Smith thought she'd be cleared

Oh dear

That sounds like an obituary

"To many voters she's a minister "on the take" who is not satisfied with a fat salary, a chauffeur and two homes but also claims more by employing her husband, calling her family home her second home and submitting bills for porn films."

There is a well known saying about cream rising to the top. Labour, of course, do not "do" farming.

OH the blessed irony of this.

10/10 for making a bit of a case for her Nick but as Labour were so fond of saying in 97 sleaze is sleaze.

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sorry nick...she is the home secretary for goodness sake...she was claiming for plugs...88pence plugs....fiddling your expenses is all about being conscientous its that simple.

the majority of decent people just wouldnt do it...and those did it surely would expect to be sacked?

i have no sympathy for either of them...how can you with the amount of cash they have had out of this country?

if her husband spent more time doing his job that he got paid for instead of indulging himself with his additional features (pornography movies as you seemed scared to say it) they might not of got themselves in such a pickle.

common decency dictates she should resign but hey who said anything about common decency when it comes to this current goverment?

home secretary...dont make me laugh...how can anyone ever take her seriously again?

"The irony is that only last week she told friends that she expected to be cleared in the inquiry into the expense claims for her second home."

===

Never mind the inquiry, what about the "court of public opinion"?

"She is not, after all, just a minister or an MP but the mother of two school age boys who may now come to hate the day their mum went into politics. "

Err Nick, the confidence that she would be cleared comes from BOASTING she spends more time with her sister than her children. Yes, I expect it is only now, that they are regretting their mother's choices.

Do I detect a Cheriegate moment being pushed our way? Oh please, no mention of keeping all the balls in the air. Pass me the tissues... second thoughts, make it a sick bag.

Personally, I am affronted that it is only after it has all come on top that she is "poring through" the various diaries to establish where her main home was/is in any particualr month.

Surely this is what you do, before you whack the claim in?

As I speculated yesterday, the queen can only have been requesting that her picture be taken off of this tainted money that Gordon is now printing.

This just goes to prove, once again, that all governments outlive their shelf life. Come on, Gordon, time to go and let the people decide.

I fail to see how MPs are underpaid. They are all former lawyers in the main doing public service work. They should be paid a max of say £50k and have expenses and be able to justify every penny. Anything amiss then they should lose their rights to expenses for a period or better still face the sack and a by-election in their seat. It is only by being tough this will be solved.

As far as Jacqui Smith is concerned I feel a little sorry for her, however the £10 is not the issue, and neither is the porn, the issue is her flagrant lack of morals in this situation where she seems to think using one bedroom at her sister's is ok to feather her family nest. Well I'm sorry Jacqui but it just doesn't smell right to me!

Snouts in the trough, the lot of them!

Eric Pickles hardly covered himself in glory on Question Time last Thursday either, trying to defend the indefensible.

She can quite easily avoid the ridicule and the outrage by resigning, standing down as an MP, and thus giving up all her expenses. Certainly seems the best solution for all, once she's paid us taxpayers back all that she's scammed already of course.

If she doesn't pay it back then it's a matter for the police, but I'm sure she can afford it.

One down, who's next?

Why would you bother being a politician, my Google searches are enough to have me locked up ...... it looks like!

The conceit of this government is breathtaking.

The stench of sleaze after twelve years is now becoming unbearable.

Everything appears to be within the rules; everyone appears to be not guilty of any wrong doing.

But now one government minister after another is running inot the same trap. The old newlabour formula of cooking the books and massaging the message worked only so long as the books were vaguely solvent. The moment Gordon Brown started to step on the newlabour spending gas in 2000 was the moment it went wrong.

Oppostion parties have been quesitioning newlabour accounting for a decade; with billions off balance sheet but the message was massaged over and over again.

Now it's all coming home to roost as newlabour politicians personal finances are seen to be as inept and spendthrift as their public finances.

125% mortgages were within the rules and people taking them out were not guilty of any wrong doing; all newlabour spin language for turning a blind eye.

This is the culture that has ruined newlabour and is ruining and ridiculing the Home Secretary.

She is not to be pitied; she is risible in her instruction to her hsband to go out and explain himself in a written statement; there is nothing to explain except that she has taken the decision to resign for the sake of the good name of the country, the government and her party, in that order.

It is a disgrace she remains in office and a demonstration of the weakness of the government and Gordon Brown.

Who gives a fig if she is a nice person? She is the Home Secretary and a certain level of behaviour is expected form her and her own.

Why can anyone at the BBC not appreciate that?

Call an election.

Far more concerning is the £40,000 of our money that Smith pays her husband to sit at home all day playing!

Nick,
What everybody has to think about in this matter and all the problems related to expenses is this one simple fact.
If it had not been for the press we may well have not known about this matter and the truth will never have been revealed. The fact remains the claim was submitted by Mrs Smith, and as such she as the MP is the only person who should be responsible for the submission.
The claim should never have been submitted and mistake or not the fact remains it was done and could well have never been revealed without the press investigating. It is a form of dishonesty and family values. This is the MP responsible for Law and Order. The whole matter of what she and other MP's are claiming makes it look like as taxpayers we are being deceived and used by our MP's to make life as comfortable as possible just for them.

Would it not be to MP's advatage to have accomadation (for instance an accomadation block in a military barracks)set aside specifically for MP's while they are in London away from thier consituancys, it would have the required security, dining facilities provided by the militay chefs and could have all they need while they are away from thier homes?? This would allow all MP's to have the required comfort to carry out thier jobs with out the need to claim for expenses, and they would all have equal facilities.

