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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lots pressure on Maria Miller over expenses, but I’m yet t
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lots pressure on Maria Miller over expenses, but I’m yet to be tempted to bet that she’ll be next cabinet exit
The two main things we’ve learned about cabinet exit betting since GE2010 is that Cameron is loathe to make changes and even when things look grim, almost terminal, for a minister they can survive. Secondly politicians who’ve reached that level are super-resilient and it is easy to underestimate their desire to hang on in there.
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Presumably we're going to have a post Euros reshuffle when people will be laying down their cabinet careers for their party. And DH rules are likely to apply.
I realise that Mandelson may skew the figures....
Buffs nails. Some wise fellow did tip her at 14/1 in February.
What I do not know is what the extent of the "disabity" is of her parents. If she is actually supporting them at home, should we acknowledge that? There may even be a massive saving on local authority care home fees. Circa £50k pa. No defence, but just putting a compassionate view and a financial view.
There were three resignations in Blair's first four years. Mandy twice and Ron Davies and his moment of madness of Clapham Common.
Under the coalition, we've had Laws, Fox and Huhne resign in disgrace, Andrew Mitchell, whilst Paddy Power considered him a cabinet minister, official records don't.
Plus Lord Strathclyde resigned with honour.
Cameron's screwed either way. He'll be criticised if he keeps her (only because she's a woman) and criticised if not (not enough women in ministerial jobs). Some of those complaining the most are the same idiots who indulge in identity politics. Women should be treated the same as men, and suffer neither discrimination nor an unfair advantage over men.
Not too familiar with the case (she was broadly cleared by the independent watchdog, right?) so not sure whether she should go or not.
Just glanced at the P1 times. I wouldn't take them too seriously (P2 could be more useful as it runs at the same time as qualifying/the race, I think). Surprising that Rosberg was half a second ahead of Button, though. Hulkenberg was 20/1 to be best of the rest pre-P1.
Ladbrokes - Arfon (PC maj = 1,455)
PC 5/6
Lab 5/6
UKIP 100/1
LD 100/1
Con 100/1"
Is this what is known as an idiot's bet? Guaranteed loss of money.
Sack her.
Thomas Docherty, the MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, wrote to the Met's Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley, after the Culture Secretary escaped serious censure when a committee of MPs overruled an official inquiry into her expenses.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/conservative-mps-expenses/10744045/Met-Police-asked-to-investigate-Maria-Millers-expenses-claims.html
Politicians should expect to be judged to a higher a standard.
Ladbrokes have started putting up quite a few markets up, and I asked him to put up the next out of the cabinet and 15 minutes later it was.
On the expenses side, she hasn't done herself any favours with her apparent arrogance and the fact that she failed to cut her claims when interest rates fell on her mortgage. On the other hand, the main complaint against her, regarding the fact that her parents live with her, was pretty ridiculous.
It would be a gross miscarriage of justice to allow mere commoners to judge MPs. Look at the miscarriages of justice, like Chris Huhne, that ensue when we allow commoners to try MPs
If I over claimed my expenses by that much, I'd be expecting to be sacked and have a chat with the rozzers.
It's easier to go via oddschecker.
What's more, the commissioner got it wrong in my view (and the view of her fellow MPs, which is more to the point), and was retrospectively trying to change the rules.
@gallaghereditor: "no tape of Craig – but there is a contemporaneous note.
It's a long(ish) drive to turn 1 (the Michael Schumacher Turn, I believe it's now called), so a bad qualifying would still not be game over for Mercedes-powered cars. I'd expect them to perhaps make up a place or two off the line.
The new (in 2015) MP for Aberavon will actually have his family home in Denmark, whete his wife and family live. Are we gonna be paying for his house there? Or his place in London? What about his digs in Aberavon?
Time for a rethink, the system's still broken.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmstandards/1179/1179.pdf
If you really can't be bothered (and I can well see why you might not, since it is fiendishly complicated), then I suggest you read at least paragraphs 68 and 69.
