Expenses 69

 in Sleaze by

A national newspaper has put in a Freedom of Information request to the University of Dundee for the expenses claims of Court members over the last three years – precisely the period I have been Rector. Now why might they want to do that?

Personally, I only submitted any calims in the first six months when I was on my uppers and needed to claim travel and accommodation costs. Since I could afford it, for the last 30 months I have borne all expenses from my own pocket. So if anyone’s hoping for a scandal from me, they will be deisappointed.

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69 thoughts on “Expenses”

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  • Clark

    Hi George,

    non-windows systems are not invulnerable, but they are far more difficult to infect. The main problem is Javascript, whereby the browser can be compromised. However, the OS is protected. Yes, anti-virus companies encourage Mac users to buy their products, but Apple say that anti-virus software is unnecessary:

    http://www.apple.com/macosx/security/

    Infection spread is the key. An infected Windows PC can infect many others. If an infected system is, on average, likely to infect less than one other system, the infection will die out rather than spread.

    I believe that Windows is insecure by deliberate design, to help keep the masses scared of the Internet, and to facilitate organised crime.

  • haward

    Well Logos. Assuuming that we two were having a conversation with Craig & he said that there was an FOI request for the expenses of Court Members I would say to him that if he was blagging we had a right to know & that he could easily remedy the situation by publishing. You might then have interjected by asserting that I was trying to divert attention from the Saturday Night play. I can assure you that I would have told you that you were barking mad and I would probably have taken a good look at the moon for dramatic effect. Maybe that would cause offence in certain effete dinner party circles but I think that would result in considerable amusement in the social circles in which Craig moves and those in which I move (they are different but they do overlap).

    I can see , by the way , that one could read my posts as insinuation. One could also read them as telling Craig how to solve the problem & preempt a newspaper from running a headline saying that they were investigating his expenses. I think the latter is preferable. It was my intention. And he did it the way I suggested. The reason that I phrased it the way I did is that Craig thrives on melodrama & I was merely noting that I had spotted this.

  • logos

    haward: yes, if my interjection had suddenly diverted a dinner table conversation like that, it would indeed have been a bizarre non-sequitur. But in fact I was making a conjecture about why someone had lodged an FOI request at this point in time. It was hardly a non-sequitur: recall that in Craig’s message he mused, “Now why might they want to do that?”

    In any case, the play was mentioned to explain why people might be trying to dig the dirt now, and wasn’t an suggestion about why you were making insinuations. I think these points are quite clear if you read the message slowly enough.

    I’m glad the barking has stopped.

  • Tony

    Maybe you should go on the Andrew Marr Show and cry.

    There should be lobbying for getting Blair, Straw and Campbell into a Nuremberg style war crimes court. After that the MPs expenses nonsense needs to be put to bed. Then we need to sort out the BBC.

    Where do the justifiable claims for a few train tickets to/from Dundee feature on the Richter Scale? Simple answer: nowhere, except as a distraction.

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