Yet another instance of how this government has squandered our money by not only adding more carriages to the gravy train but ensuring they are suitably furnished. Why do we insist on electing people who have no commercial instinct? Why do the very people who enter politics with the best intentions of hope and imagination get so bogged down inthe endless protocols that they succumb wearily to self profit at our expense?

No Nick - the system has not gone wrong - ZanuLabour sleaze is to blame -PLEASE roll on 2010 and goodbye to this corrupt, snouts in trough bunch of useless people.

She should go now. This latest episode is just the last straw!

Nick I certainly feel sympathy for Jacqui Smith on a personal level. What her husband does in the privacy of his own home is his business but by keeping it on the expenses claim he has brought her into ridicule and I expect him to be sleeping on the couch for a while, if not worse. Coming on top of all the other trouble she's had I expect this will finish her politically as there will be a reshuffle after the expected Labour meltdown in the Euro and Shire elections and Smith will be the sacrifical lamb, Ed Miliband for the Home Office perhaps? She will then step down as an MP next year, sparing her further humiliation as Redditch goes blue by a considerable margin. And to think that after the speech she gave to Labour MP's over 42 days you were blogging about how Labour backbenchers thought she would be an excellent leader of the party! How times change Nick!

I heard Kevin Maguire of the Mirror made a good point this morning, he said he knew of a journo from "a posh paper" who submitted an expenses claim for a hotel stay which included a dodgy movie. The paper's accounts section struck the movie out of his claim and he had to pay for it himself. So why couldn't the Commons fees office have done likewise? The impression is that they are just a rubber stamp operation who just sign off expenses without proper scrutiny. That needs to change if people are to regain respect and trust in politicians.

I'm not a supporter of Jacqui Smith or the rest of the government and the sooner they go the better but I don have some sympathy with her. Most people in working life claims what expenses they are entitled to according to the company policies which can vary a lot and they are then signed off appropriately.

There is a problem that MPs are required to work peculiar hours often away from their families for what are in reality not huge salaries given the responsibilities and in comparisons with say the top people in industry or the professions. We must be careful that like the clamour regarding bankers salaries and bonuses that we don't discourage talent from wanting to go into politics. I can't see many successful people from other careers opting out to go into politics on the current basis and so we are left with the current crop of professional politicians (of all parties) with no experience of the real world or common sense.

I don't therefore have a particular problem with MPs or anyone claiming what the rules permit except that they make the rules! Surely it isn't difficult for all the brains in the House of Commons to produce a set of rules which are reasonable to both them and the "Court of Public Opinion." If they can't I'm sure some of the bloggers to this site could produce a pretty reasonable first draft.

There must be questions however about Ms Smith's judgement, even Ed Balls admitted this morning that in this climate he takes particular care of his expenses claims, why hasn't she - its just plain common-sense. As regards her husband he is her employee as well and again there's no reason why this can't work it works all over the place in industry and politics but as his ultimate paymaster we are entitled to ask what value we are getting out of the relationship and the rules changes need to allow for some kind of disciplinary action against all employees of MPs that don't result in a conflict of interest between husbands and wives. Blood is thicker and most of us would struggle to completely separate a working relationship and family life in this situation.

If I were Jacqui Smith I would say enough's enough and jump before being pushed by declaring that she won't be standing at the next general election.

I think this comment should be removed:

She is not, after all, just a minister or an MP but the mother of two school age boys who may now come to hate the day their mum went into politics.

Not good to try and bring her children into this or guess the effect it will have upon them. Leave them alone and out of this.

"She is confident that she has the proof that she's spent more nights in London than in her constituency"

The proof being a lonely husband?

any moderators around today? or is this blog being censored?

the allowances were designed to allow mp's to do their jobs, this has now become a gravy train...When i was in business i was allowed to claim expenses when away from home, they were paid on production of receipts and were subject to limits like £20 maximum for dinner and can only stay in 3* hotel....why are mp's treated differently?

I awoke this morning and staggering to my computer found the messages "debate closed". Is this censorship, I wondered. A last act of nannyism by the Queen of Nannies, Jacqui Smith? However, soon this new forum appeared. What I'd really like is to see this person fired or have the grace to resign. Since both scenarios are unlikely, can we cease venting our ire in debates on the blog which cannot affect her or Nu Labour. Perhaps we should march, with placards, through the streets, joining all the others this week in London. "Smith Must Go"!

It is not just the films, it is the whole list of home improvements funded by the taxpayer - it reads like the prize list from the Generation Game. I am sorry, but this is totally illegitimate. Smith could have claimed expenses for staying at her sister's flat if she wished, or she could have stayed scott free at the Home Secretary's grace and favour residence in London. Instead, she chose to designate her main residence in Redditch as her "second home" so she could get it refurbished at our expense. As Home Secretary she is entitled to taxpayer funded security at her homes, but cookers, entertainment centres, fire places, sofabeds?

It is taking the proverbial, Smith has lost all credibility - Brown should dig out his moral compost and sack her!

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Perhaps I'm alone in thinking that in certain cases the current media/joe public hysteria over MP's expenses has gone too far; in recent days on 5live I've heard people say that MP's should be on the minimum wage etc.

The current system is fatally flawed and needs reviewing but is the general public sensible enough to have a rational debate?