Mr. Stopper, I agree. Axe almost all expenses and hike the salary to £100,000. Allow two flat rate expenses for staff, if necessary.
We should have more simplicity and transparency generally, such as in tax and welfare.
David Cameron and Maria Miller should realise that it doesn't look good for the party, the government or politics in general, if you go into politics, you should expect to be judged to a higher standard than others.
What do you think would be the outcome if a member of the public had overclaimed on housing benefit to a similar amount?
1) Parliament spending all this money on accomodation for itself looks bad.
2) Since it's government property, the MPs get in trouble when they bring their mistresses back there.
CCTV in the apartment block lobby should cure the the Mistress trouble, as MPs keep telling us "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".
Definitely a barnacle worth scraping.
I never knew that, Mr. Eagles. Hiding your light under a bush there, what path led you from Physics to law? Should you not have been the engineering camp with Mr Jessop et al?
For this, to recapitulate, they get:
- A salary well above the City average
- A tax free food allowance
- Largely unreceipted expenses
- The tax-free benefit in kind of a fully-expensed second home
- A final salary pension scheme that vests faster than even Civil Service final salaries
- Astonishingly, if they retire early through ill health they immediately receive a pension based on what they'd get if they had worked to 65
- Even more astonishingly they keep it even if they return to work. In theory an ex-MP could return to the Commons and collect both a fully-vested pension and the salary
- An office allowance that they can hand to their spouse and family without even having to advertise the jobs
- A five-year fixed term contract
- A redundancy package if they lose their seat even though they were on a contract of generous and fixed duration.
To fund all that out of normal taxed income (impossible to buy in the case of the pension), you'd need to be on something like £300,000 a year.
That was surely a viable expense, so why was it thrown out?
That IS the system - you may disagree with it but she was tried under it and cleared of wrongdoing. What do you propose we do to the poor lady? Perhaps some form of trampling by horses, enforced slavery or toenail removal by blunt instrument?
In this case, the Committee (chaired by a Labour MP) has produced its report, and has cleared Maria Miller of the substantive complaint:
The Code of Conduct from 2002 stipulated that: “No improper use shall be made of any payment or allowance made to Members for public purposes”. We have seen no evidence to suggest that Mrs Miller failed to abide by this part of the Code.
...
The main thrust of the original complaint, namely that Mrs Miller was providing an immediate benefit from public funds to her parents, has not been upheld
Pretty unambiguous; it would be absurd for Cameron to overrule this and act as though she was in fact guilty. Even if she had been, it would have been about the exact interpretation of the arcane rules, not hiding anything or forging invoices like the ex-MPs who went to jail.
Having said that, the Commitee has also been very critical of her attitude, which seems fair enough to me.
We could consider an MP a limited company, thus allowing for legitimate business expenses and staff. Treat the current salary as company income and allow the MP to take salary plus dividends and run appropriate business expenses within the current tax system.
The base salary/would need to be raised naturally.
Not sure how HMRC's rules surrounding "normal place of work" would apply.. I suppose that would all depend on how much time the MP spent in the constituency versus Westminster. This could drastically reduce the amount of expenses an individual MP could claim.
That's the most plausible explanation I have heard thus far
The question is - will UKIP knock 10% or so off the Conservative vote too?
If they do, then you could end up with a number of seats that were previous 50/40/5/5 going 35/30/25/5
Plus, Balls would be a better chancellor than Brown or the Postie were.
I did Maths, Further Maths, Physics and History at A Level.
My mother wanted me to be a doctor, but I'm on not too keen on blood.
I was told by my teachers, and others, I had a talent for (memorably) expressing myself in both speech and in reports/writing and should consider a field in that area.
Had The Big Bang Theory tv show been on made 12 years earlier, my career path would have been different.
What's broken is one generation of red princes being allowed to follow another, all growing fat on tax payer money, whilst the lot of the people of the constituency never changes.
