Magda Hassan Wrote:What is the coverage like there now?

Quote:His very poignant words to me were "if any of this conjecture is true, Parliament will become full of racists, fantasists, and has-been celebrities. We will be rendered impotent and may never again regain the authority to withstand the pressure, opinion and whims of the overtly wealthy."

Quote:That so many Labour and Tory politicians are now revealed as personally crooked is no more than a metaphor for the anti-democratic system they have forged together.
Their accomplices have been those journalists who report Parliament as “lobby correspondents” and their editors, who have “played the game” willfully, and have deluded the public (and sometimes themselves) that vital, democratic differences exist between the parties. Media-designed opinion polls based on absurdly small samplings, along with a tsunami of comment on personalities and their specious crises, have reduced the “national conversation” to a series of media events, in which the withdrawal of popular consent — as the historically low electoral turnouts under Blair demonstrated — has been abused as apathy.

Quote:Expenses details released by Commons
Thursday, June 18 02:25 pm

Details of MPs' expenses claims have finally been published by the House of Commons. Skip related content

The release of tens of thousands of claim forms and receipts on the Parliament website come more than a year after the High Court ordered their publication and weeks after they were leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

But with much of the detail that led to a public outcry blacked out, their publication is likely to lead to demands for greater openness.

Revelations about the claims have forced a series of MPs to announce their resignations in the past month.

Junior Treasury minister Kitty Ussher became the latest scalp on Wednesday night when she quit the Government following allegations that she avoided paying capital gains tax by "flipping" her second home.

In a letter to Gordon Brown, the Burnley MP said she had not abused the expenses system, but did not want to cause "any embarrassment" to the Prime Minister or his Government.

The publication covers printed documents and receipts relating to MPs' claims between 2004/05 and 2007/08 for a series of parliamentary allowances, but with many personal details edited out.

These include claims under the £24,000-a-year Additional Costs Allowance, which reimburses MPs for the cost of having to maintain a second home while serving at Westminster; the £22,000 Incidental Expenses Provision, which pays for running an office; and the £10,400 Communications Allowance, which covers the cost of newsletters and websites to inform constituents about their activities; as well as details of expenditure on stationery and postage.

The expenses claims and supporting receipts published by the Commons authorities feature large blacked out areas where it is not always clear what has been obscured.

There are no addresses for MPs' homes, meaning it would have been virtually impossible to identify so-called flipping, whereby MPs switch the designation of their second properties to maximise their claims.

Also edited out are the names and details of people and companies to whom payments were made using expenses.

Correspondence between MPs and the Commons Fees Office has also been removed.

David Guyatt Wrote:A goody. The fetid crooks in Westminster have now released tens of thousands of expenses claims for the express purpose of public scrutiny.

The caped crusader does it again. Good on you Gord! Not.

The only teense-weensy catch is that one will need specially encrypted x-ray vision and futuristic classified night goggles to read through the large amounts of black marker pen redaction.

It does the cockles of my heart good just to know that there truly is genuine public accountability in the modern age. Not.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090618/tuk-expenses-details-released-by-commons-dba1618.html

Quote:Expenses details released by Commons
Thursday, June 18 02:25 pm

Details of MPs' expenses claims have finally been published by the House of Commons. Skip related content

The release of tens of thousands of claim forms and receipts on the Parliament website come more than a year after the High Court ordered their publication and weeks after they were leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

But with much of the detail that led to a public outcry blacked out, their publication is likely to lead to demands for greater openness.

Revelations about the claims have forced a series of MPs to announce their resignations in the past month.

Junior Treasury minister Kitty Ussher became the latest scalp on Wednesday night when she quit the Government following allegations that she avoided paying capital gains tax by "flipping" her second home.

In a letter to Gordon Brown, the Burnley MP said she had not abused the expenses system, but did not want to cause "any embarrassment" to the Prime Minister or his Government.

The publication covers printed documents and receipts relating to MPs' claims between 2004/05 and 2007/08 for a series of parliamentary allowances, but with many personal details edited out.

These include claims under the £24,000-a-year Additional Costs Allowance, which reimburses MPs for the cost of having to maintain a second home while serving at Westminster; the £22,000 Incidental Expenses Provision, which pays for running an office; and the £10,400 Communications Allowance, which covers the cost of newsletters and websites to inform constituents about their activities; as well as details of expenditure on stationery and postage.

The expenses claims and supporting receipts published by the Commons authorities feature large blacked out areas where it is not always clear what has been obscured.

There are no addresses for MPs' homes, meaning it would have been virtually impossible to identify so-called flipping, whereby MPs switch the designation of their second properties to maximise their claims.

Also edited out are the names and details of people and companies to whom payments were made using expenses.

Correspondence between MPs and the Commons Fees Office has also been removed.

Quote:
Email sent by No 10 gives Labour MPs switchboard number to ring for support, advice or legal help
Gordon Brown has set up a team in Downing Street to counsel and support distressed Labour MPs facing flak from constituents over their expenses claims, the Guardian has learnt.
An internal email sent out by the Labour party to all MPs reveals that a "wellbeing" support line has been launched from No 10. MPs are being told they can ring the Downing Street switchboard to be put through for support and advice.
The team is being headed by Anne Snelgrove, Brown's newly appointed parliamentary private secretary, who used to work for Ed Balls and is an avid user of Twitter, recently using the micro-blogging site to publish a link announcing her appointment.
The internal email sent today reads: "'Well-being' support and advice available from colleagues: Anne Snelgrove will act as a first port of call for colleagues on these matters. Anne will have a team of colleagues working with her on this. Anne can be contacted via the Number 10 switchboard."
The email, sent at 8.51 am, nearly three hours after the expenses claims became public, reveals that lawyers are standing by to help in the worst cases. "The Labour party is able to put colleagues in contact with a legal adviser, should you require one," it says.
The team is offering MPs help to keep the full details of expenses secure on their computers. It says: "The Labour party's network analyst, Chris Walker, is able to offer helpful advice on issues relating to secure publication of materials online." The email offers a direct line to contact him.
The email has been sent out by Martin O'Donovan, director of the parliamentary Labour party's resource centre and secretary to the PLP. He offers a mobile number for people to contact him should they need help outside office hours.
It also discloses that MPs can get advice on how to handle the media from all Labour's regional directors, press officers or straight from the Labour party press office – whose direct line number is also contained in the email.