Part of the problem is that MP's are effectively classed as self employed and even basics such as stationery have be claimed for. It would seem more sensible for costs that are essential to an MP's role to be centrally budgeted coupled with proper oversight of expenditure to stop abuse.

I think a more concerning trend is that many parlimentary candidates seem to be party gonks with no experience outside politics. This not only means that they can relate less with the issues that matter to the public but are also less likely to believe that milking the system is wrong.

Perhaps she ought to resign from public life and spend more time with her hubby and kids.

(How will they all fit into her sister's house?)

Nick, you say that: "The home secretary has been poring over her home, constituency and office diary to plot where she had spent each night in the past year."

What a waste of time - why not just submit the timesheets of her security team, with their names blanked out?

Just demonstrates that the lady has no sense of priorities.

Oh, and why have all your older threads been closed to comments?

Post or reactive moderation for all except CBeebies, please!

I for one expect elected parliamentarians to have good judgement and integrity. I have opportunities to "play the system" in my working life but I choose not to because I believe it is wrong. I have been called "foolish" but to me having integrity and not doing things because they are wrong is not "foolish", it is the natural thing to do.

Politicians of any party who are claiming they have done nothing wrong because "the rules allow it" are not demonstrating their integrity, they are demonstrating their ability to play the game and make the most of it.

£10 or £100,000 the issue is still the same.

Sorry, you seem to be drumming up sympathy for Ms Smith. Nobody could be less deserving. Had she not treated the entire electorate with contempt, perhaps she would be due some. Also, I don't understand this "Poring over her diaries" bit either, her expense claims are already in are they not? Anyway, are you SERIOUSLY telling me that we don't know where our Home Secretary is, every hour of every day? Get the police protection service logs, job done. As the police are being paid to protect her, their hours must be logged.
Perhaps she is "Poring over her diaries" to try and make things fit.

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Employs her husband, shares with her sister, pays for her husband to watch adult films. Come on, we are being asked to suspend reality here to believe all this is innocent or acceptable for the taxpayer.
The scarey thing is how many more MP's etc are up to these scams??

Home secretary

to

Two home secretary

to

Two home movies secretary

How can you possibly put forward any sort of defence for this disgraceful couple. The fact that she is desperately trying to show that she may have spent more nights at her sisters home does not detract from the fact that her main home is where her and her family live. As for the films, is somebody going to go back over her claims and look for more abuse. She is a minister, the Home Secretary, if she is not above this sort of behaviour then she must go before she gets voted out at the next election.

As Nicky Campbell summed it up radio five this morning:-

Jackie how could you? The SHAME of it, £550 on a kitchen sink!!

So, this might accelerate the time for us to see a reform to MPs' pay, allowances and expenses. Good - but let's not forget pensions. Most MPs benefit from a 1/40th final salary scheme for a 10% personal contribution. This means maximum benefits can be earned after 27 years rather than 40 years in the private sector. If the basic salary is going to be increased substantially it will place a huge ongoing extra burden on the taxpayer if it remains as a defined benefit scheme.
Let's take the opportunity to change it to a defined contribution scheme. This might set an example that could, step-by-step, be followed for the higher paid mandarins in the civil service - and then we might just begin to get private pensions legislation that would make sense for the rest of us.

Claiming ACA for her family home in the Midlands because the sibling accommodation is her main home may be the kind of jiggery pokery that the officials in the Commons recommend MP's to take up.

The fact that it is not against the rules does not mean that Harriet Harman's Court of Public Opinion (or whatever it was called) would give it short shrift and it is one indication of how out of touch with the electorate those MP's who make these claims really are

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Jacqui Smith and Tony McNulty both serve to magnificently illustrate the gaping flaws in the current system. They may prove to be correct in their assertion that their claims are fully in accordance with the letter of the rules, but in their heart of hearts I am sure that both realise that that is not sufficient to make it right. Their claims both fail the test of common sense and reasonableness which is sorely lacking from the rules under which the system of MP's allowances works.

MP's should be paid receipted expenses, with a specified maximum per day, for expenses necessarily incurred as a result of their attendance in Parliament, or, if they choose to live in London, for their attendance in their constituency. (The rules should treat MPs with constituencies within 50 miles of Westminster as a special case, scaling down what may be claimed accordingly.)

Whether this means staying in hotels or flats should be left up to them, but in no cases should a capital gain be permissible if they were to buy a flat and subsequently sell it.

Ministers should not be allowed to claim accommodation expenses if they do not use official accommodation to which they are entitled. It might be appropriate for the Commons authorities to provide overnight accomodation for out-of-London MPs, where their security is assured and they could be provided with appropriate services which would help them to perform their jobs. I am sure the Government must have a ferw spare building in London which could be put to good use.

This is not rocket science. It should not be difficult to come up with a manifestly reasonable rules which would have the support of the general public and which would reflect common practice in industry when it comes to the payment of expenses.

And finally, MP's pay and allowances should not be set by MPs, but linked to an appropriate civil service grade. MP's staff should be paid directly by the Commons authorities, according to defined pay scales, which would help to reduce allegations of impropriety when employing family members.

I am confused about this entire story. This outrageous misuse of sixty five quid.

I assume the reason it got mistakenly claimed was that it was on the same bill as the broadband, so rather an easy mistake to make. So no real interest there.

The fact that two of the films were 18 certificate (these were not some horrible, hard core porn, but available through Virgin), is not my taste, but neither is it any of mine or the BBC's or the press' business.

The most IMPORTANT fact however, the thing that the BBC is completely failing to mention, is that this bill must have been illegally obtained and that its publication is a GROSS invasion of privacy.

