Thank the BNP

Apparently we owe the BNP a very big thank you for breaking the expenses scandal.

In the wake of Harry Cohen MPs £65,000 forfeit being announced last week, the Ministry had a quick look at the complaint and paperwork lodged with our Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

The complaint was made by a Mr Michael Barnbrook in response to an article he'd read in the Daily Mail on Cohen.

His trail leads to the BNP website ...

"The controlled press continue to ignore the fact that it is the BNP’s Mr Barnbrook who has been the main driver behind the exposure of the entire Westminster expenses swindle"

MPs Expenses - Arresting developments

Files on six MPs have been passed by the police to the CPS.

We've been here before of course - the police get a case together, hand evidence over to the Crown Prosecution service and....   hmmm. They decide whether to press charges based on whether there's enough evidence to mount a successful prosecution and it serves the public interest. It'll be interesting to see  how this pans out timing-wise with the run up to the election.

Money at Ministry Towers is on Elliot Morely MP taking the fall. The face fits and if you can measure a mans character in numbers - they don't look good as far as integrity goes. In this government he's voted 0.6% of the time against his party (3 of those were MP's home address related issues). Nor does it help that 3 out of the last 7 years he's come joint 1st for claims of the Additional Cost Allowance. He's also voted against capping MPs pay increases at 2.3%, pretty consistently against strengthening the Freedom of Information Act, for the Iraq war but against any subsequent inquiries and of course, was for student top-up fees.

He's been the MP for Scunthorpe since 1987 - the constituents must be delighted with their local party's choice of candidate.

Dismal Dismore MP punishing intentions

Longest-standing member of the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee, Andrew Dismore MP  is the latest to have his expenses questioned. He is not unknown to us.

A constituent asked him to support our "Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill" and he was good enough to answer via e-mail, "Frankly, I think that it is a rather silly Bill, because I do not know of any elected representatives who would knowing make a false statement..."

Good to know the Committee and it's members had it's finger on the pulse then.

His "shock and horror" in the October 2009 letter to constituents isn't entirely unpredictable, "May I firstly start by saying that I have been as shocked and horrified as the public has been, over some of the claims put forward by some MPs."

A little more surprising was his hypocritical assessment of our intentions and our use of the legislative process when referring to our proposed law...

"the Bill has no prospect of proceeding and I think it is simply being promoted as a publicity stunt".

Hmmm. In the letter to constituents of October 2009 you'll find that apparently, we are all indebted to the Labour Party for the uncovery of the expenses scandal - without them, it would never have been brought to light...

"It is only because of the Freedom of Information Act, brought in by the Labour Government, that we are now aware of what was happening."

Er ???  That'd be the same Labour Government which fought tooth and nail through the courts to prevent the Freedom of Information Act being used to disclose the expenses scandal by the Telegraph.

Andrew was gracious enough to forego his secondary home allowance this year and opted to bag the London weighting allowance instead. Using the same cynics measure of our "publicity stunt" intentions to criminalise political deception, we would like to stress that this has no connection to the fact that his transparent and honest secondary home claims would amount to less than his London weighting allowance.

There you go - Andrew's expenses may well be with the public interest at heart, but no good deed shall go unpunished and lest we forget... the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Feel free to e-mail Andrew at andrewdismoreMP@parliament.uk to ask him whether he's changed his mind on criminalising political deception.