Jobs for the boys – and a possible conflict of interest – in new government contract

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benefit, biopsychosocial, cash, Coalition, conflict, Conservative, contract, government, health, Health and Work Service, Incapacity Benefit, Interest, Maximus, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, money, paid, pay, people, politics, profit, provider, result, sick, social security, taxpayer, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, WCA, welfare, work, work capability assessment, Work Programme

[Image: Ktemoc Konsiders – http://ktemoc.blogspot.co.uk/%5D

The Coalition government has named the company that is to carry out its new programme to discourage people from claiming incapacity benefits – and, like all Coalition decisions, it is a disaster.

The contract for the new Health and Work Service in England and Wales will be delivered by Health Management Ltd – a MAXIMUS company.

This is triply bad for the United Kingdom.

Firstly, MAXIMUS is an American company so yet again, British taxpayers’ money will be winging its way abroad to boost a foreign economy, to the detriment of our own.

Next, MAXIMUS is already a Work Programme provider company in the UK. The Work Programme attempts to shoehorn jobseekers – including people on incapacity benefits – into any employment that is available, with the companies involved paid according to the results they achieve (on the face of it. In fact, it has been proved that the whole system is a scam to funnel taxpayers’ money into the hands of private firms as profit, whether they’ve done the work or not). Health and Work, on the other hand, is a strategy to slow the number of people claiming incapacity benefits with an assessment system – think ‘Work Capability Assessment’ designed to fast-track sicknote users back to their jobs.

We know from the government’s original press release that it has failed to reach its target for clearing people off incapacity benefit, so it seems that Health and Work has been devised to make more profit for MAXIMUS by ensuring that it can claim fees, not only for the number of incapacity benefit claimants it handles on the Work Programme, but also for the number of employees it ensures will NOT claim incapacity benefits.

It’s a win-win situation for the company and a clear conflict of interest – logically the firm will concentrate on whichever activity brings it the most UK government money. MAXIMUS may claim there are ‘Chinese walls’ to prevent any corruption, such as one activity being carried out by a subsidiary, but this must be nonsense. MAXIMUS will do what is best for MAXIMUS.

Thirdly, we have a new layer of bureacracy to torture sick people who only want peace and quiet in order to get better. Look at what Vox Political had to say about the scheme when it was announced in February:

“‘The work-focused occupational health assessment will identify the issues preventing an employee from returning to work and draw up a plan for them, their employer and GP, recommending how the employee can be helped back to work more quickly.’

“Health doesn’t get a look-in.

“No, what we’re most probably seeing is an expansion of the “biopsychosocial” method employed in work capability assessments, in an attempt to convince sick people that their illnesses are all in their minds. Don’t expect this approach to be used for people with broken limbs or easily-medicated diseases; this is for the new kinds of ‘subjective illness’, for which medical science has not been prepared – ‘chronic pain’, ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’, fibromyalgia and the like.

“People with these conditions will probably be sent back to work – with speed. Their conditions may worsen, their lives may become an unending hell of pain and threats – I write from experience, as Mrs Mike spent around two years trying to soldier on in her job before finally giving up and claiming her own incapacity benefits – but that won’t matter to the DWP as long as they’re not claiming benefits.”

That previous article was wrong, in fact. There is a health angle to this.

It is a plan to stitch us all up.

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Food bank blow is new low for the Mail on Sunday

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abuse, Andrea Leadsom, assessor, asylum seeker, benefit, bureau, CAB, cash, Charlotte Leslie, check, Citizens Advice, Coalition, Conservative, criteria, details, Easter, financial, food, food bank, form, George Osborne, government, hardship, health, Iain Duncan Smith, inadequate, JCP, Job Centre Plus, Mail on Sunday, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, money, people, Philip Hammond, politics, proof, reason, referral, rule, social security, Social Services, starvation, starve, starving, system, Tories, Tory, Trussell Trust, unemployed, voucher, Vox Political, welfare

Who do you bank with? This piece of public opinion was picked up from Twitter [Author: Unknown].

