Gordon Brown - Fiddling His Expenses

[Sheilbh]

MPs' expenses: Telegraph reveals Gordon Brown's payments to brother
Gordon Brown and senior ministers are facing questions over their use of parliamentary expenses after the Daily Telegraph revealed details of their claims including payments made by the Prime Minister to his brother.


By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 11:25PM BST 07 May 2009

Gordon Brown paid Andrew Brown more than £6,000 for "cleaning services" over the course of two years, and reclaimed the money from the taxpayer. He insisted tonight he had done nothing wrong.

The Prime Minister also claimed twice for the same £153 plumber's bill - money which he paid back today after the Telegraph pointed out the discrepancy to Downing Street.

Jack Straw, Hazel Blears and Paul Murphy are among 13 members of the Government who have been dragged into the growing row over taxpayer-funded allowances by the Telegraph investigation.

The disclosures show the full extent to which MPs have exploited the expenses system to subsidise their lifestyles.

Details of MPs' expenses claims are due to be made public in July, when 1.5 million receipts will be published by parliament under the Freedom of Information Act, covering five years' worth of claims.

But crucial details such as the identity of people to whom money was paid and the location of homes which MPs claimed on will be deleted from the receipts when they are published, meaning many of the worst apparent abuses of the system may never have been uncovered.

The Daily Telegraph has seen uncensored copies of the receipts, which lay bare the extent to which MPs play the system to maximise the amount of money they can claim from the taxpayer.

• Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, claimed money for three different properties in the course of a year, and spent £5,000 on furniture in just three months after buying the third property.

• Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, claimed back twice as much for his council tax as he had actually paid. He later apologised for the error, saying accountancy was not his strong point.

• Paul Murphy, the Welsh Secretary, splashed out more than £3,000 on a new hot water system for his second home, explaining in a letter to the parliamentary fees office that his water was too hot.

Over the coming days, further details of claims made by MPs from all parties will be revealed by the Telegraph.

Our investigation underlines the need for urgent reform of the expenses system, which is currently being reviewed by the committee for standards in public life.

In many cases, the parliamentary fees office, which administers the expenses system, uncovered evidence of apparent abuses but the MPs concerned were not independently investigated.

Mr Brown suffered a humiliating defeat last week when he was forced to drop proposals for immediate reforms, which followed a series of scandals involving other members of the cabinet.

They included Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, who claimed thousands of pounds for refurbishing her family home in her constituency, claiming her "main" home was a spare bedroom in her sister's house in London.

Tony McNulty, the employment minister, admitted claiming £60,000 for a mortgage on his parents' home while he was living in another house eight miles away.

Oh I'm looking forward to the other ones the Telegraph's going to publish.  God I hope this ends Brown's reign of terror.  Surely he can't survive this run of dreadful news and then an utter drubbing at the polls in June. 

Apparently there are rumours Milburn or Charles Clarke are planning to run as a stalking horse

[Neil]

Surely Jacqui Smith cannot survive this corruption, coupled with her incompetance?  Surely the government will collapse, allowing the Unionists to sweep the polls?

[Sheilbh]

On it goes:

MPs' expenses: Four ministers who milked the system
Four of Gordon Brown's ministers are exposed for milking the parliamentary MPs' expenses system and pushing their claims to the limit.


By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 11:46PM BST 08 May 2009

The Daily Telegraph's files show that Barbara Follett, the Tourism Minister; Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister; Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister; and Phil Hope, the Care Services Minister, have exploited the MPs' expenses system.

The questionable expense claims of two former ministers, Keith Vaz and Barry Gardiner, are also disclosed. They come after this newspaper published suspect claims made by 13 members of the Cabinet.

The details of their claims has resulted in an outpouring of public anger over the MPs' expenses system with calls for immediate reform.

The Cabinet ministers involved, including Jack Straw and Lord Mandelson, have refused to apologise but instead criticised the parliamentary expenses system.

The latest disclosures show that the expenses scandal goes beyond the Cabinet and implicates the entire Government.

The Daily Telegraph has been shown details of expense claims made by MPs from all the main political parties and is planning to publish a series of articles exposing how the system is being exploited by dozens of MPs.

