The Daily Telegraph again:
(You could not make this shit up !!)
Gordon Brown's authority in crisis over MPs' expenses
Gordon Brown is facing a growing crisis of authority after his review into MPs' expenses threatened to explode in his face.
<!-- Make sure there is no whitespoace at the end of the bline -->By
Andrew Porter, Political Editor
Published: 10:00PM BST 13 Oct 2009
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has faced calls for Sir Thomas Legg to be given a wider remit Photo: REUTERS
The Prime Minister's own MPs began openly defying his call to pay back
expenses claims, while some Cabinet ministers blamed him privately for allowing Sir Thomas Legg's investigation to run out of control.
They accused Mr Brown of enabling Sir Thomas to decide his own remit which has led to hundreds of requests for retrospective expenses payments by MPs.
<!-- BEFORE ACI -->
Related Articles
Mr Brown had hoped that Sir Thomas’s inquiry would pave the way for new reforms that could began to ease the political crisis that has gripped Westminster since
The Daily Telegraph began its MPs' expenses disclosures this summer.
But instead senior Labour MPs were claiming that the episode had “backfired" on the Prime Minister.
David Cameron, the Tory leader, stole the march on the Prime Minister, by promising first to expel any of his MPs who failed to abide by Sir Thomas's demands for expenses repayments.
Mr Brown simply followed up by hinting that the whip could be withdrawn in similar circumstances from Labour MPs.
Mr Brown faces calls for Sir Thomas to be given an even wider remit to include expenses abuses which include “flipping” second homes and mortgage payments.
The Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg became the first party leader to call for a broader inquiry to ensure some MPs do not escape censure, despite clear evidence of abuse.
He said it was vital that Sir Thomas did not let some of the “biggest abusers… off the hook”.
The chaos at Westminster came as MPs on all sides began paying up, after receiving notification from Sir Thomas on Monday.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, agreed to pay back £800 for gardening fees claimed just before he stood down as an MP in 2004.
The shadow cabinet have so far paid back a total of £17,500, which included £4,733 from Ken Clarke, the shadow business secretary.
Meanwhile, Sir Thomas’s own investigation criteria highlighted how there are likely to be several more high profile victims of the scandal.
It can disclosed that that MPs who rented their second home from a close relative or company they own face having to repay some of the largest sums following Sir Thomas’s inquiry.
It came as Michael Martin, the former Commons speaker who was forced to stand down over his own handling of the expenses scandal, was being made a peer in the House of Lords.
And, in the Midlands, a campaign has been launched to stop Jacqui Smith, the first senior MP ordered to apologise to the Commons over the expenses scandal, to be denied a peerage.
Mr Brown, who on Monday he agreed to pay back £12,500 for cleaning bills, personally ordered Sir Thomas to examine expenses going back five years. But the former civil servant decided on new levels of expenditure on cleaning and gardening and applied them retrospectively.
That has led to a storm of protest from MPs from all sides.
The resentment building against Mr Brown was summed up by one Labour backbencher who told The Telegraph: “I have never known such venom in the tea-room. No one has a good word to say about the stupid so-and-so (Mr Brown) for starting this whole thing.”
In an article for
The Daily Telegraph Mr Clegg wrote: “When the Legg process was first announced, I think most people expected the worst offences to come under the toughest scrutiny – MPs who avoided Capital Gains Tax, claimed cash for mortgages that didn’t exist or ‘flipped’ their second home so they could claim for renovations on house after house.
“Legg’s review…will simply not be credible if it doesn’t do all it can to investigate these offences. It must, in particular, expose every single one of those MPs who ‘flipped’ their second homes, potentially making hundreds of thousands of pounds of profits through taxpayer subsidised property market speculation.”
He added: “Every single MP who flipped, avoided Capital Gains Tax or claimed for non-existent mortgages must be forced to repay the money, and held to account.”
At Monday's meeting of Labour MPs Mr Brown faced a wave of anger and was heckled by some colleagues angry at his decsion to pay back the money and order them to do likewise.
Martin Salter, a Labour backbencher, said there was "a lot of anxiety and anger" in the House of Commons, with some MPs considering legal action.
He told the BBC's
World At One: "I think there are some MPs who will feel very aggrieved at having the rules reinterpreted five years down the line, who may mount a legal challenge. Any attempt to apply a retrospective value judgment is undoubtedly going to be subject to challenge.
"Far from drawing a line under this appalling situation, which has dragged politics into disrepute, it is going to make the situation many times worse."
Bill Etherington, Labour MP for Sunderland North, said he would not repay claims that were approved at the time by the fees office. The MP, who is stepping down at the election, said he was willing to go to court to keep the money.
He said: "If he has decided I shouldn't have claimed something which I feel was justifiable under the rules at the time, then I won't pay it. If I don't think it's correct they can take the matter to court."
Geraldine Smith, the Labour MP for Morecambe, who has not been asked to pay back any money, said that many of her colleagues would refuse.
She said: “Paying up is almost an admission that you’ve done something wrong. Most people, you aren’t going to write a cheque if you don’t believe you’ve done wrong.”
The mood at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting was also said to be “grim” after Mr Brown’s attempted fightback as MPs returned to the Commons after the long summer break was de-railed by his own expenses repayment.
One senior Government source described the latest twist in the expenses saga as “deeply, deeply demoralising” for Labour.
The source added: “Most Cabinet ministers feel like this. This follows on from the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) meeting where there was real anger at how Gordon had managed to get us into this deep mess - where the process was started with good intentions but has not been thought through.
"It is fair to say there is general incredulity that he could let this happen. MPs had gone away for the summer of hell. They took that and we had an ok conference.
“We were coming back [to Westminster] for the final straight in the battle against the Tories in the run up to the election. But there is now a strong sense that it has blown up in our face.”
Ann Widdecombe, the former Tory minister, hit out at the way Sir Thomas had been allowed to change the rules retrospectively.
She said: “If any other employer did this, he would be up before a tribunal. I have spoken informally to a number of practising lawyers and they say that it is contrary to the rules of natural justice.”
Mr Cameron said that any MP who did not pay money back would not be allowed to stand for the Conservatives at the election. He said that was “the minimum” defiant MPs should expect.
Mr Brown’s stance appeared less hard-line, referring instead to “action” against MPs who did not pay money back.