Isn’t it a shame that on of our national Sunday newspapers has chosen to disrupt everybody’s enjoyment of our Easter eggs with a specious attempt to expose abuses of food banks and make operator the Trussell Trust look hypocritical?

Isn’t it also a shame that the Mail on Sunday didn’t make a few inquiries into the procedure for dealing with people who turn up at food banks without having been referred?

The paper’s reporters and editor could have, at least, opened a dictionary and looked up the meaning of the word “charity”.

Under the headline, ‘No ID, no checks… and vouchers for sob stories: The truth behind those shock food bank claims’, the paper today (April 20) published a story claiming that Trussell Trust food banks are breaking their own rules by allowing people to take food bank parcels without presenting a voucher from an approved referrer, and that they are allowing many times more than the maximum permissible number of repeat visits.

Unfortunately for reporters Simon Murphy and Sanchez Manning, both situations are – in fact – allowed, because food banks must be flexible in the way they deal with individual cases. They would have known that if they had done their homework – as yr obdt srvt (who’s writing this) did at several meetings on the organisation of food banks here in Powys.

The paper’s investigation claims that there were “inadequate checks on who claims the vouchers, after a reporter obtained three days’ worth of food simply by telling staff at a Citizens Advice Bureau – without any proof – that he was unemployed”.

It turned out that this person had to fill out a form providing his name, address, date of birth, phone number and the reason for his visit before an assessor asked him why he needed food bank vouchers. In contradiction of the introduction to the story, he explained – not simply that he was unemployed, but that he had been out of work for several months and the harsh winter had left him strapped for cash and food. He said his wife had left her job and was not earning and that they had two children. These lies were sufficient to win food bank vouchers.

What the report didn’t say was how the details given by reporter Ross Slater would have been used afterwards. The CAB would have booked him in for a further interview with a debt advisor, to which he would have had to bring documentary evidence of his situation. When he didn’t turn up, he would have been identified as a fraud. The food bank would also have taken his details, to be fed back into the referral system. Job Centre Plus would have picked up on the fact that he isn’t unemployed. From this point on, he would have been identified as a fraud and refused further service.

You see, it is true that food banks run on a voucher system, but that is only a part of the scheme. The questions asked of people who need vouchers are used to ensure that they get the help they need to avoid having to come back – that’s why they’re asked. They also weed out abusers like Mr Slater.

If the paper’s editor had looked in a dictionary, he might have seen charity defined as “voluntary provision of help to people in need, or the help provided” in the first instance. However, reading further, he would have seen “sympathy or tolerance in judging” listed as well. It seems the Mail on Sunday would have no such sympathy and would have deserving cases turned away to starve.

It is telling, also, that the paper had to go to Citizens Advice to get its evidence. Far more food bank vouchers are handed out in the Job Centre Plus, where all a citizen’s circumstances are available to advisors. But not one word is said about the fact that the vast majority of food bank referrals are for people in real need and not newspaper reporters.

The paper also stated: “Staff at one centre gave food parcels to a woman who had visited nine times in just four months, despite that particular centre’s own rules stipulating that individuals should claim no more than three parcels a year.”

It continued: “Individuals experiencing severe financial hardship are able to claim food vouchers but there are no clear criteria on who should be eligible. Once received, the vouchers can be exchanged for three days’ worth of food at an allotted centre.

“The Trussell Trust has a policy that an individual can claim no more than nine handouts in a year, but undercover reporters found this limit varied in different branches.”

No – it is far more likely that it varied according to the circumstances of the person who needed the help. Rigid rules, such as one that limits people to only three visits, mean those who need the most help would be cut off while they still needed assistance. People working in food banks would be aware of who these were, and would be more likely to be tolerant towards them.

Meanwhile, the other support services – Job Centre Plus, Citizens Advice, Social Services and so on – would be working to help them. With some people, it simply takes longer. It should be easy for anyone to think of reasons why this may be the case.

