The media have bought hook, line and sinker the story that Thomas Legg has been hard on poor MPs, making them pay back gardening or cleaning bills over an arbitrary limit.
In fact, on average those MPs asked to make a repayment are being asked to pay less than 0.25% of their salary plus allowances over the period. And with the media diverted to slight repayments of trivial items, the real big money – fake mortgages and capital gains tax evasion through “flipping” – where MPs rake in tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds, has gone completely undisturbed.
Don’t look over here, look over there! Talk about a dumb media.
Meantime at least the Mail, Independent and Telegraph, and perhaps others, have quoted me on Legg and the Sierra Leone inquiry, because journalists nowadays seldom leave their offices and do their “research” through google. The implication is that in fact Legg has turned into a ferocious prober of iniquity. Why anybody would pay for the facile mainstream media is beyond me.
Even a committee of her mates concluded Smith had misrepresented where she lives in order to wrongly claim £116000.
How can it stand that she doesn’t pay it back?
“Don’t look over here, look over there! Talk about a dumb media.”
Not dumb Craig. Do you really think the media are that stupid? Do you really think that they collectively polarise an insignificant aspect of the scandal and leave the real ‘meat and potatoes’ story parked up? It’s not dumb Craig. They’re doing their level best to protect interests.
The basic MP’s salary, last I heard, was north of £60K. The average household (not individual) income was about £30K last time I heard. If members of the House of Commons wish to discharge their responsibility of representing the common (i.e. average) people of this country, maybe they should be content with a bit more than twice their income.
Tom
The mean household income is probably around £30k
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=334
But this is distorted by high income households. The median (middle value) is a more accurate representation and is nearer £27k.
MP’s basic salary is £64,776 before any allowances are added.
ps
I would wager that median household income for MPs (including outside earnings, spouse’s earnings but not including allowances as these in theory just cover their costs of running 2 homes and an office – ha, ha!) is more than £100k, or 3-4 times the UK median.
Unusually, Radio 4 did challenge Harpy Harman on this on the Today Programme, but agreed, the story has been missed by the media in general.
New Lab appear to have decided not to match Cameron’s “any party MP who refuses to repay” promise. Harman dissembled wildly when challenged on both of these issues.
Why would anybody pay for the facile mainstream media?… they don’t do they? Paper sales are going through the floor.
Just heard that David Wiltshire has been told to he’ll have to go, as a result of paying £100,000 of taxpayers’ money into his private company as expenses. Of course, like almost all of the other MP scroungers, he’s being allowed to stand down at the next election, rather than being forced to resign now, so he’ll continue to parasitise the taxpayers with an extremely generous pension allowance and other benefits.
Aha, @Craig – the Telegraph has followed suit, 7 hours after you posted:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6329134/Round-up-the-guilty-MPs.html
BBC Radio 4 News Quiz just came up with this headline regarding the Sierra Leone inquiry –
‘Legg Heads Arms Body’
By the way Craig,
I thought this forthcoming radio programme might interest you –
‘Parting Shots’
BBC Radio 4
Tues 9.30-10.00
20 Oct 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n85qk
Prog blurb –
‘Matthew Parris marks the passing of the valedictory despatch, the traditional final telegram home in which British ambassadors could let their hair down and settle a few scores. The series features newly declassified Foreign Office files alongside interviews with the diplomats who wrote them.
Matthew delves into the archives to find valedictories in which ambassadors heading into retirement poked fun at foreign nations where they had served.
Related Links’
all the best CM
BBC Radio 4 News Quiz just came up with this headline regarding the Sierra Leone inquiry –
‘Legg Heads Arms Body’
By the way Craig,
I thought this forthcoming radio programme might interest you –
‘Parting Shots’
BBC Radio 4
Tues 9.30-10.00
20 Oct 2009
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n85qk
Prog blurb –
‘Matthew Parris marks the passing of the valedictory despatch, the traditional final telegram home in which British ambassadors could let their hair down and settle a few scores. The series features newly declassified Foreign Office files alongside interviews with the diplomats who wrote them.
Matthew delves into the archives to find valedictories in which ambassadors heading into retirement poked fun at foreign nations where they had served.
Related Links’
all the best CM
It seems claims are a lot easier now with new technological innovation software:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF3KSywoSaU