Parliamentary rules stipulate that MPs must ensure that there are "no grounds for a suggestion of a misuse of public money". However, The Daily Telegraph files show some ministers have pushed the limits of the scheme. It can be disclosed that:

• Barbara Follett, the multi-millionaire Tourism Minister, claimed for private security patrols outside her London home costing more than £25,000. The parliamentary fees office, which is supposed to monitor claims, warned Mrs Follett that her claims may appear "excessive" if made public, but she was not deterred, saying she felt unsafe in Soho after being mugged.

• Keith Vaz, the former minister who now chairs the Home Affairs select committee, bought and furnished a flat in central London at taxpayers' expense despite living just 12 miles away with his wife in a £1.15 million property. He claimed more than £75,000 for the flat.

Mr Vaz also changed his designated second home for a single year to a property he owns in his Leicester constituency. During this year – 2007-08 – he claimed £1,000 for a table and chairs, £750 on new carpets, and £2,614 for a pair of leather armchairs. He also claimed for 22 cushions, including 17 made from silk costing £15 each. During the course of the year he rented out his London flat.

• Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton, spent £22,500 of taxpayers' money treating dry rot at her and her husband's seaside house 100 miles from her constituency – days after switching her "second home" there.

The parliamentary authorities were concerned that the work broke the "spirit" of the rules. However, the MP's claim was not blocked. Miss Moran's expenses appear to be among the most questionable of any MP.

Over four years she also spent thousands of pounds on three separate properties, switching between Westminster, Luton and Southampton and renovating each home in turn.

• Phil Hope, the Care Services Minister, has spent more than £37,000 on refurbishing and furnishing a modest two-bedroom flat in south London.

• Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, switched the designation of his second home to a property he shares with his partner in west London. Although the couple initially split the mortgage costs, Mr Bradshaw now claims the entire interest bill on the property – despite owning only half the property.

• Phil Woolas, the Home Office Minister, claimed for items of women's clothing, tampons and nappies. The parliamentary rules only allow expenses which are "exclusively" for MPs' own use so it is not clear these items were justified.

• Greg Barker, the shadow climate change minister, made £320,000 after buying a flat with the help of taxpayers' money, and selling it after only 27 months. He is the first senior Tory to become embroiled in the expenses row, but details of other prominent Conservatives will be disclosed in coming days.

• Barry Gardiner, the former environment minister, made a profit of almost £200,000 after buying a Westminster flat and claiming thousands of pounds to renovate the property. Mr Gardiner's main home is only eight miles from Parliament.

Yesterday, a number of Cabinet ministers gave interviews seeking to defend their own claims, but also criticising the operation of the system. The Daily Telegraph is also publishing details today of letters written by MPs to the parliamentary authorities that attempt to justify expense claims that were questioned.

One former Labour minister said: "I object to your decision not to reimburse me for the costs of purchasing a baby's cot for use in my London home... perhaps you might write to me explaining where my son should sleep next time he visits me in London?"

A Tory MP attempting to claim £5,347 for a new kitchen wrote: "The work surfaces are no longer hygienic and the sink unit, which is an old brown plastic double bowl, is scratched and very ugly."

A backbench Labour MP wrote: "I appreciate you are under severe pressure... but, as I explained on the phone, I am away for two weeks and I don't want to leave my family destitute."

[Sheilbh]

Oh and apparently Sunday's paper has 'career ending' stuff stored up

[Habsburg]

The idea of Herr Brown "fiddling" with anything makes me want to heave. 

[Monoriu]

A number of civil servants in Hong Kong have committed offences, e.g. claiming allowance for a home without living in it.  Their penalties - lost their jobs, and jailed.  This kind of thing actually enters criminal offence territory under the common law justice system that our past colonial masters left behind. 

[DontSayBanana]

Sad, but the most mindboggling part of that for me was that they would allow expenses claimed for an MP's second home.

[Neil]

Sad, but the most mindboggling part of that for me was that they would allow expenses claimed for an MP's second home.

Why is that?  An MP would have a home in his riding, but then would require a second home in London.

[Syt]

They should be housed in an MP apartment house where the government has good surveillance of them.

[Neil]

They should be housed in an MP apartment house where the government has good surveillance of them.

This isn't totalitarian Germany here.  Britain has a history of freedom that doesn't exist anywhere else in Europe.  And providing for a second house for MPs was a valuable reform, without which the Labour party would never even have existed.

