Aug/10
17:22 9
Somerset Tory Ian Liddell-Grainger tops Parliamentary nepotism league
“You get what pay for”, said Tory Ian Liddell-Grainger when defending the largest MP expense claims in the South West. “The majority of the money has been spent on staff costs. I employ slightly more people than most but they are a really good team.” So who are is superhuman troupe toiling day and night for the citizens of Bridgewater and West Somerset?
For the taxpayer, “getting what you pay for” means keeping ILG’s wife Jill and two twenty-something children Peter and Sophie on the Parliamentary payroll. The Somerset MP has topped Guido Fawkes’ nepotism survey, employing more members of staff sharing the same surname than any other MP. Until his youngest daughter was no longer eligible, Liddel-Grainger’s claims for family travel were valued in the top 3% of all 640+ members.
While CCHQ attempted to keep the “deranged” MP under wraps during the election campaign, he still managed to infuriate voters by refusing to take part in debates with other candidates, telling the BBC he ”did not have the time” to attend hustings.
Perhaps he was busy updating his “excellent pussy” blog?
Jun/10
16:58 1
In praise of Beau Bo D’Or
Cartoonist cum graphic artist cum video creative Beau Bo D’Or produces some of the most ingenious and skilfully executed visual satire full stop and the best on the British blogosphere by a country mile. It was therefore with some sadness that Scrapbook read he is taking a short break from blogging, which has been light recently owing to a health problem.
It was the stop-gap ‘best of’ post announcing his hiatus that drew this blogger’s attention to a year-old video given new relevance with the news of the now impending fraud trials of four parliamentarians. Cleverly linking the sarcastic materialism of Renton’s “choose life” monologue in Trainspotting to MPs’ expense claims might well be worth spending an hour photoshopping Peter Viggers’ head onto a film poster:
Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics.
But what BBDO produced was truly remarkable, superimposing the faces of MPs onto footage from the film frame-by-frame. Unsurprisingly, “it took ages”:
Should you still need convincing to follow @beaubodor check out Lord Ashcroft won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
Get well soon.
May/10
13:36 3
Westminster STOP: CCHQ intervene on office services expenses scheme run by Tory MP’s wife
A shady scheme which would send £10,000s of office expenses the way of two parliamentary staffers has been shut down by Conservative Party enforcers. Westminster START intended to charge Conservative MPs £2,500 per year plus VAT to perform rudimentary staff management.
The initiative was developed by Sam Mackewn and the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Women’s Organisation Eve Burt, both of whom work for (and the latter is married to) the party’s Deputy Chairman Alistair Burt MP. Enquiries from Private Eye as to whether “setting up a business to make money from the reformed expenses system” was appropriate clearly spooked CCHQ, who ordered that the plug be pulled.
The website, which features the Conservative tree logo several times, now states that Westminster START is “unable to continue operating … due to circumstances beyond our control”. At the time of writing, other pages, including the description of services, are still visible.
“We were trying to do something that made things easier for people”, Eve Burt told Bedfordshire on Sunday. Yes – easier for bone-idle Conservative MPs who would, over the course of prospective five-year parliaments, shell out nearly £15,000 of of taxpayers’ money to a private enterprise because they can’t be bothered to manage their staff.
It transpires Mrs. Burt has form for this kind of nonsense. Appearing on Channel 4 News in the wake of scandal engulfing Derek Conway and other MPs who employed close family members (cough), Burt defended the practice of Members employing staff who “happen to be related” to them:
There is an argument in favour of a centralised more professional approach to human resources within the Palace of Westminster and Portcullis House, including formal union recognition for MPs’ staff, but this should be done by Parliament – not by MPs and their wives are trying to find new ways to fleece taxpayers.
Some people evidently still don’t get it.
Hat-tip: to the anonymous reader that pointed us in the direction of this story. Got gossip? You can tip Scrapbook off here.
Apr/10
09:08 102
Derek Conway’s goodbye email
Derek Conway of “I’m going to pay my son £40k for nothing” fame is labouring under the delusion that the whole of parliament wants to keep in touch with him when the Estate bids him good riddance. The following email was sent to 645 MPs yesterday afternoon:
According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), the post-nominal letters TD do not designate a sexually transmitted disease or, as one of Scrapbook’s pals suggested, ‘total d**k’, but the Territorial Decoration. This reservist military honour was awarded in 1990.
Conway’s family pocketed nearly 20 times a trainee soldier’s annual wage.
Jan/10
20:59 4
Video: Tory Bear doorsteps Sarah Teather office in Brent
It may no longer be the only blog with a weekly video (click here if you haven’t seen Conor Pope’s vlog) but Guy News is becoming required viewing – even for guilty lefties who quickly alt-tab back to The Staggers when surprised by a comrade.