This may also explain the situation in which a worker at a Trussell Trust food bank said people “bounce around” locations to receive more vouchers. The assessment system is a way of monitoring these people and determining whether they need extra help.

It is not true that the criteria are not clear – the paper is misleading with this claim. Food banks, the charities running them, and referring organisations all have to agree on the circumstances in which they permit people to receive parcels. You really can’t just walk in the door and expect to get a free handout. That’s why the questions are asked and forms filled out – they will check up on everybody.

Another claim – that “volunteers revealed that increased awareness of food banks is driving a rise in their use” is unsubstantiated, and is clearly an attempt to support the government’s claim that this is the case. But it is silly. Of course starving people will go to a food bank after they have been told it exists; that doesn’t mean they aren’t starving.

And the paper wrongly said the Trussell Trust had claimed that more than 913,000 people received three days’ emergency food from its banks in 2013-14, compared with 347,000 in the previous financial year. This is a misreading of the way the charity records its work, as the Trussell Trust records visits, not visitors. It would be hard to work out exactly how many people attended because some will have visited just once, others twice, a few for the full three times, and some would have required extra help.

The claim that many visitors were asylum-seekers is silly because food banks were originally set up for foreign people who were seeking asylum in the UK and had no money or means of support.

Of course it would be wrong to say that nobody is trying to abuse the system. There are good people and bad people all over the country, and bad people will try to cheat. Look at Maria Miller, Iain Duncan Smith (Betsygate), George Osborne (and his former paddock), Andrea Leadsom’s tax avoidance, Philip Hammond’s tax avoidance, Charlotte Leslie who took cash to ask Parliamentary questions – to name but a few.

The Trussell Trust has agreed to investigate the newspaper’s allegations – but it is important to remember that these were just a few instances of abuse, and only claimed – by a newspaper that is infamous for the poor quality of its reporting.

Nothing said in the article should be used to undermine the vital work of food banks in helping people to survive, after the Conservative-led Coalition government stole the safety net of social security away from them.

UPDATE: Already the Mail on Sunday is facing a public backlash against its ill-advised piece. A petition on the Change.org website is calling for the reporter who claimed food bank vouchers under false pretences in order to make a political point to be sacked. Vox Political has mixed feelings about this – it targets a person who was sent out to do a job by others who are more directly to blame for the piece, but then he did it of his own free will and this action brings all newspaper reporters into disrepute. Consider carefully.

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Lucas, Miller and a law that worked so hard not to treat them equally

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acquit, anti-fracking, Behaviour, Caroline Lucas, cash, charge, claim, commissioner, Commons Committee, court, CPS, criminal, Crown Prosecution Service, David Cameron, embezzlement, equal, expenses, false pretence, fine, fraud, government, highway, judge, law, magistrate, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, money, not guilty, obstruct, offence, outcry, overturn, Parliament, police, protest, public order, resign, standards, taxpayer, trial, Vox Political

Congratulations are due to Green MP Caroline Lucas, who walked free from court today after criminal charges against her were overturned.

She had been charged with obstructing a public highway and a public order offence, during high-profile anti-fracking protests last summer. Neither offence carries a prison sentence – the maximum penalty for either charge would have been a fine of up to £1,000.

District judge Tim Pattinson said the prosecution had failed to satisfy him that Lucas had “the requisite knowledge” about the Section 14 order being in place.

On the obstruction charge, he said he did not hear any evidence that any actual obstruction of a vehicle or person was caused by the protest.

It is good for British justice that Ms Lucas was acquitted – but bad for British justice that she was taken to court in the first place, most particularly because the case contrasts so strongly with that of disgraced former cabinet minister Maria Miller.

Miller claimed tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money under false pretences. You can call that fraud, if you like (maximum penalty: 10 years’ imprisonment).

Did she go to court? No.

Because she is a member of Parliament, the financial irregularity was investigated by a Parliamentary body, the Commons Committee on Standards. Rather than take the advice of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, who recommended that Miller pay back the full amount, the committee ruled that she should return just £5,800 and apologise to Parliament for obstructive behaviour during the investigation.

