Tories fined £70k for corruption and expenses fiddle.

And it isn't all over, the police are investigating whether they knowingly hid the real amounts spent locally.
That is election fraud.
And could result in a number of by elections again.

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Conservative Party fined £70,000 over election expenses - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195

Administrative error my arse.

Corrupt tories.

If we didn't already know.

No different to Labour Andy, they all in for themselves.

Agreed Nicko. But Labour's expenses 'error' didnt materially affect the local results.
I suspect Farage will have something to say -especially as he was narrowly beaten by Craig McKinley - one of the candidates involved.
That said, UKIP are also being investigated for the same reason.
There will be mileage in this story.
The pressure mounts on May.

I think labour and lib dems have both been done for this too...

Do catch up Tom. Nicko and I have already said that.

Even the amount they get legally is obscene, Andy. The ex chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne gets roughly £75K-plus-perks for his current job as an MP. Additionally he gets EIGHT times that amount again,  for moonlighting 4 days per month for an investment firm. Which is a cushy job he took up after he stood down as chancellor and he was criticised cos of course the firm benefitted from the policies he'd brought in as chancellor.


In addition to the £650,000.00 which he gets working one day a week for this firm (Blackrock) he also gets shares in the profits.   Plus his salary for his regular job as an MP £75,000. 00. 
PLUS he's earned approx £750,000.00  (nearly a million quid) over the past 5 months giving after dinner speeches to drunken financiers.


All these figures are what he declared himself in the MP's register of interests.

Takes the art of 'fat-cattery' into the stratosphere, robbing bandits.  

Bit like Tony Bliar then.

Exactly like Tony Blair!


But most heads of states earn a fortune after retiring, this happens all over the world. Bit strange to see a poxy old chancellor raking in so much though.

Jules wrote:Even the amount they get legally is obscene, Andy. The ex chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne gets roughly £75K-plus-perks for his current job as an MP. Additionally he gets EIGHT times that amount again,  for moonlighting 4 days per month for an investment firm. Which is a cushy job he took up after he stood down as chancellor and he was criticised cos of course the firm benefitted from the policies he'd brought in as chancellor.


In addition to the £650,000.00 which he gets working one day a week for this firm (Blackrock) he also gets shares in the profits.   Plus his salary for his regular job as an MP £75,000. 00. 
PLUS he's earned approx £750,000.00  (nearly a million quid) over the past 5 months giving after dinner speeches to drunken financiers.


All these figures are what he declared himself in the MP's register of interests.

Takes the art of 'fat-cattery' into the stratosphere, robbing bandits.  

Strewth, I find myself in agreement with you. However, it has always been my personal contention that MPs should be paid properly (which means quite a bit more than they get now, I'm afraid) but that representing a constituency of several scores of thousands of people should be regarded and treated as a full time job, subject to similar working hours, holiday entitlements and privileges of senior working staff members in industry, commerce and local government service.

And I certainly don't go along with the convention that working part time as lawyers, journalists, public relations men and "non-executive directors" of companies, etc. necessarily means that taxpayers somehow "benefit" from their experiences in wider fields. It simply means that they are better able to fill their boots.

Jules wrote:Exactly like Tony Blair!


But most heads of states  earn a fortune after retiring, this happens all over the world. Bit strange to see a poxy old chancellor raking in so much though.

Why is it that Britain allows its politicians, especially Ministers, to hold outside lobbying jobs and company directorships while in office ???

Look at most decent size democracies, and most governments require people to avoid such obvious 'conflicts of interest', quarantine any directorships while in government, and leave lobbying work until after retirement..

Along with the existence of that whacky House of Lords as a pretend 'Upper House', why are such signs of poor governance and anti-democracy even allowed to exist over there ?

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Jules wrote:Exactly like Tony Blair!


But most heads of states  earn a fortune after retiring, this happens all over the world. Bit strange to see a poxy old chancellor raking in so much though.

Why is it that Britain allows its politicians, especially Ministers, to hold outside lobbying jobs and company directorships while in office ???

Look at most decent size democracies, and most governments require people to avoid such obvious 'conflicts of interest', quarantine any directorships while in government, and leave lobbying work until after retirement..

Along with the existence of that whacky House of Lords as a pretend 'Upper House', why are such signs of poor governance and anti-democracy even allowed to exist over there ?

So far as I know UK government ministers are required to give up all their outside jobs on appointment to office. The big row is centred on the way that they can run a major department of state and then, on resigning or being removed, take up lucrative commercial etc. appointments with the very companies or organisations they had previous official dealings with only a short time previously.

