UK Winter Fuel Anomaly

1949 was quite a year – RCA perfected a system for broadcasting colour television, the first Polaroid camera was sold, as was the first commercially available computer, the Ferranti Mark1. China became a Communist state, and Russia officially had the nuclear bomb. Of course, there were happier events as well taking place, such as the births of over 700,000 babies, among them yours truly. Anyone with a liking for maths will have worked out that those of us who have survived until now will have reached the big 6-0. Great stuff! I had been looking forward for ages to getting my free bus allowance, and my winter fuel payment. I received my bus pass okay, but the Winter Fuel Payment is only given if you are 60 or over before ‘the qualifying week’ for the winter concerned. The qualifying week always begins on the third Monday of September. It is not given either to those who have the misfortune of being in hospital, during the qualifying week, and have been there for over a year, or to those who have the good fortune of being guests in one of Her Majesty’s penal establishments. As I was born in November (I celebrated my first Guy Fawkes bonfire when I was a day old), I obviously do not qualify to receive the above mentioned payment this year. Why is there this anomaly in the system? Are those of us born after the third Monday in September more hot blooded? I think not. It’s all to do with money; filthy lucre for the Government of the day. There are around 203,000 folk this year who are not eligible for the payment, which, at £250 per head, translates into £50,750,000 for the Treasury. That should be enough spare cash to install extra radiators in some MPs’ flats, or to heat their ducks’ pools.

On a happier note, I received an email from Chris Fox, well known and respected internet marketer, a couple of days ago, in which he gave me details of a free report entitled “Google Launch Grip”. It’s actually a fully blown system that you could start using TODAY! It’s available by clicking here

Quite POSSIBLY one of the SIMPLEST techniques I have ever come across to reach thousands of visitors.... you’re going to be amazed out how EASY this tactic is to implement...

Britain's Politicians' Expenses

A list of the allowances and expenses claimed in 2007-8 details for the first time how much each MP was reimbursed for family travel costs, amounting to £385,242 for wives,  and £75,819 for children. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, was the second highest claimant for family travel, charging £5,283 for 30 journeys made by his wife Margaret and £4,391 for the couple's two children, a total of £9,674. Current parliamentary rules state that MPs may claim for up to 30 journeys made by their spouse or civil partner and each child under the age of 18 between London and their constituency. The allowance is taxable, but there is no set limit on how much can be claimed for each journey. Taxpayer-funded trips for the wives of MPs have proved hugely controversial in the past. Michael Martin, the Speaker, came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed that his wife Mary accompanied him on visits to such exotic destinations as Hawaii, the Bahamas, New York and Rome, even though she has no official role.

 

 After months of refusals, the House of Commons has published detailed expenses claims for members including Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Tony Blair. More than 400 pages of Commons documents released on Friday disclosed that Mr Brown claimed £9,000 to have his kitchen refurbished in 2005. In common with other senior ministers, Mr Brown claimed public money for a second home even though he is provided with a grace-and-favour home in Downing Street. When he was Chancellor, Mr Brown also made claims including £372 on subscription fees for satellite television; £723 for “cleaning services”; £650 on food; and £1,396 for painting and decorating. Mr Brown also claimed £15 for lightbulbs. With hindsight, perhaps he should have had more installed, as he looks very much like a man who is floundering about in the dark.

 

Tony Blair, who stepped down as an MP last year, claimed £11,200 for a new kitchen in his constituency home in Sedgefield. For the same house, he spent £516 on new dishwasher and £50 on servicing an Aga. The list goes on…and on… but I’m sure you get the gist. Taxpayers should not be made to pay for Gordon Brown’s Sky TV subscription or Tony Blair’s £10,000 kitchen. Given the economic climate and the fact that everyone’s feeling poorer, it’s high time MPs reined in the amounts they claim for.  It is costly for taxpayers and harmful to the standing of Parliament for them to use expenses to live this kind of high life.

The Commons authorities have been working flat out to prepare around a million receipts filed by MPs for publication, after losing a long-running freedom of information battle to keep them secret. The process is due to cost taxpayers around £2million. The documents have now started circulating to MPs for them to check and make representations on which parts should be deleted for security and other reasons. They are expected to prove damaging to many MPs when they are published this autumn. However, it seems that somebody with access to them is willing to part with them for a couple of hundred thousand pounds.

 

A senior Labour MP, Sir Stuart Bell, has revealed a parliamentary committee is investigating how the expense accounts of the politicians were on offer for up to £300,000. He is quoted as saying, “It’s probably a breach of the Official Secrets Act. It may be a theft, but we will get to the bottom of it. In the public interest, by the way.”   Right, Sir Stuart – we believe you!