While the expenses claim should not have been made, the fact that someone publishes a document to which they have no legal right whatsoever, and the fact that the BBC re-publishes this document is at the minimum gross misconduct and quite probably an offence.

When it comes to public interest, that is FAR higher on my agenda than Jackie Smith's husband. The BBC is constantly arguing about invasion of privacy by the government and yet has absolutely no qualms about publishing what is quite probably a stolen document.

If the BBC and the media feel they have the moral high-ground, I am afraid they are very much mistaken.

Whatever the rules say, even if JS spent slightly more nights in her sister’s spare room than in Redditch, it is clearly a second residence. She should not be milking the system to make the taxpayer pay for her family home; the maximum we should be paying is a market rent for a room in someone else’s house, and actually she should have been forced to take up the grace & favour home so we could pay nothing.

Your point about MPs not getting paid enough might just make sense for a London backbench MP, but not for Mr & Mrs Smith who make nearly £200K between them even before expenses are paid.

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A bit slow out of the blocks weren't you nick?non political journalists have been complaining about the allowances system for longer than a few weeks.I'm even more suprised that you haven't metioned the new rules that come into force for claiming ACA where mysteriously the word "main" has disappeared to save any more red faces in parliament.
As you already seem to have cleared Smith of any wrong doing could you explain the term "you must ensure arrangenments for your ACA claims are above reproach and there can be no grounds for suggestion of misuse of public money"Smith fails on the existing rules regardless of what so called political reporters think.

Whether or not Jacqui Smith (or any other MP, for that matter) will be found to have done anything against the rules with regard to their expenses claims, can I explore for a moment how these revelations are coming to light? There rarely seems to be a large number of these stories being published at the same time. Instead, one story after another drips out, week after week, concerning one MP or another. While the majority of these stories seem to involve government ministers (perhaps because these individuals are most newsworthy), more junior MPs from other parties have also been implicated.

What can one make of this? Is this a tit-for-tat campaign between the parties, each retaliating against another leak from the other? Or is there somebody among the administrative staff in the Commons gradually leaking these stories to the media? Whatever the case, and whichever side of the fence one stands on, this saga is hugely and corrosively damaging to politics as a whole. As Nick alludes to, the chances of turning a disillusioned electorate back on to politics (in the way Obama managed in the US) seem to be lower than ever here, which is deeply sad.

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#18 floodrob

Animal House?

Nick,

What you have (possibly inadvertently) just quoted is absolutely incredible. Your story starts by saying: "she told friends that she expected to be cleared in the inquiry into the expense claims for her second home. The home secretary has been poring over her home, constituency and office diary to plot where she had spent each night in the past year".

If these "friends" are quoting her accurately, then they have told you that she made the claim WITHOUT REALISING WHETHER IT WAS TRUE OR NOT.

I think that is proof that this woman has to go now.

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Claiming for an 88p plug should be grounds for dismissal alone as it shows such an incredible level of pettiness. We all know what is going here - they know most of them will be out of a job soon so they have to grab as much as they can now. The defence is always that it is within the rules - then the rules are the problem as the MP's cannot be trusted to behave in a moral way. The MEP's are far worse - our so-called democracy is being looted by politicians.

Very similar to claiming expenses, where are we on the Brown case: subletting a contituency office against the rules by a very experienced MP. Getting rental income against the rules is similar to getting expenses reimbursed.

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Ms Smith is a person totally out of her depth. There have been enough cock ups in the Home Office to last a life time and yet she still survives in her job. Quite extraodinary.

Ms Smith`s explanation for all of this doesn`t really hold water. Broadband services,with Virgin Media, are billed by way of a monthly standard charge. Therefore it is quite a simple matter to spot anything out of the ordinary. She and her husband are either incompetent in the way they manage their family finances or deliberately over claimed on her parliamentary expenses.

I don`t understand why Brown continues to support her.Is it another example of his weakness as a leader or is he afraid that, putting another of the girls on the back benches, Ms Smith may join forces with Ms Harman and attempt to oust him before the next election?

This latest saga reflects very badly on this country at the time of the G20 meeting, the members of which must be having a good giggle at our expense. Forgive the pun! Nor does it reflect well on Parliament as a whole. All our MPs, in a number of instances quite undeservadly, have been tared with the same brush as being a load of fiddlers. No better in some cases than the benefit cheats who this government are anxious to clamp down on.

Gordon Brown`s decision to put off a review of Mps expenses, until heaven knowns when, is another sign of his poor leadership skills. A consensus is growing for MPs allowances to be done away with and for the pay of MPs to be siginificantly increased. Expenses like bath plugs and antique fireplaces coming out of their own pocket.

Since NuLabour came to power politics in this country have gone down hill and is it little wonder why more and more people are abstaing from voting. From the F1 debacle to the dodgy dossier, the list in endless. All this from a party who sneered at sleeze within the conservative party. Comparing the two, anything the conservatives did whilst in power now seems quite tame in comparison.

#15 Robin JD
Who gives a fig if she is a nice person? She is the Home Secretary and a certain level of behaviour is expected form her and her own.

Why can anyone at the BBC not appreciate that?
=================================================

You have hit the nail on the head.

Generally, politicians should err on the side of caution when claiming expenses, not try to flex the rules and then get away sith saying sorry and paying back the money.

If you can not bring yourself to looking cleaner than clean you should not be a poltician and look for another job.