Surely everybody can see the double-standard here?

The least we can learn from these two stories is that the law absolutely does not treat everybody equally.

Ms Lucas was arrested, detained at Her Majesty’s convenience and now she has faced trial for the offences alleged against her. This MP, who opposes the government in Parliament, was then acquitted after a fair trial and has the support of the general public in this matter.

Miller was accused of a far more serious crime than Ms Lucas but has not been arrested, has not been detained, and has not been tried for the offences alleged against her. The then-government minister was whitewashed by her colleagues and only resigned because of a public outcry against the decision.

What conclusion can the public draw, other than that government MPs are effectively above the law?

David Cameron’s government can only redeem itself with two actions: It must remove Parliament’s right to investigate claims of financial irregularity by MPs and placing this duty firmly where it belongs – with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The other action?

Obvious, really…

Maria Miller must face a criminal trial, charged with fraud.

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Here’s another corrupt Conservative: Charlotte Leslie

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cash, Charlotte Leslie, Conservative, corrupt, donation, financial, Interest, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Parliament, pecuniary, question, severn barrage, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

Image: Political Scrapbook

Bristol North West MP Charlotte Leslie is the latest Conservative to be revealed as having taking cash to ask questions in Parliament. She’s not a minister – what penalty will she face?

A Tory MP tabled three parliamentary questions on the Severn Barrage, failing to declare a £17000 donation from a port magnate opposed to the project.

While Bristol MP Charlotte Leslie apologised to the House on Tuesday for failing to properly declare donations, the link to the Severn Barrage has only been picked up by local media.

Although she knew about the error in August, and updated the register – she says it took until Tuesday for her to work out there was a bigger problem.

What nobody but the local papers seem to have picked up is that since 2009 she’s been fed £17000 by a major Tory donor called David Ord.

David Ord is joint owner of Bristol Port, who are vehemently against the proposed Severn Barrage Project.

Since being elected in 2010, Leslie has asked two written questions of Ed Davey on the feasibility and funding of the Barrage, and one of Vince Cable – all without declaring her 17 grand interest in the project’s principle detractor.

On top of that, she admitted to her local Tory party pocketing £2500 from one Theodore Agnew – whom she questioned when he appeared at the Education Select Committee.

Leslie, who has a staff who one would thought have an understanding of prejudicial interests, blamed the oversight on her dyslexia.

Read the rest of this story on Political Scrapbook.

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Miller resigns at last – now it is time to call in the police

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benefit, cash, cheat, court, Daily Telegraph, David Cameron, expenses, fraud, George Osborne, house, Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, ipsa, law, London, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, money, mortgage interest, paddock, people, police, politics, profit, resign, scandal, taxpayer, Vox Political, weak

Going (unpunished): Maria Miller has made a huge profit from her misuse of taxpayers’ money while in public office. Now is the time for her to face a criminal investigation.

Maria Miller resigned as Culture Secretary today (Wednesday) – after nearly a week of hanging on by her fingernails in the hope that everyone would suddenly forget that she fraudulently claimed mortgage interest on a south London house that she wanted the authorities to believe was her second home (when in fact it was her parents’ first).

During that time she has managed to reignite public disgust at the many expenses scandals in which Parliamentarians have been revealed to have been involved since the Daily Telegraph first lifted the lid on them in 2009.

She has also managed to undermine public support for comedy Prime Minister David Cameron, whose continuing support for her has shown just how weak he must be. He needed Miller because she was a woman in a predominantly male Cabinet, state-educated in a mainly private-school Cabinet, and an avid supporter of Cameron himself in a government that is beginning to realise that he’s a dud. In supporting her, he showed just how precarious his hold on the leadership really is.

Of course, she also generated a huge amount of hatred towards herself. Remember, this is a person who used taxpayers’ money to pay for her parents’ house – a building which she subsequently sold for a profit of more than £1 million.