Another Week, Another Scandal

Senior Labour minister Tony McNulty is under pressure to return Commons allowances after he admitted that he didn’t feel too good about claiming for a house his parents lived in. Since 2001-2 Mr McNulty, who became an MP in 1997, has claimed a total of £59,998 in allowances for his second home. In an attempt to halt the row, he has now stopped claiming the hand-outs and urged other MPs who live near London, and claim the benefit, to do the same.

The employment minister is the latest MP to be caught claiming the Common's controversial "additional costs allowance" for a property that is not strictly his home. Mr McNulty lives with his wife Christine Gilbert in a house she owns in Hammersmith, three miles from Westminster. Yet the minister has been claiming up to £14,000 a year in parliamentary expenses to help pay for another house he owns in Harrow, 11 miles from the Commons, in which his parents live. The MP can claim the money because the house is in his Harrow constituency and so qualifies him for the second home allowance.

 

After the arrangement was disclosed by the Mail on Sunday this weekend, Mr McNulty announced that he had decided to stop claiming the money, which he has benefited from since becoming an MP in 1997. Mr McNulty, who is also Minister for London, said: "There are senior shadow frontbench figures who live five miles further away from Westminster than me who claim the lot. Currently 157 MPs live within sixty miles of London, including 26 inner London MPs who already cannot claim the money, worth up to £24,000 a year. Of the remaining 131, 105 claim the additional costs allowance. If they stopped doing so it would save the taxpayer about £2 million a year.

Mr McNulty accepted that his use of taxpayers' money for the property looked odd and admitted that he has always felt "discomfort" in claiming the money. I would suggest that if he really wants to get rid of that discomfort, he could hand those readies back to the rightful owners, Britain’s taxpayers.

 

Now to something completely different. The nearest metropolis to where I stay has become somewhat of a ghost town over the past few months, due to the closure of some factories and one of the most successful Woolworths stores in the country. (That £60,000 in Mr McNulty’s back pocket would have given each staff member there £1,000 each, enough to keep them indulging in Pic’n Mix for the next 10 years.) Anyway, I don’t usually like going there nowadays, as it’s difficult to find someone to talk to apart from the gulls. I get the feeling sometimes that I’m about to see a horse making its way along the main street, with Clint Eastwood aboard, complete with a tartan poncho.

 However, I had to venture there last Friday afternoon, and was pleasantly surprised to see a more than usual array of cars and human beings. It must have been the glorious sunshine that prompted so many to abandon the homestead for a couple of hours. They were there to be seen and to be admired, from the women flaunting their beauty and obesity, to the men, hoping to get a tan on at least part of their beer bellies. Of course, I have to admit that, being a nine stone walking skeleton, having to wear two or three jerseys, and boots with steel toecaps, in order that I won’t be blown away by the slightest gust of wind, I am simply very jealous.     

Banks, Allowances, and Cheddar

 

Over the weekend, we have been given the glad tidings that the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB are to give staff at least £1billion in bonuses, despite having having received more than £25 billion in hand-outs, largely because of their ineptitude. That amount represented an average contribution to the bank of around £1,300 by each family in the UK. The banks justify their actions by saying that if they don’t reward their best employees, they will seek work elsewhere. I think it might take a while for them to get other work —  are they not aware that Britain is sinking deeper each day into recession and mass unemployment?

 

Home Secretary (should there be a “Second” in front of that “Home”?) Jacqui Smith, responsible for law enforcement in the country, has a large family home in Redditch, for which she claims a tax free payment of up to £24,000 a year, as she has designated her sister’s house as her main residence, meaning that the Redditch one is classed as her second home. Her husband and children live there, and he is paid £40,000 for the privilege of being her assistant. Ms Smith herself earns £142,000 as Home Secretary, and claimed a total of £152,000 in Commons expenses for the period 2006-07. That’s a handy £5654 a week, just a trifle more than those of us who have the option of either eating or heating.

 

A list of Britain’s Top National Wonders was released at the end of the week. It was headed by the Lake District; The Scottish Highlands made it into second place, and according to the Daily Express, Cheddar George came in third. I can only hope that his partner is partial to the bovine product as well.

 

I see that Bernard Madoff, he who made off with an estimated £35 billion, has taken to wearing a bullet-proof vest. He’s currently under house arrest at his £4 million Manhattan apartment, poor chap. I don’t think the vest should make him feel too confident about his safety, as many of those trigger happy guys who’d like to take a potshot at him would probably be aiming further south.