MPs to lose right to claim for buying second homes

[muriel_volestrangler]

MPs will not be allowed to buy taxpayer funded second homes under new expenses rules to start after the election.

Those with constituencies 20 miles or 60 minutes from Westminster will be able to claim up to £1,450 a month - the equivalent of a one bed flat.

Expenses chief Sir Ian Kennedy said all claims would require receipts. Payoffs to retiring MPs will be stopped but MPs will be able to employ one relative.
...
MPs with children aged under five, single parents with children under 21 and those caring for disabled children will get "extra support", Sir Ian said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8592174.stm

Looks as if it's getting sorted out into something approaching reasonableness.

[dipsydoodle]

1. approaching reasonableness

sounds about right.

Claire Ward's justification for having a London home was that travelling back to Barnet was an issue when there were late sittings. Barnet is no more than 20 miles from the Commons and certainly isn't an hours drive especially late at night. Assuming no more than 2 late sitting every single week of the year the alternative cost of a taxi would've saved the taxpayers a bundle.

I wonder how many MPs just inside a 20 mile limit would move their main home just outside in order to qualify.

Off topic - in the weekend's Times poll 49% of those polled considered the current government to be the most corrupt ever in the UK.

[LeftishBrit]

2. And the other 51% were old enough to remember the last government?

[T_i_B]

3. What about those of us who've actually read our history?

Things are not great now, but compare the current bunch to what we had ruling us prior to 1830. No contest really.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Or Lloyd George selling knighthoods and peerages

Parliament has rarely been clean. The only consolation is that other countries can be just as bad.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Very good point.

E.g. Sir Robert Walpole, the first PM of the United Kingdom, was actually a rather good PM in some ways; but his government was far more noted for corruption, profiteering and nepotism than anything in recent history.

Just before Walpole's tenure, Britain experienced a financial scandal, the South Sea Bubble, which would make all the recent banksterism look like a Sunday School picnic. King George 1 himself was governor of the South Sea Company, and the government as a whole was implicated in the scandal.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Well given that I wasn't one of those polled

I can only suggest you find all that were to check their ages. As far as I'm aware those polls are purposely conducted across a wide demographic range.

[LeftishBrit]

7. I was being slightly ironic

It is not in any case just a matter of actual age; some people have longer memories than others. My point was simply that anyone who remembers the last government cannot seriously call this one 'the most corrupt'. Not to mention the historical awareness of much more corrupt earlier governments, as pointed out by others on the thread.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Well, the results are available

Here: http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/ST%20Results%20100326.pdf

Here's the question:

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that this is the most corrupt parliament in history. Do you agree or disagree with this description?

Answers (including by voting intention):

        Total Con Lab LD 18-34 35-54 55+

     Agree 49  73  24 55   44   45   59
  Disagree 29  12  57 25   27   34   26
Don't know 22  15  19 20   29   22   15

It's the oldest people who agree that this is the worse ever; those of us who were young, but old enough to have some political knowledge at the time of Thatcher, are most likely to disagree with Clegg.

By party, the Tories are most likely to say this is the most corrupt - they hate Labour, and would never accept Thatcher's lot (or Major's) were worse, even though this is 'parliament', and the Tories were pretty bad this time too. And Labour says no, by and large; I guess both may be thinking purely of Byers et al.