In an act of Labour/Conservative non-partisanship unlikely to be repeated in the next parliament, or indeed the next five months, expenses angel trougher Sarah Teather had been the subject of something of a pincer movement from red and blue bloggers this week. The coup de grace has been delivered today by Tory Bear who surprised the Brent Liberal Democrat campaign unit at their office. And hats off to Emily Nomates for her Chris Morris-esque skewering of Lord Pearson, giving him precisely the amount of rope needed to hang his racist and patronising self (you almost expect him to refer to her as “dear”):
Like an A-level politics essay in reverse, Scrapbook will round this post off with a quote (part of which was used above and can be viewed here):
“I’m frankly astonished that when we’re in the middle of a recession and constituents are coming to us complaining they can’t afford to live, they can’t affor to pay their bills that MPs are still claiming money that they must know is morally unjustified” – Sarah Teather
Ahem.
Jan/10
12:36 23
EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Teather charged £1,700 of Lib Dem furniture, insurance and telephone bills to expenses
Brent East MP Sarah Teather has been dogged this week by revelations about expense claims for her constituency office and allegations that taxpayer money has been used for political campaigning (all articles here). Scrapbook can today disclose that, in addition to bills for her Parliamentary office, Sarah Teather has claimed for invoices worth £1,700 addressed to her local political party.
Despite strict rules stating that “claims cannot relate to party political activity of any sort” bills addressed to “Lib Dems”, “Brent Liberal Democrats” and “Brent East Lib Dems” were charged to Teather’s expenses, including invoices for furniture, insurance and telephone maintenance. The accounts for Brent Liberal Democrats show that the party pays nothing in rent, telephone, insurance and electricity charges, despite sharing such facilities with the Brent East MP.
A friendly Liberal Democrat source familiar with the office expenses system told Scrapbook:
“The working assumption is that Teather will have to pay at least some of this money back. You simply can’t claim for receipts addressed to your local party – especially when you share an office with them.”
In addition to bills to her local party, Teather has also submitted an invoice that appears to relate to the Election Agents Record System, used by Lib Dem campaigners during election campaigns. Such claims are especially damaging in the light of leaked Liberal Democrat documents describing the “divide between party political campaigning and MP campaigning” as a “grey area”:
Readers should keep an eye out for Guy News later today, which comes live from outside Teather’s office. In developments to come, further problems remain with the accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission.
One would hope that party treasurers would know what a “company” is.
Jan/10
19:44 14
Mirror, Mirror on the wall
What a difference eight months can make…
Sarah Teather, The Grauniad, May 2009
Sarah Teather, Daily Mirror, January 2010
The usual channels carry news that Teather’s office had trouble with the local wildlife today.
A sudden invasion of bears and hyenas can be most troubling!
Jan/10
19:34 4
Sarah Teather: playing it by the book
Thanks to the source who emailed to draw Scrapbook’s attention to the fact that, in relation to this week’s expenses revelations, Sarah Teather has in fact been “playing it by the book”.
Unfortunately for taxpayers, the book concerned isn’t Parliament’s Green Book on the appropriate use of expenses but the Liberal Democrats’ internal manual on fiddling the system, which was leaked to The Telegraph last autumn. The presentation describes “grey areas” in regulations, encouraging its MPs to “be imaginative” with public money and “spend to the limit” (click to enlarge):
Scrapbook and others are praying that this will finally throw the whole issue of Liberal expenses front and centre. Lib Dems, on the whole, escaped the most damaging revelations around second homes while engaging in all sorts of scams, fiddles and chicanery relating to other allowances. The moralising hypocrisy of MPs like Teather, who preached from the pulpit while the taxpayer funded their political campaigning and propaganda, is sick making.
Rumour has it that Teather will soon be fighting on two fronts:
A complaint to the Electoral Commission is in the works.
Jan/10
09:53 19
EXCLUSIVE: Massive election period phone bills cast further suspicion on Sarah Teather expenses
UPDATE 10:12 – MAY DEVELOP THIS AFTERNOON. FOLLOW @PSBOOK FOR UPDATES
Links from a number of blogs, including the acerbic Tory Bear, to yesterday’s scoop on Liberal Democrat office expenses made for record readership figures – and it doesn’t seem that Tuesday will offer much respite for Sarah Teather. Scrapbook can reveal that the Brent East MP’s telephone bills are of significant interest to an ongoing investigation by the parliamentary sleaze watchdog:
- Brent Liberal Democrats not only share a taxpayer-funded office with Sarah Teather but also a telephone system.
- Accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission show that Brent Liberal Democrats have paid absolutely nothing in telephone bills.*
- For the last four years that claims are available, the full amount for each BT invoice has been claimed back in expenses by Sarah Teather, even though the phone number is also listed as the main contact telephone number for Brent Liberal Democrats.
Of most concern, however, are the massive increases in office telephone bills coinciding with local election campaigns, which have opened Brent Liberal Democrats to the accusation that Sarah Teather’s taxpayer-funded phone system could have been abused for party political activities such as phone canvassing:
Teather’s phone bills jumped a massive 50% to nearly £2,500 in the period encompassing the run up to the 2006 local elections to Brent Borough Council where the Liberal Democrats gained 16 seats. The largest bill – for a whopping £1,330 – would cover the period immediately before polling day on 4 May:
That Brent Liberal Democrats have taken a free ride on Sarah Teather’s taxpayer-funded phone system is bad enough, now we look to see whether this was abused systematically as part of an election campaign. The first page of redacted phone bills aren’t a smoking gun …
But the fully itemised bills could be.
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