For £116,000 Jacqui Smith Can Stay With Me
9th Feb 2009 22:10:26
The principle of the second home allowance for MP's is to allow them to stay in London if they live too far away to commute. Jacqui Smith represents the people of Redditch, about 120 miles away from London, so she claims for a second house in London, of course. She found a cheap but comfortable flat, nobody would ask her to stay in a slum, and continued to pay the mortgage for her more expensive home in Redditch out of her salary.
Well, quite obviously, this isn't the case, or this would consitute the most redundant blog post in the world. Jacqui Smith has complied perfectly with the letter of the law, it seems, and stamped on the spirit of it. Claiming for your more expensive main house is not what the housing allowance is supposed to be. This is just another in a long list of expense claims that show the system is being abused by the very people we're supposed to trust.
'It seems extraordinarily bad value for the taxpayer. This suggests that the steps taken to eliminate unsatisfactory elements of the housing allowance system have not yet been completed.'
- Norman Baker MP (Liberal Democrat)
Again and again, the people who prove that more transparency is needed in the system are those who want the close the veil of secrecy closer over themselves. Reading through the reports, Jacqui Smith stays in London Monday to Thursday - that's three nights. Surely meaning she stays in Redditch for four nights, making it her main house?
Even worse, it seems that Jacqui Smith has deliberately turned down a "grace and favour" house for the Home Secretary. Presumably so she could pocket a six-figure sum whilst being a member of the most incompetent Government conceivable? Presiding over the country's failed justice system, handing out pathetic sentences to even the worst criminals? Jails filled to the brim, operating on a one-in-one-out policy?
Did I have a point about Jacqui Smith being incompetent, useless, and the head of an organisation which has had more failures than Eddie the Eagle, but without the public support? Did I want to bring attention to the irony by which one of the cabinet members most opposed to the transparency of expenses is one of those abusing them?
Yes. But I did it very subtly, so you probably won't notice. Until then, the offer's open, Jacqui. You can stay with me for a scant £24,000 per year.
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