[Sheilbh]

The Guardian's pretty damning about the whole expenses thing.  I agree with this article more or less entirely, as someone who thinks MPs should get more expenses so they can hire staff and should get paid more generally:

These scams are atrocious. Worse is the lack of remorse
The expenses racket shows politicians have lost their ethical bearings. It seems they no longer care what people think of them

Andrew Rawnsley
Under John Major, it was cash for ­questions. Under Tony Blair, it was cash for coronets. Under Gordon Brown, we reach the suitably bathetic nadir of cash for cleaners. And cash for lavatories. And cash for carpets. And cash for saunas. And cash for swimming pools. And cash for gardeners. And cash for barbecues. And cash for dog food. And cash for cushions. Silk ones, naturally, 17 of them in all to ease the repose of Keith Vaz. In the case of a Conservative MP with a constituency in the shires, it is cash for horse manure. One MP wants cash for Kit Kats. A Scottish Labour MP confirms the stereotype of his race by claiming 5p for a carrier bag. Well, he probably needed somewhere to stuff all his receipts. A Lib Dem takes cash for cosmetics. One male MP claims cash for tampons.

I would truly like to hear how buying tampons is an expense wholly, necessarily and exclusively related to the parliamentary duties of a male MP. The explanation must be fiendishly ingenious.

Over 26 months, the taxpayer parted with £6,577 to pay for the char who cleaned up after Gordon Brown. I guess the prime minister must generate a lot of dirty laundry. His expenses are pine fresh compared with the way in which some of his colleagues have been dipping into the taxpayers' pockets. John Prescott, scourge of the bankers' bonuses, champion of the workin' man, sticks his hand into the public purse for three faux Tudor beams for his castle in Hull. He also claimed for two broken lavatory seats. It was two Jags, then it was two shags, now it is two bogs ­Prescott.

Shaun Woodward, who is probably wealthier than the rest of the cabinet put together, husband of a Sainsbury heiress, owner of seven properties, a man so loaded that he can afford to employ a butler, takes the taxpayer for almost £100,000 in mortgage interest. Hazel Blears, the minister responsible for housing, certainly knows her way around the property expenses game. Hazel is a little whizz at Commons Monopoly. She sped round the board, claiming on three different properties in a single year and each time passing Go. We bought Hazel two new TVs and two new beds in the space of just 12 months. It was only last week, in the pages of this paper, that Ms Blears was mocking Gordon Brown for his lamentable presentational skills with her witty line: "YouTube if you want to." When you are such an avid collector of television sets as Hazel, I suppose you fancy yourself an expert on the media.

While most of her colleagues have gone into hiding, Harriet Harman has been shoved before the cameras to try to defend the indefensible. She bleats that it was "all within the rules" as if the rules were not of Parliament's own invention, but had been handed down by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. All her exposed colleagues have likewise protested that everything they did was "within the rules" as if they were powerless to resist an invisible hand that forced them to sign the claim forms. Not every MP felt compelled to scoff at the trough. Hilary Benn, Ed Miliband and Alan Johnson emerge as acmes of frugality who make modest and entirely reasonable claims for performing their duties. The unblemished MPs should be furious with the avarice of their grasping colleagues who have tarred the whole political class with a reputation for being seedy and greedy.

"It was all within the rules," they go on pleading. Oh no, Hattie, it wasn't. The rules were generous in their elasticity and even then MPs stretched them so far that they snapped. It is against the rules to claim money that you haven't actually spent. The prime minister accidentally submitted a £150 plumbing bill twice. Oh well, we know Mr Brown hasn't got much of a head for figures.

Jack Straw claimed for council tax he had never paid, luckily discovering his mistake and repaying the £1,500 only after the High Court ruled that all expenses claims had to be published. He accompanied a cheque for repayment with an oh-silly-me note pleading: "Accountancy does not appear to be my strongest suit." Thank goodness that the justice secretary is not in charge of a large government department responsible for many billions of the public's money. When he was angling to become chancellor, Mr Straw was keen for everyone to know that he was such a wizard at maths that he was a fellow of the Royal Society of Statisticians. At the very least they should strike him off.

