Thursday 14 May 2009

The Blame Game


Where there is blame, there is a claim. Labour's legacy to the country, but never quite turned on its head like this.

Records seen by The Daily Telegraph show that the independent Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood claimed the full cost of her mortgage for two and a half years, despite being entitled to charge only for the interest element.

When she was asked by the House of Commons fees office to repay more than £8,000 to compensate for the overpayments, Miss Short sent a letter back saying officials “should accept some responsibility for the situation” for not spotting the error earlier.

So what she is saying here is that she either can't appoint competent staff to handle her financial affairs or, and this is hard to believe seeing as she is one of the longest-standing Labour MPs, she is totally unaware of the rules on what she can claim for mortgage payments.

Still, that's irrelevant. After all, true to the message this government continually reinforces with its legislation ... she may have fucked up but it's all someone else's fault.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Frankly, let's start paying local councillors for their public service, and thereby also ensure that they are not- like their Westminster counterparts- abusing the system. I know many local councillors who are active in local politics, putting many hours into local affairs and who also get paid for supposedly working full-time in Third Sector organisations, creating not only conflicts of interests between their different roles but also forcing the Third Sector to subsidize their public/political roles: one well-known example is Labour Councillor Antonia Bance working with Oxfam's UK poverty programme. The whole system needs over-hauling!