MPs are entitled to do other jobs. Labour has in the past proposed that they should be banned, but former Tory PM David Cameron claimed that it "enriched" their role and process of governance.

I back the Labour stance...and according to a major poll so do three quarters of the electorate.

@ Fred, absolutely agree.

@Tommy, I think you will find this is in a league all of it's own:

Tory election spending: 12 police forces hand files to prosecutors and more may follow

Only days after we were told police forces may seek prosecutions against sitting MPs “within weeks”, up to 20 Tory MPs are facing court action for alleged spending fraud in the 2015 general election.

And more police forces have yet to make a decision.

Theresa May’s Conservative government is now in serious trouble. With her majority in Parliament wafer-thin, if only a few of these MPs are prosecuted and lose their seats, she will lose her mandate to govern.

She might consider holding a snap general election, but she would not be able to rely on her party alone to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act brought in by her forerunner David Cameron (ironically, to keep himself in office) and the Opposition parties may well wish her to suffer the damage that political impotence would do to the Tories if they became a minority government.

On the other hand, any governing party having to call a general election after being forced to admit in the courts that it had cheated in order to win the last one is unlikely to hold the public’s confidence.

The Electoral Commission is holding an inquiry into whether the Conservative Party – nationally – broke spending limits, and this may well create further upset.

And what will the MPs under suspicion say, if they lose in court? Already some have broken ranks to complain at their treatment by Conservative Central HQ – can this not be interpreted as an admission of some kind of guilt?

A dozen police forces have passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations that up to 20 Conservative MPs broke local spending limits at the last general election.

Prosecutors have to decide whether to charge the MPs or their agents, after a 10-month investigation into whether party spending on an election battlebus that brought activists to marginal seats was wrongly recorded as national spending.

Prosecutors have already received files from 12 police forces – in Avon and Somerset, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, London, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire.

Warwickshire police also said they had interviewed two people as part of their investigation, and a decision would be made soon about whether to hand the file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Downing Street refused on Wednesday night to comment on the development, but senior party figures are concerned that any successful prosecutions of sitting MPs could lead to election results being declared void, causing a string of byelections as the Brexit negotiations draw to a conclusion in late 2018 or early 2019.

Police have not named the Conservative MPs or agents under investigation, but it emerged on Tuesday that Craig Mackinlay, the Tory MP for South Thanet, was interviewed under caution over spending returns related to his electoral battle against the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.

Channel 4 also revealed separate allegations concerning South Thanet, showing that the hotel expenses of a team of Conservative party officials, including Nick Timothy, who is now May’s chief of staff, had been recorded as national rather than local.

A separate Electoral Commission inquiry into whether the national party broke election spending limits is also under way and is expected to come to a head soon, potentially within days.

There was even speculation in Westminster that May would consider seeking an early general election to draw a line under the spending allegations about the 2015 election.

Adding to pressure on May, the party is facing a mutiny from Conservative MPs under investigation who feel they have been hung out to dry by the party, which organised the battlebus campaign centrally.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/03/16/tory-election-spending-12-police-forces-hand-files-to-prosecutors-and-more-may-follow/



Last year the police were given an extra year to investigate and this has been huge and ongoing ever since. Of course, been kept well under wraps by the media, apart from the wonderful Channel 4 News, who did the original investigation.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Jules wrote:Exactly like Tony Blair!


But most heads of states  earn a fortune after retiring, this happens all over the world. Bit strange to see a poxy old chancellor raking in so much though.

Why is it that Britain allows its politicians, especially Ministers, to hold outside lobbying jobs and company directorships while in office ???

Look at most decent size democracies, and most governments require people to avoid such obvious 'conflicts of interest', quarantine any directorships while in government, and leave lobbying work until after retirement..

Along with the existence of that whacky House of Lords as a pretend 'Upper House', why are such signs of poor governance and anti-democracy even allowed to exist over there ?

Erm, I dunno if I am allowed to reply to your posts, Wolfie.

Anyway .... If you are referring to some of the sharp practices in the upper house, like peers clocking in just to collect their generous daily allowance, you have a point. But they are a good buffer against the excesses of the lower house. (Not sure if buffer is the right word here. I sometimes cannot think of the exact mot juste that I need and end up using a term that is not quite right.) Anyway, the lords are a safety net which votes against unworkable policies, and the supreme court is another useful safety net too. So they have a use I suppose.

