There are a few inconsistancies in the Crawley News story about county councillor expenses which are genuinely baffling. One councillor, Brenda Smith, claims that the council’s email system is a secure system which you can’t access using your own computer so you have to have county council hardware to access it. Another councillor, Duncan Crow, […]
Entries Tagged as 'Expenses'
County council expenses
April 8th, 2011 · 17 Comments · Politics, Technology
Tags: Churnalism·Expenses·Local Papers
Unanswered questions
May 9th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Politics
As Unity says over at Liberal Conspiracy, there are a few unanswered questions about the new expenses row featuring Nadine Dorries. I think the main ones are: What possessed the people in mid-Bedfordshire to vote for her anyway? Would they have still voted for her if this had been known before? (Sadly, yes they probably […]
Tags: Expenses
First-class councillors
February 22nd, 2010 · 9 Comments · Politics
The comments of Nicholas Winterton this week certainly wound a few people up for various reasons. For once I find myself in total agreement with the official Tory party line that this represents “the out-of-touch views of a soon-to-retire backbench MP”, although I do wonder it it also represents the out-of-touch views of some MPs […]
Look who’s coming to dinner
February 6th, 2010 · 5 Comments · Politics
After the MP Expenses furore, the home-flipping and the multitude of jobs on the side and other outside interests, the new area to come under scrutiny is the hiring of Westminster facilities and whether they are sometimes hired for fundraising activities. I’m not sure this one has got legs, I can’t really see it grabbing […]
Expenses confusion
December 10th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Politics
I am a little confused by the Argus’ story about Sussex MPs’ expenses. It says: By contrast, Hove MP Celia Barlow did not claim a penny under ACA during the year, after giving up her second home and commuting to and from her constituency, while Crawley MP Laura Moffatt’s claim of £38.70, for an outstanding […]
Tags: Expenses
Cognitive ethical failure
June 24th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Politics
I have been dwelling on that phrase ‘cognitive ethical failure’ that I wrote about the other day. Is that a reasonable part-explanation for the expenses mess?  And does it mean that there is a form of institutional corruption?   And would that mean that those flipping moat-owners are not bad, but are just victims of a […]
Tags: Expenses
My own expenses in full…
June 22nd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Politics
In the interests of balance, its only fair that I reveal what I spent on my most recent trip to France this month:
Tags: Expenses
Belated appreciation
June 19th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Politics
For the last month or so I have had the feeling that the Daily Telegraph has been getting far too much attention and praise for a simple act of chequebook journalism. The way I saw it, their exclusives on MPs’ expenses were not the result of investigations but just from having been willing to fork […]
Tags: Expenses·Greed·Newspapers
Is de-selection the answer?
May 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Politics
A lot of normal Labour party members have been talking about whether de-selection is the answer for MPs caught with their fingers in the till, and I think Snowflake puts it very well, to the point of making further comment superfluous. ((but that won’t stop me adding a little))
