all that nonsense, and now we're mildly impressed that his eyebrows stood up to Gordon Brown's tantrums, and in spite of endless threats and promises, he remains firmly in the job he wants, in charge of our fucking money.

The cunt who had the brass fucking neck to charge us for an accountant so he didn't pay too much tax.

How quickly we forget..

Dramatic developments tonight. Gordon Brown has described cabinet minister Hazel Blears' expenses claim as "totally unacceptable behaviour".

And? And? She's fired? She's got to "step down"? The ol' bill are on their way? She's been placed on - say it ain't so - suicide watch?

No, no, nothing as vulgar as any of that. Just the lash of those caustic words from the Prime Minister.

Well, that's sorted her out. She's probably lying in one of her beds, trembling; her nuts clicking together as she shivers, even as we speak.

For fucks sake. So that's her punishment is it? To have a man despised by the majority of the nation say something a bit rude about her? To be condemned by the condemned? Yup. Seems so.

Apparently, its all tickety-fucking-boo, because, wait for it:

"..she has not broken the law, she has not broken the rules of the House of Commons.."

Oh, right. Gordon, unaware that he has lost his audience, witters on:

"It is unacceptable behaviour and she has accepted it as unacceptable behaviour .. It was totally unacceptable behaviour. I do not support it .. It is inappropriate for people to do it but it is not, as you will know by looking at in detail, against the law or against the rules of the House at the moment. That's why we are discussing the changes we are doing"

So strong, so firm, so decisive. Couldn't you just melt into his arms, ladies?

Well, its all very fucking clear now. Tomorrow, CF intends to dash into John Lewis, grab a 40" LCD Television, and dash out again.

If apprehended, CF will gladly admit that his behaviour was "totally unacceptable", give the television back to the panting security guards, and go on his way.

Isn't it fucking great now that everything's so very clear?


UPDATE: rumour has it that she's currently heading to her constituency, even though she's due in the House this afternoon. Could it be that she's decided to do what Gordon didn't have the guts to?

It seems quite exciting, at first glance, this latest drip in the seemingly endless drip-drip-drip of the Daily Telegraph's revelations of MP's expenses. The headline shouts:

"Clare Short makes excessive claim for mortgage payment"

Directly beneath this exciting statement, the Telegraph adds:

"Clare Short, the former international development secretary, admitted claiming thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to which she was not entitled within months of standing down as a Cabinet minister"

Game on! We've got a story here. The BBC are already headlining this shocker. Pass me that pitchfork. We march at midnight. .

But .. wait .. hang on.

Those without Attention Deficit Disorder, and without Anything Better To Do, can read further, when the magic begins to wear off. A good story is spoiled by the tedious intrusion of, dammit, facts.

Several years ago, she over-claimed on her mortgage, having become confused (bless) on the difference between interest payments and principal repayments.

The over-claims were picked up by the fees office

".. in May, 2006, when she was asked to provide a mortgage statement. A month later she wrote, agreeing to repay £8,436"

Clare Short is a silly bitch, and CF couldn't care less if she lives, dies, or ascends to the skies in a golden chariot, but quite frankly, this is a non-story. She paid the money back promptly, three years ago.

And this was worth holding on to for eight, long, tiring, repetitive days?

That noise you can hear is the scraping of the bottom of the barrel.

The Daily Telegraph is teasing us, yet again, by hinting at the next targets for its glacially slow, terminally smug expose of the expenses scandal:

"The eighth day of The Daily Telegraph’s investigation into the abuse of the House of Commons allowances will also shed light on MPs who are married to other MPs"

Jesus, is it only the eighth day? It feels like this has been dragging on since the late Sixties, for fuck's sake. But anyway, perk up, nearly there, one last big push, anyway, sorry, what were you saying, DT?

"..shed light on MPs who are married to other MPs"

Oh, yes. This must mean we're finally going to hear about Ed 'Blinky' Balls and Yvette 'Mrs Balls' Cooper.