Miller is not the first Cabinet member to make a million with taxpayers’ cash either – stand up George Osborne, who formerly had us paying for a paddock, a house and other scraps of land in his Tatton constituency on which he falsely claimed expenses, saying they were vital for the performance of his duties as an MP. He later sold the lot for around £1 million, having spent not a single penny of his own on the property – it all came from the taxpayer.

Osborne was protected from prosecution by the Parliamentary Standards Authority – a body that appears not to be as independent as it claims.

Now is the time to report Miller to the police.

A Parliamentary inquiry is not the same as a criminal investigation and it is important for her case to be tested in a court of law. This woman was part of a government that has had no qualms about using the law to take taxpayers’ money away from people who needed state benefits in order to survive; now let us see how she fares when the law turns its attention to her.

Who’s up for it?

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How Labour turned the tables on the Tory Thatcher tribute

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750, £3, Baroness, Bercow, Blue, bribe, Cameron, cash, Conservative, cost, cow, David, David Anderson, debate, ding dong the witch is dead, Ed Miliband, emergencies, emergency, expenses, Glenda Jackson, government, John, Labour, Margaret, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, miner, mining, MP, Mrs, national, Parliament, parties, Party, politics, precedent, recall, social, Speaker, street, Thatcher, Tories, Tory, tribute, unemployment, Vox Political, Winston Churchill

In fact she’ll get a military funeral, which is just as expensive and unwanted by the majority of Britons. What this image makes clear is just how badly wrong the current UK government’s priorities have become.

Can anyone imagine the kind of row we would have seen this week if Labour had blocked the recall of Parliament to pay tribute to Margaret Thatcher?

It was well within Ed Miliband’s rights to put the mockers on it. Recalling Parliament is a move that has previously been reserved only for national emergencies, and past precedent states that tributes should have come when Parliament returned – as normal – next Monday. That was also the understanding of the Parliamentary officials charged with planning for the former Prime Minister’s death.

Did David Cameron really believe that the demise of his beloved ex-leader was a national emergency? Of course not. This was merely a chance to scrounge some more money off the taxpayer.

He turned the Blue Baroness into a cash cow.

According to the Daily Mirror, every MP returning to Westminster to take part in the debate could claim expenses totalling £3,750 each.

So, if all 650 MPs turned up, the cost to you and me would have been £2,437,500 – for a debate that could have happened next week, at no extra cost.

Was it a bribe, to get more Members to turn up? If so, it didn’t work very well. Sure, the government benches were packed with Tories, climbing over themselves to orate on how great Nanny was – but the Opposition benches were conspicuously empty. It seems 150 Labour MPs had better things to do.

We should all be grateful for that – it took the bill down to £1,875,000.

Should Labour have opposed the recall? The speaker, John Bercow, was reportedly – let’s say – less than enthusiastic about the matter, especially the way it was conducted: The request came in a telephone call from a mid-ranking 10 Downing Street staff member, rather than in writing, according to The Guardian. The Speaker had to remind the Prime Minister that he must follow protocol and it was only then that Cameron formalised his request in writing.

(Cameron seems to have a problem with following the rules. The first time he got up in Parliament as the Prime Minister, he appeared to forget that he must address his comments to the Speaker and put many of them directly to some of the Members opposite – until a few sharp comments from Mr Bercow put him back in his place.)

Bercow then sought a reaction from the Opposition, and it seems the decision not to oppose it was political, in order not to cause a row in which they were bound to be vilified for failing to show due respect.

Given the facts that street parties broke out in several major British cities on the day she died, while ‘Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead’ appeared at number 10 in the midweek charts, it seems unlikely that any Parliamentary party needs to lower itself in that way. The British people have spoken.

So Mr Miliband trotted out a speech about how the Blue Baroness was a woman of strong convictions who held to her ideals (even if he didn’t agree with them) or some such.

