Food bank blow is new low for the Mail on Sunday

Tags

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.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political needs your help!
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

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

Tags

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.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political supports justice.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Bone thrown to the expenses investigators

Tags

expenses, George Osborne, inquiry, investigation, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mrs Bone, Peter Bone, pmq, Prime Minister's Questions, Vox Political, whitewash

Image: BBC.

Tory right-whinger Peter Bone is the latest MP to face questions over his expenses.

The inquiry will focus on expenses relating to the upkeep of his second home between 2005 and 2009. As such, the investigation will be carried out using the system that was in place before it was reformed after a string of scandals in 2009.

Both George Osborne and Maria Miller had their expenses examined under this system, so we can expect Bone to get away with any wrongdoing as well.

From evidence that has emerged in the Osborne and Miller investigations, it is clear that the pre-2009 investigation system was completely useless except as a way of whitewashing MPs’ reputations.

Of course, Bone is a frequent contributor to Prime Minister’s Questions, where he often claims to have been prompted into making a query by his wife.

In the unlikely event that he is found guilty of a misdemeanour, will he be blaming that on Mrs Bone as well?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political has many expenses and no cash to pay them
… we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

G4S – Securing More Fraud!

Tags

Coalition, Conservative, criminal, electronic, financial irregularity, francis maude, fraud, G4S, games, government, London, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Olympic, Securing Your World, security, Serious Fraud Office, tag, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

You would think that, in the week of the Maria Miller scandal, the Conservative-led Coalition would spurn any contact with people or organisations responsible for financial irregularity in connection with the government – right?

Wrong: Here’s G4S.

(You really need to be playing the Soundcloud clip – above – to get the full effect of this article. The song is the G4S anthem ‘Securing Your World’; it is sub-Bon Jovi cheese that sets you up perfectly for the facts about the firm.)

G4S is the company that famously failed to meet the terms of a contract to provide security guards for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. This was a brutal embarrassment to our privatise-everything Government because it had to call in public servants – the Army – to do the work instead.

Not content with that cock-up, in July last year the Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation into G4S after it was alleged that the company was overcharging for the electronic ‘tagging’ of criminals in England and Wales. It was claimed that the company was charging for people who were in prison, outside the UK, and also for people who were dead.

It seems highly unlikely that there was any danger of this last group absconding.

The company agreed to pay £109 million back to the Treasury, which is as good an admission of guilt as any. G4S breached its contract; in fairness it should have paid back all monies provided to it by the UK government.

That was last November. Now – less than six months later – Francis Maude wants us to believe G4S has cleaned up its act and is worthy of our trust once again. Seriously.

For this reason alone it is worth checking whether Mr Maude has shares in the company.

Our government of crooks couldn’t wait to get back into cahoots with this company of crooks, could they? Delaying new contract bids until the start of the 2014-15 financial year was as much as they could manage.

If you ran a firm that behaved in this manner, you would face civil action for breach of contract and possibly criminal action for fraud – profiting from false claims. You would most likely be barred from ever bidding for such contracts again, and possibly even from working in the same industry for the rest of your career.

Yet here’s G4S, Securing More… well, you can read the headline.

It all bodes well for Maria Miller. Accepting her resignation, we are to understand, David Cameron made it perfectly clear that he would have the fraudster back in his Cabinet just as soon as he possibly could.

Villainy loves company.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political works hard to expose criminality in government
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

If Cameron thinks he’s doing God’s work you have to wonder what he worships

Tags

Ave Maria, Big Society, boycott, Christian, Conservative, Daily Mail, David Cameron, Dyno-Rod, Easter reception, evil, God, Hindu, Independent, Israel, Jew, Kosher, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Moses, scandal, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, West Bank

Face the facts: David Cameron has been sucking up to Hindus, Jews and now Christians because he wants religious people to vote for his Conservatives – in the same way Satan, the great deceiver, tries to lure the righteous into sin. If he worships any religious figure, it is Mammon, the personification of greed.

Perhaps he’s had a breakdown in the wake of the Maria Miller scandal.

Visiting Christian leaders were no doubt amazed to hear the leader of the most evil British government in decades telling them he has been doing “God’s work”.

David Cameron told them his Big Society concept – the vain attempt to get volunteers to do for free what public sector workers did before he sacked them all – was invented by Jesus of Nazareth, in Roman-era Israel.

If you think that’s a warped vision of Christianity, try this: He said, “Christians are now the most persecuted religion around the world. We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other faith groups wherever and whenever we can.”

Trying to start another war, David?