Regulars with long memories will recall how we wished to see those Balls in a Vice, and how last night we became convinced that they must be extremely Sweaty Balls, but perhaps tonight this speculation will be brought to a close.

There were rumours last night that an injunction had been overturned, then rumours today that there was no injunction. Those Balls seem to know something's up, because they've either decided to lie very low, been abducted by aliens or gone to live in Lima.

CF is beginning to feel that, given the amount of hype that has been generated, and the feverish levels of expectation now current, anything less than the revelation that the golden couple have been buying kittens on expenses , buggering them, strangling them, then cooking them on a barbecue that we paid for, fueled with fifty pound notes, then washing this meal down with large glasses of freshly squeezed dolphin tears, is going to be quite disappointing.

So, Daily Telegraph, do your worst. Bring it on.


_

Rumours are swirling, whispers growing louder. Will Ed 'Blinky' Balls and Yvette 'Mrs Balls' Cooper be finally nailed for expenses fraud? They've got previous according to, well everybody. Even Wikipedia describes how they were:

"accused of "breaking the spirit of Commons rules" by using MPs' allowances to help pay for a £655,000 home in north London. It was alleged that they bought a four-bed house in North London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in West Yorkshire) in order to qualify for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage. This is despite both spouses working in London full-time and their children attending local London schools"

But they were only breaking the spirit (what the fuck?) so they were (probably) given a new hat each and their bus fare home, rather than a richly deserved kicking.

Earlier, in Balls in a Vice, CF fervently hoped that these smug gits would be brought to rights for their repeated double troughing:

Just have a closer look at their smug, well-fed faces. Just think of them relaxing between the silky sheets that we paid for, perhaps sipping some champagne from lead-crystal glasses that were deemed essential for 'entertaining'.

Gazing out over a well-kept garden, a small team toiling on the flower beds, happy in the knowledge that the faint noise in the background is the value of 'their' investments ticking steadily upwards. Revelling in the fact that two claimants can cover all the gaps, make sure nothing is accidentally - ugh - paid for.

We're all waiting, even the Balls themselves, although they appear to have been waiting this one out on the fucking moon, so complete has been their total disappearance. Dizzy Thinks it'll be soon:

"There seem to be rumours going around that the Telegraph expenses stories are going to wrap up shortly with the much expected "Couples" addition"

And yes, justice may be about to arrive (albeit years late). This evening, according to Old Holborn

"It is being reported that a high court injunction against them by a certain Mr Edward Ballsup and four Labour Ministers stopping publication of something or other has just been overturned"

Bet those Balls are pretty sweaty now.


.

An opportunity has arisen for David Cameron to put some clear blue water (or at least, some murky brown swill) between his troughers and those in the Labour party.

One thing is clear about the latest batch of troughers reported by the Daily Telegraph: these bastards are fucking rolling in it.

No mortgages, multiple properties owned outright. Swimming pools. Roses extensive enough to need tens of bags of horseshit. They've been sitting on their country estates gnawing on the bones of peasants (yes, they eat their staff when they're too old to toil on the estate), watching their wealth grow, not frantically 'flipping' grubby little flats to top up their income.

The Labour MP's who've had to work their way up the property ladder (and when did they find the time to do that, for fuck's sake?) can't just jump off the merry-go-round. The money they claimed is tied up, in property that's still losing value (cheers Gordon). They can apologise (ha!), resign or run around clucking, but what they'll find it very hard to do is to write a cheque for tens of thousands by the end of this week.

For the "Tory Grandees", on the other hand, this is a piece of piss. In the same way as Bankers can ostentatiously pay themselves a dollar a year because they took in 10 million a year for the last five fucking years, these buggers can probably find this much money down the back of their great-great-great grandfather's Chesterfield.

So Dave, tell each of the egregious eight to pay back their claims, immediately and in full, and very publicly.