Then he sat down and listened, for hours, to the other speeches, including this from Glenda Jackson:

“We were told that everything I had been taught to regard as a vice – and I still regard them as vices – under Thatcherism, was in fact a virtue. Greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker… they were the way forward. We have heard much, and will continue to hear over the next week, of the barriers that were broken down by Thatcherism, the Establishment that was destroyed. What we actually saw – the word that has been circling around with stars around it, is that she created an ‘aspirational’ society. It ‘aspired’ for ‘things’… One of the former Prime Ministers, who himself had been elevated to the House of Lords, spoke about selling off the family silver, and people knowing under those years the price of everything and the value of nothing. What concerns me is that I am beginning to see possibly the re-emergence of that total traducing of what I regard as being the basic, spiritual nature of this country, where we do care about society, where we do believe in communities, where we do not leave people to walk by on the other side.”

And this, from David Anderson:

“She came to power promising to bring harmony where there was discord. In the mining communities up and down the country, she brought the opposite. She believed we were no longer any use to the nation because we were deemed to be uneconomic… because we insisted on running safe coal mines in this country. One of the great disgraces of this country today is we import over 50 million tonnes of coal a year from countries where men are killed, literally in the thousands, and we closed our industry that was the safest, the most technologically-advanced, in the world.

“The other area where the so-called economic justification falls down was the failure of Margaret Thatcher and her government to take into account the social cost… where no alternative employment was put forward for those people who were losing their jobs – and particularly for their children. The village where I lived had seen coal mining for almost two centuries. In a matter of months after closure, we were gripped by a wave of petty crime, burglary, car crime – mostly related to drugs. We have never recovered from it.

“We’ve seen the reaction of people whose frustration is heartfelt because they’ve lost their sense of place in society; they’ve been made to feel worthless; they’ve been cast aside like a pair of worn-out pit boots. They’ve seen their community fall apart. They’ve seen their children’s opportunities disappear. And they’ve not been listened to.

“Mrs Thatcher’s lack of empathy, her intransigence, her failure to see the other side, her refusal to even look at the other side, has left them bitter, and resentful, and hitting out in a way that is uncharacteristic of the miners in our community. Her accusation that the “enemy within” was in the mining areas of this country still rankles people. I wasn’t the “enemy within”… All we wanted was the right to work. We didn’t just want it for ourselves; we wanted it for our kids, and that was taken away.”

David Cameron wanted to pay his MPs huge amounts of money to come back and spend seven and a half hours – and remember, Winston Churchill only got 45 minutes after his death – singing the praises of the Blue Baroness – to the high heavens. He got what he wanted, and it is fair to say his Party members enjoyed telling their little stories.

But the contributions of Labour members like Glenda Jackson and David Anderson are the ones that will be remembered.

Osborne Update: Met passes the buck

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cash, Chancellor, class, Conservative, Exchequer, expenses, flip, George Osborne, land registry, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortgage, paddock, taxpayer, Vox Political

He thinks he can get away with using taxpayers’ money in a get-rich-quick property scheme, and then pocketing the profits. Only you can make him think again. It seems clear that he committed fraud. He should be jailed.

The Metropolitan Police cannot investigate George Osborne over the way he misused public funds to pay mortgage interest on a paddock in Cheshire – apparently there is a separate investigation already taking place.

A representative passed this information to me by telephone earlier today. She assured me that a file had been created and sent to the appropriate place (Westminster), but said: “There are separate ongoing issues that are being investigated, so it can’t be done by us. You would have to speak to your local MP.”

When I pressed her for the reason, she said “It is not within our jurisdiction to do this. There is a separate investigation ongoing with this.”

I haven’t got the faintest idea what she meant by this. Therefore I have emailed my MP and asked him to take up the matter. There is a problem with this, in that he is a Liberal Democrat and therefore part of the Coalition, of which George Osborne is a high-ranking member.

In my email, I urged my MP to do everything within his power to ensure that a proper police investigation does indeed take place into Mr Osborne’s wrongdoing (it isn’t alleged – the facts are known and it is therefore simply a matter of ensuring that a prosecution takes place and the criminal is imprisoned. Bear in mind that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, what he has done is a gross betrayal of public trust).

