Today’s “The World This Weekend” included a long item on the MP expense scandal and looked in particular at voter reaction in Stevenage (Barbara Follett) and St Albans. Both Anne Main and I were interviewed for the programme while we were at St Albans City Station on Friday evening. There were vox pops with local [...]
Entries Tagged as 'MP Expenses'
BBC Radio 4 “The World This Weekend” on the MP expenses scandal
February 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
Tags:Anne Main·BBC·MP Expenses·Sandy Walkington·St Albans·The World This Weekend
Debate on MP expenses
September 21st, 2009 · No Comments · Uncategorized
I have just spoken at Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth on the issue of MP expenses. Here is what I said:
Most people don’t have an expense account, never have, never will. Those relatively few that do are used to proper checking and monitoring as a matter of course.
I ran large teams at director level in [...]
Why don’t we just use the “c” word?
June 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
“Redaction” is a slippery word. I associate it with Bush and Blair and other dodgy neologisms such as “special rendition” for state sponsored kidnapping.
Redaction is just a fancy word for censorship and we should say so. Looking at MP receipts on-line and seeing all those blacked-out details is genuinely shocking. This is [...]
Tags:MP Expenses·old london road·pageant road·redaction·samuel square·watling street
Sing a song of sixpence – except it’s sadly rather more than that
May 24th, 2009 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
I had not previously heard of the Corrigan Brothers. They performed at President Obama’s inauguration with their song “There’s no-one as Irish as Barack O’Bama.” Now they have turned their gentle satire onto the MP expense issue. Listen to their song here and smile ruefully – it’s our money they are singing [...]
Tags:MP Expenses
No second home at taxpayer expense
May 24th, 2009 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
I have always been totally transparent in my commitment not to claim any second home allowance if I am elected MP. Today’s Sunday Telegraph story on the anger of St Albans voters reflects the wave of revulsion I have personally experienced on the doorstep from people outraged at what the Daily Telegraph has revealed [...]
Tags:MP Expenses
Is it the end for Speaker Martin?
May 18th, 2009 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
Events are moving very rapidly in terms of the Speaker of the House of Commons. I have written previously in this blog of my dismay at his abject performances.
Both opinion polls and comment on the doorstep are showing the huge damage being done to the institutions of democracy by the whole ghastly story of [...]
Tags:Michael Martin MP·MP Expenses·Nigel Quinton·Paul Zukowskyj·Sal Brinton·Speaker
Not with a bang but a whimper
May 13th, 2009 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
This is the way that the story ends: Not with a bang but a whimper.
Today was LibDem day in the Daily Telegraph revelations about the abuse of MP expenses. Do we emerge stain-free? No we do not. But overall the scale of inappropriate expenditure seems to be an order of magnitude less [...]
Tags:MP Expenses
Not all politicians are the same – will the St Albans Member please note
March 29th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Sandy's blog
Yet again MPs are in the mire because of the astonishing behaviour of a Labour minister. The “mistaken” claim for two adult films just adds fuel to the fire set by Jacqui Smith’s dodgy claim that her sister’s home was her main residence. Last week it was another Labour minister Tony McNulty claiming [...]
Tags:Additional Cost Allowance·Anne Main·Jacqui Smith·MP Expenses·Tony McNulty
Shouldn’t we be allowed to know what MPs spend taxpayers’ money on?
March 28th, 2008 · No Comments · Sandy's blog
It is the time of year when I knock on a lot of doors. I am struck by the incredibly low regard in which politicians as a class are now held. The recent shenanigans over MP expenses have created a corrosive perception of “snouts in the trough”.
People find it frankly incredible that MPs could [...]
Tags:Anne Main·Grant Shapps·MP Expenses·Sandy Walkington·St Albans