Then ask, over and over again, whenever you see a microphone, why the Labour MP's aren't doing the same.



UPDATE: smart man, that Dave. The Telegraph says they've paid the money back. See CF gloating here.


_

Whenever CF hears of people committing frauds and other self-enriching crimes being punished, their punishment is not only jail or a fine: they usually have to pay back what they stole.

It strikes CF that this is a perfect opportunity for MP's to redeem themselves (well at least partially: we'll never really like you much). But, MP's, you're all a bit hard of hearing, apparently, so we're going to give you some loud, clear directions.

We're going to start a campaign - the PAY IT BACK campaign - you're going to do what we tell you to.

So here's what you're going to do, troughers. Go through all your paperwork; go through the shoeboxes full of receipts; go through what the Daily Telegraph has already published (or could yet publish) about you; gather it all together, and prepare for a long evening with a calculator. Or a spreadsheet. Bet we bought you a laptop recently.

Decide which claims you're completely comfortable with, and which now make you feel (or should make you feel) gut-churningly ashamed. Now add up the claims you now realise were not morally right (fuck whether they were "within the rules" or not - it seems everything is).

Now you've got a total - quite a large one, for some of you - of expenses you know in your heart you shouldn't have claimed. Even if "everyone else was"; even if it was "within the rules".

Make out a cheque for that amount, and pay it back.

Some of these cheques might be quite large. You'll have to do what the rest of us do when we suddenly need a large amount of money: you might have to get a loan; you might perhaps re-mortgage one of your houses, or even - oh dear - sell one. You might have to trade down to a smaller car. Your partner might have to get a job. Tough shit.

When the cheque has cleared (not before - we don't trust you that much), announce to your constituents and to your local press (national press for Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet) exactly how much you paid back, how much you kept and what your reasons were.

Then we'll all know exactly what kind of an MP and person you are, how we feel about you specifically (rather than the troughing class as a whole) and whether we'll let you keep your job. The 'Court of Public Opinion', if you will.

Feel free to pay nothing back at all, as long as you're prepared to stand up in public and announce why you - you personally, not your party, not MP's generally - are not going to give a penny back. Feel free to pay it all back just for good publicity even though you secretly don't think you should - at least we'll have our money back. Pay back as little, or as much, as you're willing to justify personally.

But for fucks sake, get on with it. We're watching you. We're going to Twitter you, and Facebook you, and MySpace you and Blog about you. If you don't know what any of that is, then we'll buy some stamps and fucking write to you. When this campaign gets some legs, you'd better to be one of the first on their hind legs waving a big cheque, not the last.


All together now: "PAY IT BACK ... PAY IT BACK ... PAY IT BACK ...."



UPDATE: its starting: according to Guido Fawkes, Margaret Moran is paying back 22.5 grand for her "dry rot". Come on the of rest you: PAY IT BACK

UPDATE 2: well done, Dave, that's the idea

UPDATE 3: well done, Hazel Blears - you've got the hang of it.



(Hat tip to Mark Thompson at Mark Reckons, who also suggests tagging Twitter tweets with "#Payitback".)

Hazel Blears -- endearing red-head though she is -- is in deep trouble. The latest Telegraph release:

"Miss Blears sold the property in Kennington, south London, in August 2004 for £200,000, making a profit of £45,000. She admitted last night that she did not pay capital gains tax (CGT) on the profit from the sale because "no liability" had arisen.

The admission suggested that Miss Blears declared the flat as her primary residence for tax purposes while at the same time telling the Commons authorities that it was her second home, a designation that enabled her to claim hundreds of pounds in parliamentary expenses.

What does Her Maj's tax gatherer say on this again?

CGT is liable to be paid on the profit from the sale of any property that is not classified with HM Revenue & Customs as a "main residence". At the time of the sale Miss Blears had informed the Commons authorities that the Kennington flat was her second home, enabling her to claim mortgage interest payments on it at £850 a month.