Nick,

Rather than "arguing for weeks" you did raise the topic of allowances once before (in the context of increasing MPs' pay) and many of us responded that in all other walks of life HMRC apply the "wholly and exclusively" use tests to expenses - why should MPs' allowances be any different?

Odd isn't it that this minor, but salacious, "Alan Partridge" incident is grabbing our attention at this time? It's not that this country is at war or in the midst of a major economic crisis, is it?

If your profile of Ms Smith as a likeable mum, accidental MP and unintended cabinet minister is true, then I'm sure most of your correspondents will be very glad for her when she can extricate herself from this whole, horrible business and spend more time with her family.

Firstly, why is she pouring over her diary for the second home enquiry when the police have foolproof and logged records of such things?

Secondly, a mixture of being bad at your job and abusing power is a certain path towards redundancy - Her position is completely untenable

Its the same problem as the 'bonuses' in banking. Lets use the english language in a very private interpretation. We'll call part of your salary bonuses even though we expect to pay it willynilly and you expect it to be paid by right. MPs - lets give you 'allowances or expenses' to pump up your income. But we will still expect you to collect them willynilly. Oh dear the public don't understand 'bonuses' are not bonuses as defined by the Oxford dictioanry, and that 'expenses' are not expenses as defined by the Oxford dictionary. And it is the taxpaying public who are being asked to pay the tab. What did you expect. As for closing the gap between voted and voters. The gap has always been the same, it just has not been on clear view. There has been no real attempt to tackle the issue. The main energy goes into trying to defend the indefensible.

Nick.
We now have a situation today whereby like in the repeating Case of the Home Secretary, for in that most part Politicans are treating their roles as any means to make as much money as possible with their Gravy Train of Expenses, for they are Claiming for things that the Poor in our Society can only dream of having for how many people on the misable payment of Income Support / JSA / Unemployment Benefit can afford to pay for and to watch Adult Entertainment let alone at all afford the cost of a Sky T.V.Package paid for out of their own pockets, while Politicans can Claim these same packages, and for many other Items at Public Exspense.

Most people now today feel that most Politician DON'T DO enought Work to warrant their CURRENT WAGES let alone being allowed to claim for additional Allowances to boost their overall Incomes.

The old Chestnut grunted by Politicians is that they MUST have a large Income plus Expenses, and Allowance otherwise they cannot afford to do the Job of an M.P.
However my advice to ALL M.P.'s is that your Game is now up with your forever Personal Claims for your own Social Benefit, and if you feel that you are being undervalued, and underpaid then Resign and GO, for there are many Unemployed people today, whom will I am sure will apply for a Job as an M.P. and Minister of State that doe's not require any forms of Job Qualifications, and anyone at worse can only bring the Country too a state of total Depression, and Deflation as it is currently being driven too by the current bunch of incumbent M.P.'s and State Ministers.

I have a cable package that provides television, broadband and telephone for a flat fee. In the current parliamentary system, I'd have thought it was reasonable that an MP gets a cable package with these three items, but any extras be paid for by themselves, including movies and all home telephone calls. Assuming Jacqui Smith's household has a similar set-up, I can't see how this situation can be a "mistake" - every month there's a fixed and identical amount claimed for, everything else should be paid by the MP.

Jacqui Smith hold a senior cabinet position and for this she earns £120k. This is obviously a lot of money - but consider that Sharon Shoesmith was earning £100k and there are thousands of inept council box-tickers just like her giving themselves huge pay rises and putting a strain on the public finances. Jacqui Smith holds far more responsibility and is always in the public eye.

Increase MP's pay and cap allowances at £20k.

A few other questions:

Why is no-one asking the obvious question? Was the claim for the TV part of Ms smith's Virgin media bill a one-off, or, as seems more likely, the entire bill was claimed every month, including pay-per-view films of whatever type?

And why anyway is she allowed to claim this when according to her it isn't her main home, her sister's house is?

What a pathetic waste of time. The economy is in a complete mess and we focus on two £5.00 purchases of soft porn! All MP's from all parties are the same. The role as an MP should be a Job, nothing more and nothing less. The MP's work for us the public and the whole allowances issue should be looked at. We the voters should have the right to determine the pay and allowances of all MP's and not the MP's alone. What seems a rather trivial piece of news is blown out of all proportion by the media and obviously the opposition. This story will shortly be chip paper, so come on get real news on our screens and in the papers. I am sure there are mouch more important issues out there today.

For the first time I am truly appalled by your scribbling. No one can justify what she and others are doing. I find it abhorrent that you are trying to justify what she has done along with her husband who “sacrificed his own career” to take up a role as her secretary for £40k plus per year which also allows him to be at home to look after the kids…….

This is so totally biased and what about the other MP who has been claiming for a second home which turns out to be a holiday home or was it a caravan. He must have breathed a sigh of relief when our Dishonourable Member of Parliament topped his hand and pushed him back to page 3 of the mail or so I am told.

Come on and let us have a well balanced report and not one that is slanted one way or the other.

There was clearly a great deal of care taken in the submission of the expenses.

An expenses claim that includes 88p for a bath plug demonstrates the care taken to ensure that every little possible item was accounted for and claimed for.

It begs the question therefore as to how a disallowed item, of perhaps 15 times the value, managed to slip through... unless at the time of claiming, it was thought reasonable.

In passing I must comment on the quality of the fence and Gate Mr Timney appeared from. The fence appears to be oak, all screws plugged, and the gate is nicely jointed. I wonder who paid for that quality craftsmanship on what is only a second home?