I added that he may find that other MPs have also been contacted by constituents who want to see justice served. By that, I mean anyone reading this, who has read my previous articles about this and taken action on them.

I also added that I am extremely interested to learn the nature of the “separate ongoing issues” mentioned by the officer of the Metropolitan Police, and urged him to find out what this means and let me know. And I asked, if this investigation is not within the jurisdiction of the Met, who is carrying it out?

I strongly urge you to do likewise.

Please note: I have been advised that my information is out of date as the fraud-related provisions of the Theft Act 1968 have been repealed and replaced by the Fraud Act 2006. Mr Osborne’s actions are therefore likely to be crimes under sections 2, 3, and 4 of the 2006 Act.

For those who want to contact their MP, as I have, but need to find the correct email address, here’s the appropriate web link:
http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-your-mp/

Police urged to investigate fraud allegations against Osborne

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cash, Chancellor, class, Conservative, Exchequer, expenses, flip, George Osborne, land registry, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortgage, paddock, taxpayer, Vox Political

It doesn’t contain the Budget; it’s probably his swag bag.

… by me.

What follows is the text of my complaint to the Metropolitan Police (via their website)  about George Osborne’s paddock scam. I have received a large volume of responses to my article about this yesterday, all but one of which agreed with my belief that what he did was a criminal offence and should be investigated with a view to prosecution and imprisonment.

I would strongly urge others to contact the Met regarding this case. I’ve done it; you can do it too. The more of us stand up and demand action, the more seriously they are likely to view this matter.

Here’s what I wrote:

It has emerged that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP, has been misusing taxpayers’ money for his own enrichment and for that reason I have been urged to request a criminal investigation concerning fraud. From the evidence that is publicly available, it seems clear that this is an offence according to s.16 of the Theft Act, 1968.

We know that Mr Osborne bought a farmhouse in Cheshire, along with the neighbouring land, for £455,000 in 2000, before he became an MP in 2001. Between 2003 and 2009, he claimed up to £100,000 in expenses to cover mortgage interest payments on both the land and the building. The mortgage was interest-only. After 2003, he never paid a penny himself.

He re-mortgaged in 2005, increasing the amount to £480,000 – again on an interest-only basis – to cover the initial purchase costs and £10,000 for repairs. He was using public money to claw back his outlay on the property so, from then on, we can say that none of the money paid on that building or land was ever paid by Mr Osborne. It all came from the taxpayer.

During the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009 we learned that he had “flipped” his second home allowance onto the farmhouse building and increased the mortgage. What we didn’t know was that the expenses payments were not just for the house, but for the paddock as well; it is registered separately with the Land Registry.

Mr Osborne sold the house and the land – both of which are now firmly established as having been funded with taxpayers’ money, not his own – last year, for £1 million. That’s more than double the original price. He has pocketed that money; the taxpayer won’t get any of it back.

So he has exploited taxpayers like you and me to make £1 million for himself. This was not a necessary expense to help him discharge his Parliamentary duties; it seems clear that it was a property scam.

I wish also to invite you to take action against this person for any other offences which may apply, such as false accounting (s.17, Theft Act 1968).

Obviously, since the crime relates to expenses claims, the location is wherever MPs’ expenses claims are considered. I would suggest this is the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament) but I am prepared to be corrected on this.

The victims of this crime are the taxpayers of the UK. Mr Osborne took money that was available to Parliament through taxation, therefore no single person can claim they are the victim but all taxpayers have been affected. Please be reminded that we are discussing a considerable sum of money – up to £100,000.