So Hazel, you may be "..within the rules..", but you've broken the law. So what'll it be: apologise or apologise and resign?


_

CF is hearing that the Daily Telegraph's next victims are that Golden Couple, Ed 'Blinky' Balls and Yvette 'Mrs Balls' Cooper.

Thinks that's unfair? Feeling 'disgusted'? Wish they could be left alone?

Just have a closer look at their smug, well-fed faces. Just think of them relaxing between the silky sheets that we paid for, perhaps sipping some champagne from lead-crystal glasses that were deemed essential for 'entertaining'.

Gazing out over a well-kept garden, a small team toiling on the flower beds, happy in the knowledge that the faint noise in the background is the value of 'their' investments ticking steadily upwards. Revelling in the fact that two claimants can cover all the gaps, make sure nothing is accidentally - ugh - paid for.

Now how do you fucking feel? Yeah, CF feels that way too.

About to be humiliated? Ooooooooooh. Let's hope so....


UPDATE: still nothing on these two, but the cry is going up at Guido Fawkes - "we want Balls!" . Perhaps the Daily Telegraph are saving this for the Grand Finale. Bring it on!


.

CF was wr... wr... wrong (hurts to say it) with this, yesterday - the Daily Telegraph wasn't switching targets (probably waiting for Sunday) and more troughing Labour MP's got exposed.

Most egregious of last night's Hall of Shame was Barbara Follett, The wife of author Ken Follett and "one of Parliament's richest MPs" (quoth the BBC).

Poor Babsy felt a bit nervous "after being mugged" -- that's fucking rich, after you've been mugging the taxpayer for years -- and demanded a security patrol. Paid for by us. The total bill for security patrols between 2004 and 2008 was £25,411.64. This is a woman whose husband admits to bunging her 100 grand a year "top up":

The Huntsman wrote about her a while back asking about all the lovely extra dosh from hubby:

"Mr. Follett .. chuckling .. like a pelican gorging itself on a school of fish [said] “I should be so lucky. Barbara in ten years as MP has never brought a penny home. She spends all of her allowances and all of her salary running her office and I actually subsidise it to the tune of every year at least a hundred thousand pounds a year”

In other words, Mr. Follett gives at least £100,000 per year, every year to his wife which effectively doubles the expenses she gets from the Taxpayer to run her office as an MP. By way of comparison, Mrs. Follett claimed some £109,000 as office expenses (out of a total expense claim for 2006/2007 of £133,300) as her Parliamentary Expenses.

Mrs. Follett has been an MP since winning Stevenage in May 1997, ten and a half years ago, so we are talking about something like £1,050,000 over time if he has been doing this throughout her time as Stevenage’s MP.

Huntsman's angle back then was concern about her total non-declaration of this money, but now we're in a different world. Why couldn't he pay for his wife's security blanket too? "Don't worry dear, I'll claim it on expenses".

The Sunday Times was writing about abuses of the expenses system in 2007 (2007? For fuck's sake) and said that she had

"claimed more than £120,000 in MPs’ allowances to pay for a London home, while owning a buy-to-let flat in the capital. Follett last year claimed £22,107 in expenses for a central London flat bought by her husband seven years ago. But it was confirmed last week that she owns another flat near the houses of parliament that she could have used instead. The MP also has the use of the family home in Hertfordshire, less than a 30-minute rail commute from London. The use of public funds to effectively subsidise an extra London home for the Folletts - who are together worth more than £15m - has prompted new calls for a review of the controversial housing allowance."

In 2007. A review, called for in 2007. Well, a fat lot of good that did. Long grass? Yup, long grass.

Dizzy thinks she's in trouble:

"I'm thinking that 3,139 majority in Stevenage is looking dicey this morning"

So, Stevenage, what are you waiting for? Your footie team were knocked out of the Blue Square play-offs (a goal in injury-time of extra-time - bad luck) so there's only one reason left to take to the streets.