I despair. One of the least edifying traits of Tony Blair's years was his toleration of sleaze and wilful refusal to see how it was poisoning the relationship between government and governed. I hoped for better under Gordon Brown. Despite the many sleaze eruptions, I have clung to the increasingly unfashionable view that most MPs are not venal graspers motivated entirely by the pursuit of their own interests. It is becoming harder to sustain that faith. If politicians do not arrive at the Commons corrupt, there is clearly a culture in Parliament that is corrupting. Disgraceful scams for milking the taxpayer have become encoded in the DNA of many parliamentarians. One reason is cowardice. MPs have long nursed a resentment about the monetary compensation for being in a high stress occupation with low job security. We discover Andy Burnham wheedling money from the Fees Office on the grounds that if they don't cough up: "I might be in line for a divorce!!"

MPs look enviously at consultants, lawyers, company executives, those they consider to be their peer group. They feel underpaid in comparison. I might have sympathised if they had ever had the guts to make the case for higher parliamentary salaries to the public. They instead exploited the slackly constructed and sloppily policed expenses regime and used it as a clandestine scheme for giving themselves tax-free top-ups to their salaries. Sheer greed then kicked in as the most opportunistic and rapacious of their number stretched the rules to the limit and sometimes well beyond it. The second home and additional costs allowances have been manipulated to the point where you need a very powerful microscope to distinguish some of the scams from fraud. The most outrageously lucrative racket has been to flip the address which they claim to be their "second home" from one location to another to fund the refurbishment of a succession of properties that can then be sold on at a tax-free profit.

No wonder Parliament put up such a protracted and bitter struggle to try to keep all this hidden from the voters. They should stop whingeing about the Daily Telegraph's drip feed of revelations from a leaked disc. MPs themselves ­created the black market in the information about their claims by trying to conceal what they had been doing for so long.

This will hurt the reputation of all politicians, but the damage is likeliest to be greatest to Labour at the next election. The government will be defending the most seats. Any incumbent MP with dodgy claims will be scourged by his or her challenger. It is a Labour government that failed to act in time to clean up this corrupted culture.

Politicians are further stripped of any moral ­authority to guide the country. How can they now talk about the disgraceful behaviour of bankers or demand sacrifices from voters to cope with the recession? We won't want to hear any more from John Prescott about the motes in the eyes of others when he has a Tudor beam sticking out of his own.

This week, I have learnt, Gordon Brown plans to convene a "political cabinet" when the civil servants will be sent out of the room so that ministers can talk privately about the mire into which the government has sunk. Several members of the cabinet are hoping to force the prime minister to let them debate the serial debacles which have engulfed Number 10 over the past month. These senior ministers grasp that there needs to be an urgent and comprehensive rethink about how Labour is conducting itself. There is certainly a lot to address: from the ­failure of the government to convey a ­strategic ­message to repeated bungling of the handling of day-to-day events. It will be in character if Gordon Brown tries to reassure his colleagues that the expenses furore is a passing froth, an essentially trivial story in the grand sweep of things. He will tell them that the next election will be decided on the big issues such as the economy. They like to think that the McBride Affair, the Gurkhas and parliamentary expenses don't really matter. They will be mere footnotes in the ­history books.

That may be correct. Yet sometimes it is the superficially trivial that conveys a significant truth about political decay. Full exposure of the expenses racket has illustrated the alarming extent to which so many politicians have lost touch with any ethical bearings, with any feel for what it is tolerable to the public, and even with any sense of self-preservation. The scams are bad enough. Worse is the total absence of any repentance. They have had weeks to consider how they would answer public revulsion when they were caught with their hands in the voters' pockets. What was required was a display of contrition. Yet the ­collective response has been to try to brazen it out.

Lord Mandelson, ever a man to think attack is the best form of defence, lashes out at the media, as if the disgrace was the exposé rather than that exposed. From most of the rest of the government there has been either skulking silence or a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that there has been any wrongdoing.

Caught in flagrante, they do not bow their heads in shame. Their answer to public disgust is to thrust two fingers at the voters. Everyone hates them; they don't care.

The MP who claimed for horse manure? Well, why not when so many other parliamentarians ­simply don't give a shit.

[citizen k]

@Guardian: When did politicians have ethical bearings?

[DontSayBanana]

Why is that?  An MP would have a home in his riding, but then would require a second home in London.

Fair, but why the hell would they cover expenses for a home that's not in either locale?

[Neil]

Why is that?  An MP would have a home in his riding, but then would require a second home in London.

Fair, but why the hell would they cover expenses for a home that's not in either locale?

Tradition.

[DontSayBanana]

Tradition.

Tradition has gotten England in trouble before. Also, "tradition" has no place in a budget, except to set up ceremonies.