I refer you to the following press reports of the issue, in which it is made clear that Mr Osborne did not need this building or the adjoining land to discharge his Parliamentary duties, nor did he pay back anything like the amount he claimed, when he was found to have overclaimed for mortgage interest on the farmhouse (and only the farmhouse):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/07/taxpayers-paid-george-osborne-paddock-mortgage

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-included-a-horses-paddock-1477294

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-included-a-horses-paddock-1477294

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9729139/George-Osborne-bought-paddock-with-taxpayers-money.html

I realise this is an unusual complaint but the situation is the subject of considerable public unrest and I believe it is right to bring it to the attention of the police. There is a widespread feeling that Mr Osborne has committed a crime, that this should be investigated to the fullest extent, and that a criminal action should be brought against him. It is understood that this person holds one of the highest offices in the land but this should not place him above the criminal law.

Storm in a scrapyard over Hughes – while Osborne should be arrested

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cash, Chancellor, class, Conservative, Deputy, donation, Exchequer, expenses, fare, first, flip, funded, George Osborne, land registry, Leader, Liberal Democrat, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, mortgage, paddock, questions, railway, simon hughes, standard, taxpayer, train, Vox Political

Making out like a bandit: George Osborne has pocketed £1 million by using taxpayers’ money. Should he be jailed for fraud?

I can’t see any reason to make a fuss over Simon Hughes.

The Liberal Democrat deputy may have failed to declare – fully – a £10,000 donation from a scrap metal firm. Big deal. He did not see any of the money himself. Apparently there’s another donation of £15,000 from a cruise company. Hughes was the speaker at a Christmas cruise on the Thames, operated by this company, and has spoken about both firms in Parliament. It looks like straightforward ‘cash-for-questions’, if there’s truth to it.

Isn’t it more interesting that this should come to light on the same day that I read about George Osborne and his paddock?

This is not an allegation but fact: Osborne – who is, let’s remember, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and therefore should know the rules extremely well – included the mortgage for a paddock in his taxpayer-funded expenses.

He bought a farmhouse in Cheshire, along with the neighbouring land, for £455,000 in 2000, before he became an MP – but then, between 2003 and 2009, he claimed up to £100,000 in expenses to cover mortgage interest payments on both the land and the building. The mortgages were interest-only. After 2003, he never paid a penny himself.

When he re-mortgaged in 2005, he increased the amount to £480,000 – again on an interest-only basis – to cover the intial purchase costs and £10,000 for repairs. He was using public money to claw back his outlay on the property, so from then on, none of the money paid on that building or land was paid by Mr Osborne. It all came from the taxpayer.

During the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009 we learned that he had “flipped” his second home allowance onto the property and increased the mortgage. What we didn’t know was that the expenses payments were not just for the house, but for the paddock as well; it is registered separately with the Land Registry.

Osborne sold the house and the land – both of which are now firmly established as having been funded with your money, not his – last year, for £1 million. That’s more than double the original price. He has pocketed that money; the taxpayer won’t get any of it back.

So he has exploited us to make £1 million for himself.

Make no mistake – this was not a necessary expense to help him discharge his Parliamentary duties; it was a property scam.

Because the money was claimed as a Parliamentary expense, I think there are grounds for a fraud inquiry. It seems like an open-and-shut case of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception (Theft Act 1968, section 16).

Let’s also remember that this is a man with what I believe is known as “form”. Earlier this year he was caught in the First Class compartment of a train, having paid only a Standard Class fare. Again, he had obtained an advantage via deception.

Did he pay any penalty for the railway incident? I’ve heard nothing. Will he pay a penalty for this £1 million wheeze? I doubt it.

But you should remember it, next time you see him telling you that his latest plan to squeeze the last vital pennies from your bank accounts are “fair”.

And you should pay particular attention to this comment from him, made when he became Chancellor (and therefore while he was still claiming the mortgage on expenses, before making the sale): “I took a pay cut, and froze my pay on taking this job, took a pay cut from the previous chancellor, the Labour chancellor, in order to show that politicians weren’t going to get away with it.”

He seems to think he can.

I find it extremely dubious that the allegations about Hughes should take pride of place on certain news media websites, while the facts about Osborne appear to be all but brushed under the carpet.

My opinion: Osborne should be arrested and remanded in custody (without bail – the risk that he might abscond would be too great) until a trial can take place.