Get out there. If you're a Labour supporter (still? really?) demand her deselection. If you're not, demand she resigns. Either way, call a by-election.

Bye-bye Babsy.

Whippet? No - paid for it on expenses

Dave "call me Dave" Cameron is probably not very comfortable right now. The generally held view seems to be that the Daily Telegraph will spin the bottle tonight so that it points at the Tories, and a lot of nasty stuff about the Shadow cabinet will pour out.

Naturally the Labour spin-machine will crank into action, and -- doubtless with a lot of help from Nick Robinson and the Today Program -- attempt to push their own troughing out of the limelight, to be replaced by shocking revelations that George Osborne also has a patio heater that we, the tax payers, have a 90% stake in.

The sphere-that-we-call-Blog is alive with criticisms of the .. er .. lack of criticism of the Cabinet's troughing coming from HM's Opposition today. Guido leads the charge, querying the "Strange Silence of the Opposition", and many others agree.

Iain Dale, after running around excitedly all last night and this morning like a Sunny-Delighted toddler, has gone all quiet (tired? Bless) and not blogged about 'Profligate' all afternoon. Wonder why?

CF, whilst leaning to the right, could not be said to be a whole-hearted supporter of the Conservatives but, like a kebab after a late-night drinking session, BluLabour are pretty much all that's on the menu right now, and if there's anything damaging enough to give Gordon the upper hand, and he dives for a snap election and he somehow scrapes a tiny majority ... well, then we're fucked. Say it ain't so, Dave.

Doubtless the Tories have worked this out for themselves, but in spite of that, no pre-emptive action has been taken. No-one's resigned, or even burst into tears and owned up. Either they're all quietly confident that they're clean (well, at least relatively clean) , or they're working out which pair of Chino's to take to Provence, and which to leave in their, sorry our, London flat.

Dave? Don't go to bed too early tonight...


UPDATE: clearly, Dave reads this blog (who doesn't?), and it's stung him into action. He sent an email to CF (well, and everyone else) earlier, saying

"The end of the week has been dominated by expenses stories - and I expect there will be many more over the coming months, from all parties. I understand why people are angry about this .. This is just the first step to a cleaner, more open system. Slowly and surely we're going to re-build the trust between politicians and the people they serve."

From all parties? So, getting a little bit of apology in ahead of the accusations, eh?

Just spotted this Baroness Troffin update over at The Devil's Kitchen.

"Following the filthy, disgusting and shameless troughing of Baroness Uddin, it seems that Spitalfields Housing Association has woken up to the fact that maybe, just maybe, a fucking rich Baroness—with multiple company directorships and another home—shouldn't be living in social housing intended for putting a roof over the heads of the very poor."

"Now Spitalfields Housing Association, the owners of the three-bedroom house, has engaged lawyers to examine whether she should be allowed to continue renting in Wapping .. Legally a tenant with an assured or secure tenancy must live in the social home as their “only or principal home”, meaning that she could have breached her tenancy."

No need for CF to comment further; as ever the Devil is eloquent:

"I hope that she is evicted, dragged from her house and humiliated by the bailiffs in full view of all the neighbours. She is scum."

And so say all of us...

So now we know. Or, at least, we've lifted the lid of the tin of worms, and are staring in appalled fascination at the top layer of the slimy bastards.

The Daily Telegraph has the dirt (with CF's own emphases, for the hard-of-understanding) :

The Prime Minister is among 13 members of the Cabinet facing questions over their use of Parliamentary expenses .. Receipts submitted by the Prime Minister .. disclosed that .. he paid Andrew Brown for cleaning at his flat .. £6,577 over 26 months. .

For fuck's sake. And:

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, received a 50 per cent discount on his council tax from his local authority but claimed the full amount. He discovered the “mistake” last summer within weeks of the High Court ordering that MPs release details of their expenses.