I presume that if the Home Secretary's husband had watched the adult movies at the House of Commons rather than at home, this would not have infringed regulations on MP's expenses. Please clarify.

Smith seems to be wanting to push the blame onto her husband when by her own admission she spends more nights with her sister than him. Shouldn't see him "on the seatee" for to many nights of the week at least!

However, I've not seen anyone query yet, just what sort of process is there that allowed for the claim to be processed all the way through the system and the claim be paid by the authorities.

Unless of course, free porn is one of the perks of the job for Home Secretary and as such it went un-noticed when processed as it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Its about time heads roled in this bungling government.
I have had enough of this shambolic New Labour joke.
Smith & Mcnulty should be sacked. They should be gone by 6.00pm today, like the fuel increases of 20 years ago, not left to be forgotten about for 6 months.

A very good journalist & exceptional DG of the BBC resigned over the dodgy dossier.

Where are the weapons Blair & Campbell???

Alistair Campbell mislead a whole nation with his sexed up dossier. Only for the BBC to be proven right. He was a non elected person who lied to the country & took us to war.

Now we have non elected, back hander Mandleson running round, supposedly trying to help with the economy. I think we can all guess where the country will end up now!!

"The irony is that only last week she told friends that she expected to be cleared in the inquiry into the expense claims for her second home."

Really? She sounds as though she is joining Gordon Brown in the -out-of-touch-with-reality camp. Surely, nobody in the real world can believe that a woman who is married, with two young children and whose home in Redditch - presumably - pre-dates her election to Parliament can be justified in claiming her "main" home is a room in her sister's house. To those of us in that real world it looks as though she chose to designate it as such so that she could claim the maximum possible amount of money for her "second" home.

We can only hope that at the next election the good people of Redditch will turf her out of her seat, and so put her husband out of work as well.

And if to many MPs she is "a likeable working Mum ...." etc it shows just how out of touch they are too. Just who are those "many MPs"?

As a working woman with family I find the comments, "She is not, after all, just a minister or an MP but the mother of two school age boys.." a tad patronising. Does being a working mother excuse her from making sure her expense/allowance claims are legitimate? Of course not. There are millions of working mothers out here in the real world, away from the Westminster village, who are not paid anywhere near as much as she is and who would not be fiddling expenses; even if accidentally. She is yet another sign of just how far removed political figures have moved from what they should be about: serving the country first, not serving themselves. As a taxpayer I have no problem at all with politicians claiming expenses for items legitimately required to enable them to carry out their duties properly, but this is not what is happening is it? What is happening is that the entire system seems to be geared towards politicians lining their pockets rather than simply being able to do the job effectively.

Of course David Cameron didn't want to lean too hard on her. His comment that he tells his MPs if what they claim is not defensible, then don't do it was obviously not heeded by Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary. He obviously thinks it is defensible to claim £103k for his London flat, when his family home is only 17 miles from Westminster. These facts have only come to light thanks to Labour's Freedom of Information Act, without which all this would still be treated as confidential. Now that all expense claims are going to be made available for public scrutiny, we will see who has claimed what, and who is continuing to claim in the future. There is likely to be a huge reduction in expense claims from now on.

#thedicey

David Cameron claimed for his light bulbs, imagine that!

My heart bleeds.

My only observation is is that this is not 'whiter than white' - which we were sort of promised ?

The sub-plot to all this is that our beloved MP’s think they’re worth a pay rise. There was a guy on last week’s Question Time (the one with a squirming Mr Pickles) who said that if the MP’s didn’t feel they were being paid enough, then they should move on and give their job to someone else!

Let's hope the inland revenue thoroughly checks the tax returns of Ms Smith's sister, Mr McNulty's parents and Gordon Brown.

Looks like the BBC's clock needs moving forward one hour.

Whilst I am not particularly outraged about the latest incident - the ridicule and embarrassment are punishment enough - the second home issue still grates.

Nick's defence of the Home Scretary however is nauseating - she should not have gone into Parliament if she was not prepared to put in the hours and could always move her family up to London, as her husband could easily relocate in his capacity ss her paid researcher possibly earning more than he did in the career he "sacrificed".

Presumably when she loses her seat she will receive compensation and will have accrued pension rights, my heart bleeds for her!

“Allowances are treated as just that - allowances not expenses - which compensate MPs for the fact that governments of all colours routinely ignore independent recommendations to increase MPs' pay.”

I’m sorry Nick, but you have clearly gone native. Or have you forgotten that a backbench MP earns £67,000 p.a. before expenses and or allowances. Hardly a subsidence salary - is it? And that’s before we get to the Gold plated pension etc… So please Nick, no more sob stories on behalf of your friends! We the license-fee and taxpayers of this country, pay your salary and we expect you to stand up for us, the ordinary man and woman on the street, not the political elite.


“I’ve been arguing for weeks that it is the system of Commons expenses and the culture which surrounds it which has caused all the problems.2

No Nick, you haven’t – like most of your BBC colleagues, you have been largely ignoring this issue in the vain hope that it will just go away. Well the public won’t let it. We are sick and tired of being taken for mugs by our political masters.

As for Ms. Smith – a couple of points you seem to have overlooked (yet, again)….