He won’t be fighting the Jews, it seems. Only last month he delivered a strongly pro-Jewish speech to the Israeli Knesset (their Parliament), supporting the religious slaughter of animals to make Kosher meat (in the face of calls for more humane methods) and rejecting calls to boycott goods produced in Israeli settlements like the occupied West Bank.

He even mentioned the fact that he had a Jewish great-great grandfather, although the Daily Mail reported, “he made no mention of reports that he may be descended from Moses”.

Cameron has also prostituted himself for the Hindu vote.

But let’s get back to his claim that his policies come from Christ himself. On the day Cameron finally accepted Mrs Miller’s resignation, he had nothing to say about the choice of music accompanying his Easter reception in Downing Street (Ave Maria). Instead, he told Church leaders that, if they believe there are obstacles preventing them from doing more to support his failed pet project, they should think of him as “a giant Dyno-Rod”.

And why not?

If anything in this country deserves to be flung down a drain, it’s David Cameron.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political deplores the manipulation of religion for political ends
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Miller’s punishment for being found out – more cash than she had to pay back

Tags

£17000, Conservative, crime, David Cameron, fraud, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, pay off, people, politics, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

Money, money, money…

Having resigned from the Cabinet, it seems the fraudster Maria Miller is entitled to a payoff totalling £17,000 – equivalent to three months’ ministerial salary.

This means that, as punishment for behaviour that, anywhere else, would lead to a criminal conviction (if not imprisonment), she is to receive a payment that not only negates the £5,800 she had to pay back, but includes an additional £11,200 – nearly twice as much again!

Other MPs are urging her not to take the money but it seems likely that she will.

And people wonder why we doubt her in her displays of contrition.

She’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Meanwhile, David Cameron is left to stew in one godawful mess. Not only has he been exposed as a critically weak leader, but this affair has shown that a Conservative-led government makes crime pay.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political continues to oppose the corruption that allows ministers to commit crimes
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

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

Tags

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?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political continues to oppose the corruption that allows ministers to commit crimes
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Expenses row ‘devastated’ Miller – so what? Miller devastated the disabled

Tags

apology, Atos, Baroness, benefit, benefits, Betty, Boothroyd, Conservative, contempt, David Cameron, disability, disabled, educated, education, expenses, female, fraud, government, honour, loyal, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minister, Parliament, politics, resign, rich, shame, social security, state, thief, thieves, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare, work capability assessment

According to the BBC, Maria Miller reckons she is “‘devastated’ that she has let her constituents down”.

Oh really?

Is that why her apology to Parliament – which was for behaving badly towards the inquiry into her fraudulent expenses claims, not for making the claims themselves – was so short and contemptuous? She trying to cope with the shame of letting everybody down?

I should bleedin’ cocoa.

Miller should try to bear in mind that we weren’t all born yesterday and most of us have a decent IQ; we don’t have time for these flimsy efforts at self-justification.

She committed a crime.

Let’s remember as well that this is a woman who, as minister for the disabled, co-presided over a benefit assessment system that has led to thousands upon thousands of deaths: the hated Work Capability Assessment.

Shall we list the devastation caused by that little policy?

Well, too bad. We can’t because the government is too lily-livered and cowardly to release the figures. There is no more obvious way of telling the public that these people are trying to hide serious – by which I mean grave – crimes.

So Miller can take her talk of “devastation” and blow it out her ear.

The BBC report adds that David Cameron, Britain’s weakest Prime Minister, has continued to support his culture secretary. Cynics have said this is because she is both female and state-educated, and he needs examples of both in his primarily male, privately-educated and extremely, obscenely rich, Cabinet.

It has also been suggested that she is extremely loyal to Cameron and, for a weak leader, this must be handy too.

The Beeb also says former Commons Speaker Baroness Boothroyd has claimed Miller should resign as a matter of “honour”. Fat chance.

There’s no honour amongst thieves.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political opposes the corruption that allows ministers to commit crimes
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Ministry’s mistiming will keep Miller in the spotlight

Tags

asset, £1 million, cabinet, Chris Grayling, Conservative, convict, criminal, David Cameron, fraud, George Osborne, government, help, house, Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, ipsa, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Ministry of Justice, mistime, mistiming, MoJ, money, mortgage interest, politics, profit, seize, standards commissioner, Tories, Tory, trial, victim, Vox Political, weak

“Oh, f…”: Now Maria Miller’s Cabinet colleagues are stabbing her in the back. By accident?

The Ministry of Justice has just announced that £14 million, taken from criminals’ ill-gotten gains, will be used to help their victims.

How much of this will come from the fraudster Maria Miller?

None.