Dear God. And:

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, claimed thousands of pounds to improve his constituency home after he had announced his resignation as an MP. He sold the property for a profit of £136,000.

Bastard. And:

Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, claimed for three different properties in a single year. She spent almost £5,000 on furniture in three months after buying the third flat in an upmarket area of London.

Trougher. And:

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, spent hundreds of pounds on gardening at his constituency home — leading his gardener to question whether it was necessary to spend the money on pot plants “given [the] relatively short time you’ll be here”.

Fucking Thief. And :

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, changed his official “second home” designation four times in four years.

Cheat. And:

Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, also switched his second home, which allowed him to extensively improve his family home in Derbyshire before buying a London town house also funded by the taxpayer.

Hoon. Just Hoon. And, and, and, fucking and:

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, Caroline Flint, the Minister for Europe, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, also bought flats — or the freehold on a property they already owned — and claimed stamp duty and other moving costs. Mr Burnham warned the parliamentary authorities that his wife might divorce him if expenses were not paid promptly.

They're all at it, from the PM down (and that's a low starting point - imagine being lower than McBroon).

CF has already described one way of protesting, here. Just fill in the Dept. of Work & Pensions "Report a Benefit Cheat Online" Form. Old Holborn is pushing the same idea more eloquently (and more swearily) here.

If you can't fill in the online form (eh? How the fuck are you reading this then?) then telephone the National Benefit Fraud Hotline 0800 854 440 . Note: Calls may be recorded, so that Jacqui can send the police 'round to your house (or parliamentary office if applicable).

Fill those forms in. Make those 'phone calls.

The Department for Work and Pensions are very big on nailing benefits cheats; as they point out:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) takes benefit theft very seriously. Although the vast majority of people who claim benefits are honest, those who steal benefits are picking the pockets of law-abiding taxpayers. In 2007-08 benefit thieves stole an estimated £800 million from public funds, that's why we are determined to catch them.

They're using every means at their disposal, including this "Report a Benefit Cheat Online" Form.

Now, do we know anybody who's cheating on their benefits claims? We do, don't we? How about this lady, who, according to the Daily Mail, has been less than honest with her claims:

"The property on which she has claimed thousands of pounds in second homes allowance is actually her primary residence for tax purposes .. The Home Secretary has pocketed £84,000 of taxpayers' money on the home she shares with her husband and their two children in Redditch, her West Midlands constituency.. That was only possible because she persuaded the House of Commons authorities that her main home is actually her sister's spare bedroom in London, where she lodges during the week .. Redditch council has confirmed that Miss Smith pays council tax as if the £300,000 constituency house was her main home."

Dear me. And how about this lady, Baroness Troffin, sorry Uddin; the devils over at Devil's Kitchen have slated her, after the Sunday Times told us that she..

"..has been claiming allowances intended for peers living outside London although she resides only four miles from the Lords .. the baroness bought a two-bedroom flat in Maidstone in 2005 and has named it as her main home to claim almost £30,000 a year in accommodation expenses from the House of Lords .. Residents from the five other flats in the same block as Uddin’s property all say they have never seen her there. They could see through the windows that the bedrooms were unfurnished. "

Not only that, which is probably the kind of mistake anyone could make.. wait .. no it fucking isn't ; but also

"The Sunday Times has challenged Uddin about a further £83,000 worth of expense claims she made before she bought the Maidstone flat in September 2005. She has claimed that her main residence has been outside the capital since 2001 but refuses to say where, despite repeated questions"

CF thinks that both these ladies are -- as well as disgusting thieving troughers -- Benefit Thieves.

So, what are we waiting for: get over to the form , and get typing. But be careful. As the DWP say on their site:

"Please make sure that you are not being watched while you are filling in this form to keep the information you give as confidential as possible.If you print out a copy of the completed form, you should also keep this safe."