Unfortunately the opposition in this constituency is divided between lib/con/plaid. Shame they can't unite under an anti establishment candidate.
This case is not even that, though - the Committee finds (and I think their conclusion is sound) that the claim was within the rules.
I've always had employers with generous approaches to expenses.
I once even managed to claim for a meal, drinks and the heavenly money you give to the lapdancers in Stringfellows.
I had to entertain a client, honestly, it was the only place in Soho we could eat that night and didn't have to queue for.
The LibDems will lose all their 'regional' support. But they wil lretain their individual MP incumbency / loyalty where the individual merits it. I'm pretty sure their vote share will collapse by more than their MP count.
The facts around her claims are complicated but they are not that complicated. Essentially she got a further advance on her mortgage to do up her house and sought repayment of the interest from the taxpayer. This is something she was not entitled to.
More seriously, the Committee found that she had deliberately and repeatedly sought to delay or obstruct the investigation into this and failed to provide the information that had been requested. That in itself was a breach of the code and what she had to apologise for. The right to silence of an accused is not apposite to someone who receives these additional payments or holds such a position.
Unfortunately I don't think politicians even now get it. They continue to allow the perception that there are different rules apply to them. Plus she is frankly useless. Cameron has made a big mistake in not being seen to be tough on this and holding ministers to a proper standard.
BBC sending 270 people to Brazil to broadcast soccer World Cup #wow
Can we post about the bbc instead of MP's ;-)
Let's assume both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems do badly (a reasonable assumption on current polling). They will want to freshen up the look of government, and there's no better way to do so than by changing the faces.
The problem is that the faces that the public associates with this government are immovable. David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg are not going to go anywhere except of their own volition. William Hague, Danny Alexander and Vince Cable aren't part of the problem. Theresa May and Philip Hammond aren't either, and in any case are too influential to be axed. Losing Michael Gove would give a fresh look to Education and losing Jeremy Hunt would give a fresh look to Health, but Michael Gove is far too popular with rank and file Conservatives and Jeremy Hunt has reduced the temperature of the political hot potato that is the NHS.
Who else might go? Eric Pickles got a black mark for his handling of the floods and Iain Duncan Smith hasn't exactly got the universal credit off to a flying start. They might be worth covering, especially Mr P.
That leaves the government with the option of reshuffling a bunch of people that most of the public has never heard of (which will hardly give the government a fresh face, but which might enthuse some ambitious MPs) or of doing nothing. Doing nothing has to be quite likely.
If so, we look at the list on the basis of accidents waiting to happen. At 25/1, our Home Secretary needs a close look simply because the Home Office is so accident prone. But personally, I'm not betting on anyone.
18/1 with PP, the problem being that it doesn't count on their rules if it's part of a "re-shuffle".
There are some quite big differences in the pricing between Ladbrokes and PP because of that rule.
Inviting people to max out an expenses allowance is always going to lead to this sort of thing. (Though respect to those MPs who didn't max out the allowance). Just pay them an improved salary - based on distance from Westminster - and let them sort their own living and transport arrangements out, FFS.
Pickles is someone I've backed as next out cabinet, but not for the reasons you say.
There have been rumours that Sir George Young will be standing down as Chief Whip, and Dave is considering Eric as Chief Whip.
Now, Shadsy views Chief Whip as a non cabinet job, and did so when Andrew Mitchell moved from International Development Secretary to Chief Whip, it was considered him leaving the cabinet.
That assumes there will be no change in the LibDem contingent, which I think is a reasonable assumption.
We've put the Next Cabinet Minister Out market back up.
I don't like it all that much, because there is too much potential for ambiguity about what counts as in or out of the cabinet. But for the benefit of anyone here who wants a bet
- Only the people on our list count as cabinet ministers for betting purposes
- "Attending" cabinet or some such term does not count
- Dead Heat rules apply if more than one leave on the same day. (Lets hope someone does before the general election)
Cameron can certainly give a good speech:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26880759