1) You suggest: “The home secretary has been poring over her home, constituency and office diary to plot where she had spent each night in the PAST YEAR. She is confident that she has the proof that she's spent more nights in London than in her constituency and thus, under the Commons rules, could designate her family home as her "second home" and the flat she shares with her sister as her "main home". [Emphasis Added]
If true, this would indeed put her in the clear for last year, but she hasn’t just claimed ACA for last year has she? What about those earlier years when she wasn’t Home Secretary? Are we supposed to believe that she was also living in London during the long parliamentary recess when she was a back-bencher and GVN whip, i.e. when she had no GVN Department to run? Pull the other one.
2) You have forgotten to mention that as Home Secretary, Ms Smith has the option of a very comfortable grace and favour home in central London. By turning down this rent free accommodation, she has maximized her expense claims…. Why should we be paying for her coffee table, sofa bed, kitchen sink, plug, internet connection, TV subscription at her family home? As Home Secretary she earns in excess of £100,000, throw in the pension, the memoirs and the near guaranteed seat in the House of Lords (once she leaves the Commons) + her husband’s £40,000 p.a. from the taxpayer and don’t you think she could afford to pay for these items herself?
More general points include…
a) Most MP’s have not turned down promising careers elsewhere for the greater public good. Like most of her colleagues, Jacqui got a considerable pay-rise when she became an MP.
b) MP’s knew the pay-scale when they decided to stand for office. So how and why should they be allowed to fiddle their expenses now?
c) Throughout this piece, you have deployed the concentration camp guard argument – ‘Our MP’s were only doing what they were told’… nobody forced Ms Smith or Mr McNulty to put in a fraudulent expense claims. No-one was putting a gun to their head. This just won’t wash – they chose to make the claim, and they must take the pain if it turns out to be fraudulent….
So Nick, get a grip and stop falling for the Westminster spin. MP’s get a good salary as it is, they do not need to engage in dodgy expense claims to get by, so start reporting it like it is, or frankly get out and let someone-else have a go…..

Its like watching a sharks convention,viewing the tory hypocrisy on here.............How can these tory propogandists possibly take on a selfrightous OTT air when they have people like the ultra greedy Winterons,Spelman and Conway in their party..more blinkers than a Newmarket trainer

So...slap in the expenses and doctor the diary later to prove them? Snouts in the trough, the lot of them.

I have to m/cycle 37 mile each way all year round to my teaching job just minutes from Westminster but can't claim a penny...but MP's living a third of that distance away can claim for a second home!!! I pay for my travel out of taxed income and my taxes pay for these people to have free houses!!!

It is actually quite sickening...I can't think of any other word for it. I despise these people more than the bankers...at least bankers don't pretend to be public servants!

poor Jacqui, I feel sorry for her - she should resign, though, because her credibility is shot to pieces - so should McNult

but what's more interesting is to look at who first put in place this ridiculous expenses set up involving second homes, the John Lewis list, all the rest of it - it was Margaret Thatcher

what a big surprise

Nick, your blog should have slowly-playing, mournful violins as its soundtrack. POOR Jacqui Smith and her POOR boys....what a shame...she works so hard.

She took the job on, knowing full well what she was getting herself and her family into. She also submitted her expenses - either with the extra "in error" or in full knowledge of them. She is therefore either incompetent and not thorough, or she is fraudulant. Either of the two merits her resignation or dismissal.

However, since when has this government ever worried about sleaze? Or incompetance for that matter? Gordon Brown is not contemplating resigning even after all his disasterous judgements and the failures they produced. They used to go on about Tory sleaze, even though I don't like the Tories they seem beacons of respectability compared with this lot.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

To many MPs, she's a likeable working mum who didn't expect to be elected in '97; whose husband agreed to sacrifice his career to make hers possible; who works such long hours that she spends more days away from her family than with it and who knows that she's on course to lose her very marginal seat and thus, her job, income and allowances, at the next election.

...........................................

To say I'm furious about this is an understatement.

Jacqui Smith knew full well what the job entailed before she stood for election. If she spends more days away from her family than with it, then it is in her power to do something about it. If she loses her seat, her job, income and allowances at the next election, she will have been lucky to have stayed where she is for so long in the light of recent events.

Her husband gave up his job because he knew he would earn more money working for Jacqui. That was his choice.

As for her "poring over her home, constituancy and office diaries", I find it astonishing that you even printed this. If any one of Joe Public was found to be claiming a tax allowance to which they may not be entitled, I'm sure that the powers that be would get somebody from the tax office to "pore through" all his/her records and make sure every penny was repaid. Why should Ms. Smith be any different?

And as for her desperation, I really don't care one iota if she has to go. You reap what you sow in this country. She employed her husband and the responsibility lies with her to make him fully aware of the terms and conditions of his, and her position. If she has already done that, he is obviously not up to the job.

I have absolutely no sympathy for these people (and that includes MP's on all sides of the House) and if they choose to appear as though they are "on the take", then they deserve everything they get.

I believe that this episode with Jacqui Smith is just the tip of the iceberg. Dig a bit deeper (please Nick) and expose the rest of this shower who keep telling us they only have our best interests at heart while behind our backs, they are busy lining their own pockets at our expense!

It seems to me, that the reason MP's ignore independent recommendations to increase their pay, is that they know they will be a lot worse off. These allowances should be stopped as soon as possible. Let them do the job because they want to, and not because of the financial trappings it brings. There should also be an independent body to deal with their expenses and this should be monitored closely. MP's should be asked to produce all receipts, like the rest of us. I thought that's what their Parliamentary Secretaries were paid for. Apparently, I'm wrong.