Fred Moletrousers wrote:

Jules wrote:Even the amount they get legally is obscene, Andy. The ex chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne gets roughly £75K-plus-perks for his current job as an MP. Additionally he gets EIGHT times that amount again,  for moonlighting 4 days per month for an investment firm. Which is a cushy job he took up after he stood down as chancellor and he was criticised cos of course the firm benefitted from the policies he'd brought in as chancellor.


In addition to the £650,000.00 which he gets working one day a week for this firm (Blackrock) he also gets shares in the profits.   Plus his salary for his regular job as an MP £75,000. 00. 
PLUS he's earned approx £750,000.00  (nearly a million quid) over the past 5 months giving after dinner speeches to drunken financiers.


All these figures are what he declared himself in the MP's register of interests.

Takes the art of 'fat-cattery' into the stratosphere, robbing bandits.  

Strewth, I find myself in agreement with you. However, it has always been my personal contention that MPs should be paid properly (which means quite a bit more than they get now, I'm afraid) but that representing a constituency of several scores of thousands of people should be regarded and treated as a full time job, subject to similar working hours, holiday entitlements and privileges of senior working staff members in industry, commerce and local government service.

And I certainly don't go along with the convention that working part time as lawyers, journalists, public relations men and "non-executive directors" of companies, etc. necessarily means that taxpayers somehow "benefit" from their experiences in wider fields. It simply means that they are better able to fill their boots.

Yep they're all feathering their nests.
Some more so than others.
The Euro MP's too.
It is what it is.

sassy wrote:@ Fred, absolutely agree.

@Tommy, I think you will find this is in a league all of it's own:

Tory election spending: 12 police forces hand files to prosecutors and more may follow

Only days after we were told police forces may seek prosecutions against sitting MPs “within weeks”, up to 20 Tory MPs are facing court action for alleged spending fraud in the 2015 general election.

And more police forces have yet to make a decision.

Theresa May’s Conservative government is now in serious trouble. With her majority in Parliament wafer-thin, if only a few of these MPs are prosecuted and lose their seats, she will lose her mandate to govern.

She might consider holding a snap general election, but she would not be able to rely on her party alone to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act brought in by her forerunner David Cameron (ironically, to keep himself in office) and the Opposition parties may well wish her to suffer the damage that political impotence would do to the Tories if they became a minority government.

On the other hand, any governing party having to call a general election after being forced to admit in the courts that it had cheated in order to win the last one is unlikely to hold the public’s confidence.

The Electoral Commission is holding an inquiry into whether the Conservative Party – nationally – broke spending limits, and this may well create further upset.

And what will the MPs under suspicion say, if they lose in court? Already some have broken ranks to complain at their treatment by Conservative Central HQ – can this not be interpreted as an admission of some kind of guilt?

   A dozen police forces have passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations that up to 20 Conservative MPs broke local spending limits at the last general election.

   Prosecutors have to decide whether to charge the MPs or their agents, after a 10-month investigation into whether party spending on an election battlebus that brought activists to marginal seats was wrongly recorded as national spending.

   Prosecutors have already received files from 12 police forces – in Avon and Somerset, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, London, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire.

   Warwickshire police also said they had interviewed two people as part of their investigation, and a decision would be made soon about whether to hand the file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

   Downing Street refused on Wednesday night to comment on the development, but senior party figures are concerned that any successful prosecutions of sitting MPs could lead to election results being declared void, causing a string of byelections as the Brexit negotiations draw to a conclusion in late 2018 or early 2019.

   Police have not named the Conservative MPs or agents under investigation, but it emerged on Tuesday that Craig Mackinlay, the Tory MP for South Thanet, was interviewed under caution over spending returns related to his electoral battle against the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.

   Channel 4 also revealed separate allegations concerning South Thanet, showing that the hotel expenses of a team of Conservative party officials, including Nick Timothy, who is now May’s chief of staff, had been recorded as national rather than local.

   A separate Electoral Commission inquiry into whether the national party broke election spending limits is also under way and is expected to come to a head soon, potentially within days.

   There was even speculation in Westminster that May would consider seeking an early general election to draw a line under the spending allegations about the 2015 election.

   Adding to pressure on May, the party is facing a mutiny from Conservative MPs under investigation who feel they have been hung out to dry by the party, which organised the battlebus campaign centrally.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/03/16/tory-election-spending-12-police-forces-hand-files-to-prosecutors-and-more-may-follow/



Last year the police were given an extra year to investigate and this has been huge and ongoing ever since.   Of course, been kept well under wraps by the media, apart from the wonderful Channel 4 News, who did the original investigation.