What an awkward, mistimed moment – another in a series for which this Conservative-led administration should be justly famous.

Here we all are, stridently discussing the future of a Cabinet minister (Miller) who clearly defrauded the taxpayer out of tens of thousands of pounds to pay for mortgage interest on a house she then sold for more than £1 million profit – and her Cabinet colleague Chris Grayling decides now is the time to announce what the government is doing with other criminals’ ill-gotten gains.

This will merely intensify calls for Miller to face trial and conviction, and for her financial assets to be seized.

The MoJ press release states: “Under this government more money than ever before is being raised from offenders specifically to help victims of crime.” This is except for when the offender is a member of the government, apparently.

“An increase in the penalties judges can impose on criminals from 2012 is ensuring criminals are forced to pay the price for their wrongdoing.” Except when they are investigated by Parliament, rather than the police.

Miller remains a member of the Cabinet, her criminally-won gains sitting in her bank account. She is unrepentant, as her “obstructive” attitude to the Parliamentary investigation and her 30-second apology to Parliament – for that obstruction, and not for any criminality – clearly demonstrates.

David Cameron, the weakest Prime Minister in living memory – if not all time – does not have the backbone to sack her.

Maybe there is another reason for this.

We were all reminded by the Scriptonite blog yesterday that there is another crook in the Cabinet who likes doing dodgy property deals.

George Osborne “‘flipped’ his first and second homes to claim over £100k of taxpayer money for interest payments on a mortgage for his £455k Cheshire pad. He later sold the home for over £1m having made improvements partly funded by taxes. He also claimed taxpayer money to cover payments on a horse paddock for the property,” Scriptonite reminds us.

In fact, he claimed taxpayer money for several pieces of land in addition to the house, and sold the lot for a profit that was estimated to be £1 million, because he never paid a penny of his own towards the purchase – it all came from the taxpayer.

Vox Political called for Osborne to face criminal proceedings more than a year ago but the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) closed ranks around him and the Commissioner said that, as this had already been investigated under the lax pre-2009 rules, Osborne was going to get away with it.

So the message today is that you don’t have to be a master criminal to get away with illegal activities – you just have to be a member of the government.

Is that really what the Conservatives want to say – before an election?

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political opposes the corruption that allows ministers to commit crimes
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here:

Maria Miller: Another Rotten Apple in Cameron’s Cabinet of Crooks

Tags

cabinet, corruption, crime, crook, Maria Miller, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Scriptonite, Vox Political

As Maria Miller is rightly hounded out of office and hopefully into the courts for her egregious abuse of privilege, many are pointing out that she is but one rotten cog in a thoroughly rotten machine. So if we want real change – the prosecution of Maria Miller is where we start, not where we stop.

Maria Miller is Culture Secretary and Equalities Minister for the UK government.  Between 2005 and 2009 she claimed £46,000  in fraudulent expenses on the mortgage on a family home that she later sold for £1.2m – and used her position to bully a commissioner in efforts to keep the whole thing quiet.  Her punishment? Giving back £5,000 and a 32 second apology in the House of Commons.

Despite abusing the expenses system for four long years, only ending her scam when the MP Expenses Scandal broke in 2009, and her evasion of the ombudsman reviewing her expenses ever since – she has been backed by Prime Minister David Cameron and cabinet colleagues.  Cameron says of her:

“Maria Miller is in her job and she is doing a good job as culture secretary.

“Also, she went through this process and the committee found that she had made a mistake in her mortgage claims. She paid back money. She made an apology and that’s the right thing to do.”

Were it not for the relentless pressure of the news media and public campaigns – that would have been the end of the matter for Maria Miller.  She cheated, she tried to cover it up, and she kept her job and her profits. For Maria Miller, crime paid.

In contrast, when 22 year old Sacha Hall helped herself to several bags of waste food left out by Tesco after its refrigerators failed – she was immediately arrested, charged with handling stolen goods, and taken to court and given a 12 month conditional discharge. Tesco even admitted there was no value to the food as it was heading to the landfill.

There is truly one rule for them, and one for everyone else.

The Crooked Cabinet

But Miller is unlikely to be held to account by her cabinet colleagues when we have one of the most corrupt cabinets in UK history.

(For details of the other bent members of Cameron’s Cabinet, see the original article on Scriptonite Daily.)

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

Vox Political supports the best writing in other blogs
… but we need YOUR help to do so.
This independent blog’s only funding comes from readers’ contributions.
Without YOUR help, we cannot keep going.
You can make a one-off donation here:

Alternatively, you can buy the first Vox Political book,
Strong Words and Hard Times
in either print or eBook format here: