For those of you who are not Brits, a bit of background. The Daily Torygraph, er, Telegraph recently paid a goodly amount of money to an informer to pass it a CD on which were detailed lists of receipts submitted by MPs for their expenses. The information was due to be released by the House of Commons later in the year, after MPs had taken out some details such as their addresses. However, the Torygraph jumped the gun, paid a 6-figure sum, and has been drip-feeding the information day-by-day for about the past week.
I should add that last year the House of Commons nearly voted to suppress this information altogether, and not to release it to the public. They were shamed into rejecting this motion. Now we know why they were so eager to keep it under wraps.
British MPs are allowed to submit claims for reasonable expenses connected with having a home near Westminster, if they are not representing a constituency in London. However, there are some interesting entries in this list. Unless otherwise designated, those referred to below are Labour MPs.
- Hazel Blears, the community secretary, designated her London home as her principal home and thus avoided
What? Is this on the TV Sky News, or the web Sky News? No, I didn’t see it.
There have been many cases of official corruption in the United States over the centuries. The ones that often come to mind are Teapot Dome in the 1920’s, Justice Fortas in the 1960’s, Watergate, of course, and perhaps some others too small to mention. In Massachusetts the scandals around the building of the underground garage at Boston Common led to the indictment (but acquittal) of former Governor Foster Furcolo—this was quite a live issue when I was growing up. The former Governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey appointed his male lover to the post of his adviser on homeland security. He resigned and is now a student at General Theological Seminary in New York, preparing for ordination as an Episcopal priest (you couldn’t make it up!)
Most political scandals in the US revolve around bribery and sex. We have those here, too, but expense fiddling is not common in US politics, as I can’t think of any state that pays for a second home for its legislators (someone will prove my knowledge deficient, of course). Many legislatures only meet for a couple of weeks out of a year. Texas, I think, only meets for a few months every two years. Not worthwhile getting accommodation in Austin that you’ll only use every other year. Many states, of course, are small enough that legislators can live at home and commute the short distance to the state capital. I do not believe that the Federal Government pays for Washington homes for members of Congress. The President and Vice President get tied accommodation, of course, and most of their expenses are paid. The President gets something like $40,000 a year for food for official functions, I think—it could be more.
Anyway, the outrage I feel is pretty deep: imagine the Government running ads encouraging people to turn in benefit fraudsters or warning them that they’ll get caught while members of that same Government were wringing the last ha’penny out of the taxpayers for moats, chandeliers, and toilet seats.
PS: I would like the Torygraph to run at least one day’s story about virtuous MPs who do not claim for things they might have claimed for and are generally honest in their expenses claims. There must be some!
Thanks so much; I am most grateful. One wonders how they came across it.