Given that one of the ladies is a well-connected Peer, and the other one runs the Police, CF thinks that's wise advice.



Admiring hat-tip to Old Holborn - the man's an evil genius...


UPDATE: better get those forms done quick. According to Iain Dale, the Daily Telegraph has bought the entire disk of MP's expenses. We're going to have a whole load more forms to fill tomorrow.



UPDATE 2: well, now we know we can add McBroon and half the fucking cabinet to the list. CF's fingers are starting to ache from all the angry typing.

According to the Evening Standard, some wealthy chap who has clearly not been taxed enough yet has been told that in order to get planning permission to convert some flats, he's got to stump up 4.5 million quid to Wstminster Council for some 'affordable homes'. Apparently:

Plans for the conversion were lodged last September by a consortium led by the owner of The Ivy but stalled as they included no affordable housing ... Tonight, councillors are expected to approve Caring's plans in return for £4,548,000 for affordable housing in the borough.

Isn't that what used to be called extortion, in the good ol' days? The councillors may say the money's for affordable housing, but basically its just a top-up for their coffers.

Mind you, they'll be desperate for a top-up: the same coffers were depleted by a fuck sight more than that when they lost 17 million in dodgy Icelandic Banks.

CF doesn't suppose the victim of the extortion, Richard Caring, is that bovvered, as he's one of those chefs who haven't cooked as much as an omlette for five years as they're too busy opening Restaurants named after them that they'll never set foot in again, and is therefore entirely deservedly worth 400 fucking million quid.

But there is a silver lining, a lovely bonus. If Westminster Council are actually as good as their word, and build some affordable housing for the poor 'n' needy, the fragrant Baroness Troffin, sorry, Uddin and her extended family can move in! Even nearer to the office, and even more profit on the unreceipted travel expenses.

Baroness Uddin was already a strong candidate for trougher of the year, following revelations that she'd claimed 100 grand from the taxpayers by keeping an empty flat (unfurnished, never lived in, say neighbours) in Kent as her designated residence.

But it gets worse: according to Andrew Gilligan, in the Evening Standard the flat she really lived in was Social Housing - a council flat. The housing association receives a massive subsidy (again, from taxpayers) and can therefore keep the average rent for its properties at around a sixth of the market rate.

Gilligan goes on:

"However, even without her allowances from the Lords, Baroness Uddin, 49, is well above the income bracket to qualify for social housing. She has held a number of highly-remunerated directorships at major companies, including former ITV giant Carlton Television, and was a senior employee and parliamentary consultant for the Excelcare nursing home group"

So not short of a bob or too then? Oh, but there's more:

"Because she claims her main residence is outside London, Lady Uddin is also entitled to collect up to £174 every day she attends the Lords for the cost of accommodation in the capital. The amount is paid to peers without the need to produce receipts and many claim the maximum every day they attend.

Baroness Uddin claimed a total of £29,675 for accommodation in 2007/8, a time when the maximum daily accommodation claim was £165 a day. Her bill represents a claim at the maximum possible rate for 179 days, more days than the Lords actually sat that year"

And, just when CF thought he could not be more dear-god-i'm-going-to-die enraged, this quote, from the trougher herself, (Hat tip to the Ranting King Penguin) came to light:

“My Lords, does my noble friend accept that our policy on homeless families impacts greatly on those who are waiting on the list? Is she aware that about 25,000 families are on the waiting list in east London?"

Why don't you free one up, you grasping bitch?

UPDATE: Old Holborn is behind this great idea: check it now before its taken down.

UPDATE 2: Beautiful Garden just posted this over at Guido's: Spitalsfield Housing Association (the organisation providing this dirt-cheap accommodation to the needy) Board of Management contains:

• Ala Uddin - Vice-Chair
• Faruque Uddin - Housing Officer
• Abdus Uddin - Assistant Maintenance Officer

Complete co-incidence, and no relation, surely?

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