Thursday, October 18, 2012

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?

Seems the squeaker of the Houses of Parliament is trying to block the publication of a new report on MP's expenses. Can't think why, it's not like they're not a wonderful bunch of law abiding, honest citizenry is it? I mean they did promise to clean up their act didn't they and surely their word is their bond?
Or is it more a case of what we don't know might slow down attempts to have them thrown in jail or hung from lampposts?
Telegraph.
John Bercow has written to the expenses regulator warning him not to disclose official documents that show the identities of MPs’ landlords for “security” reasons.
Publication of the names, which was supposed to take place today, would expose the extent to which MPs are exploiting a loophole in the rules that allows politicians to rent their homes to one another. The loophole means that MPs can still effectively build up property nest eggs at taxpayers’ expense, despite official attempts to stop the practice following the expenses scandal.
Sources at the expenses regulator confirmed that “some MPs” were engaged in the practice.
In a letter released last night, it emerged that Mr Bercow had written to the regulator claiming that publication of details of MPs’ landlords jeopardised their security and had led to “grave concerns” in the House of Commons.
“The processing of the data … could involve causing unwarranted damage and distress,” the Speaker wrote in the letter to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa). “I should be grateful if you and your colleagues would reconsider such a plan.”
Ah the old security loophole which is used to cover a multitude of sins and one with which our MP's are far too well aware of and have often tried in the past to use to hide the evidence.
Fact is there's no security issue involved, if you want to know where an MP lives it's easy enough to find out. By showing who the landlords of a rented property are it would also show again how the thieving rogues are exploiting the system to get more cash into their pockets directly from the taxpayer by renting out property (possibly at very high rent) to pay off said mortgages on said property so at the end of the day the taxpayer buys them another house.
Whilst I'm not suggesting that Bercow is involved with the scam, it is rather suspicious that he's leading the charge to block the report and using the tawdry 'security' banner to justify his actions.
All this does in most peoples eyes is suggest that those elected to lead us are far more concerned at lining their own pockets at our expense rather than looking after our interests.
Just one more thing to remember at the next election if you vote mainstream...

3 annotations:

Anonymous said...

Hear Hear. Brilliant post. Saved me writing it myself.

What a set of thieving, twisted b*****ds they are and Bercow is no better than Martin.

Time we got rid of the pompous little twerp.

banned said...

As several Telegraph commenters point out it is a legal requirement for election candidates to publish their home address so security (and privacy) is total bollox.

Yes Berkow, I expect this will cause much distress, rightly so.

Anonymous said...

Precisely. He could just ask that any released records are redacted for the street name, house number and postcode.

Unless of course there's something of real interest he doesn't want people seeing - like whether they're filching more money than ever before.