To add to that, MP's have suggested we pay them an extra £40,000 a year, for which they will surrender some of their allowances, but details of which allowances have not been disclosed. At a time when the whole country is pulling in its belt, the very last thing these people should be asking for, or given, is such a large increase in pay!

It really does beggar belief.

37. At 09:33am on 30 Mar 2009, ColonelDigby wrote:
Home secretary

to

Two home secretary

to

Two home movies secretary

I think you missed out Home Alone, otherwise excellent

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

So....we the taxpayers pay Ms J Smiths husband to manage her affairs and complete her expense claims at the taxpayers expense . Can this be right , or fair or sensible or indeed good business practice ?.Or is this just another snout in the taxpayers trough ?

What gets me is these people simply saying "It's within the rules" - as though there were some logic in those rules.

Smith counts the number of nights spent at her sisters and says it is more than the number of nights spent at the family home. Let's assume she's a caring mother, who quite enjoys seeing her children.

She's saying her sister's pad is her "first home", so we can pay the mortgage on the family home...

Balls and Cooper live WITH their children in London. The children go to school there. Let's assume they are caring parents, so don't drive back from the constituency house every schoolday Monday morning. So that would make it a minimum 5 nights a week in London. Can they really spend more nights at the constituency house?

So Balls and Cooper consider the constintuency house as the "First home", so we can pay the mortgage on an expensive house in London...

That's really consistent, isn't it?

The rules simply allow MPs to designate whichever house they choose in order to optimise "allowances".

But, if they decide to sell up, they can tell HMRC exactly the opposite, to avoid any capital gains tax...

Forget Labour/Tory/LibDEM or whatever. The system just stinks.

Can we be clear about "Mr" Jacqui Smith's role. As her Parliamentary aide he is a public employee and thus,presumably,accountable directly. How does he perform his Parliamentary duties from her "second" home, some distance from London while also having family responsibilities ?

Also, is the tax status on the 'second' home clear ? As it's not her main residence can we have a clear assurance that there will be no claim for capital gains tax relief when it is sold. And can Ms Smith's sister confirm the tax payments she has made on the rental to her sister ?

The small flaw in Gurubears 0938 comment is that the minister responsible for ensuring that such documents are kept secure is................THE HOME SECRETARY!

If Jacqui Smith had had political successes to her name in her time at the Home Office, then things might be different, but conspicuously she has not. But then to have a partner cosily on the payroll, and both an allegedly dodgy claim for accommodation expenses and acute red-top embarrassment from the aforesaid lucky partner with the ink still wet, cannot be compatible with office in a government with any kind of sense of its own seriousness.
I have been looking back in my earlier posts to find the date on which I first predicted her early removal from office, around the time of the fuss about Damien Green. Many will have been surprised that she even survived what might otherwise have been a robust reshuffle, unless as a sign of Brown's own weakened position at the time.
But that prediction was premature. If Paw Broon has not totally nodded off, it can surely not be premature now. So let's try again: I give it a week.

Apologists can equivocate about "allowances" versus "expenses," but surely the allowance was for a home she was supposed to own, not for her to live in someone else's and pocket the difference?

It's the duty of you, Nick, and other journalists, to do some digging and find out what the wording of these "rules" are and report them. Please don't let us hear that they are unwritten, like our "constitution."

This was a "personal issue" until I paid her for it !!!

Why are we , the humble British taxpayers paying for Ms J Smiths husband to watch porn films ?

"Also, I don't understand this "Poring over her diaries" bit either, her expense claims are already in are they not? Anyway, are you SERIOUSLY telling me that we don't know where our Home Secretary is, every hour of every day?"

A better question is why this task wasn't given to her husband who is getting £40k a year of our money from her staffing allowance to sit around watching porn - probably 3rd rate porn as well if it's on cable.

The rule about second homes are clearly not intended to allow an MP to designate their family home as the second home, and claim allowances for it.

Why claim allowances on the family home at all?

Its disgusting that an MP can get away with this breach of the spirit of the rules by claiming that it is within the letter of the rule.

This is corruption and she should be ashmamed.

If Jacqui Smith cannot see this then I would argue that she is incapable of common sense judgements and a liability in her role.

Why does Gordon Brown's moral compass desert him every time there is an issue of newlabour sleaze?

We have been given Jacqui with her waccy baccy, her expenses and her adult video husband.

We had Peter Hain and his unlawful deputy leadership fund raising.

We have Paul Myners, City Minister and his offshore tax evasion.

We have Fred Goodwin and his doubled up pension pot.

We had Hattie Harman and the enquiry into her deputy leadership funding.

All of the above given the full support of Gordon Brown. Was his moral compass buried at the time? Has his moral compass lost the ability to find true north? Do compasses north of the border have a different morality to the rest of us?

The moral compass of Gordon Brown appears to have all the moral authority of drunk in a brewery.

At the moment Gordon Brown is a victim of the old adage that these are my rules and I say who lives by them; apparently none of his mates or cabinet ministers.

Once a govenrment descends into this kind of anarchy; one rule for us and another for the masses, it is very near to the end of its natural life.

This one reached that point a year ago with its inability to accept its role in the financial collapse.

Gordon Brown is now up to his neck in sleaze and appears to believe jumping on a plane will amke it go away.

Welcome home Mr Prime Minister to a country where you are in office but no longer in power; undermined by your own sovereign, governor of the bank of England, chancellor and people.

The people are tired of this sleaze and you no longer have the requisite authority to do anything about it.

Call an election