I'm not happy about it... it cost Nigel Farage a seat in parliament in south thanet... I'm just saying I don't remember you making a fuss about it when labour were doing the same...

Angry Andy wrote:And it isn't all over, the police are investigating whether they knowingly hid the real amounts spent locally.
That is election fraud.
And could result in a number of by elections again.

I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

Conservative Party fined £70,000 over election expenses - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195

Administrative error my arse.

Corrupt tories.

If we didn't already know.

is it any worse than the fine labour or the lib dems got for the exact same thing.
there is a reason that the parties haven't been making a big deal out of this. It is that they were all at it.
The lib dems hid £180000+ of spending apparently.

so are the labour party and the lib dems just as corrupt Andwew

Jules wrote:Even the amount they get legally is obscene, Andy. The ex chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne gets roughly £75K-plus-perks for his current job as an MP. Additionally he gets EIGHT times that amount again,  for moonlighting 4 days per month for an investment firm. Which is a cushy job he took up after he stood down as chancellor and he was criticised cos of course the firm benefitted from the policies he'd brought in as chancellor.


In addition to the £650,000.00 which he gets working one day a week for this firm (Blackrock) he also gets shares in the profits.   Plus his salary for his regular job as an MP £75,000. 00. 
PLUS he's earned approx £750,000.00  (nearly a million quid) over the past 5 months giving after dinner speeches to drunken financiers.


All these figures are what he declared himself in the MP's register of interests.

Takes the art of 'fat-cattery' into the stratosphere, robbing bandits.  

yes ministers most certainly should not have second jobs, however I am not so sure it is that important if backbenchers do. I dont recall the lefts ire at gordon browns lack of attendance or massive sums he acquired after being kicked out as PM.

what shouldn't be allowed is ex ministers taking jobs with any companies that have a connection to their ministerial job for at least 5 years after leaving office if not 10.
However at the moment that is not the case so osbourn is not doing anything wrong, nor is any other mp who does that.

Jules wrote:Exactly like Tony Blair!


But most heads of states  earn a fortune after retiring, this happens all over the world. Bit strange to see a poxy old chancellor raking in so much though.

not really when he was essentially in charge of the 5th largest economy during the aftermath of the crash

Jules wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:



Why is it that Britain allows its politicians, especially Ministers, to hold outside lobbying jobs and company directorships while in office ???

Look at most decent size democracies, and most governments require people to avoid such obvious 'conflicts of interest', quarantine any directorships while in government, and leave lobbying work until after retirement..

Along with the existence of that whacky House of Lords as a pretend 'Upper House', why are such signs of poor governance and anti-democracy even allowed to exist over there ?

Erm, I dunno if I am allowed to reply to your posts, Wolfie.

Anyway .... If you are referring to some of the sharp practices in the upper house, like peers clocking in just to collect their generous daily allowance, you have  a point. But they are a good buffer against the excesses of the lower house. (Not sure if buffer is the right word here. I sometimes cannot think of the exact mot juste that I need and end up using a term that is not quite right.)  Anyway, the lords are a safety net which votes against unworkable policies, and the supreme court is another useful safety net too. So they have a use I suppose.

the upper house is supposed to scrutinize and revise the lower house. there is no reason at all that we need 800 people to do that.
in fact 250 would probably be enough. personally I would prefer to see those doing it have no political affiliations and to be paid a wage to do so, a form of civil servant if you like.

since blairs meddling with the HOL it has become a far worse place packed full of yes men who owe their allegiance to a party rather than a duty to the country.

the fact a party with only 9 mp's can have over 100 peers in the HOL shows what a ridiculous state of affairs we have there.

Jules wrote:

Fred Moletrousers wrote:

Strewth, I find myself in agreement with you. However, it has always been my personal contention that MPs should be paid properly (which means quite a bit more than they get now, I'm afraid) but that representing a constituency of several scores of thousands of people should be regarded and treated as a full time job, subject to similar working hours, holiday entitlements and privileges of senior working staff members in industry, commerce and local government service.

And I certainly don't go along with the convention that working part time as lawyers, journalists, public relations men and "non-executive directors" of companies, etc. necessarily means that taxpayers somehow "benefit" from their experiences in wider fields. It simply means that they are better able to fill their boots.

Yep they're all feathering their nests.
Some more so than others.
The Euro MP's too.
It is what it is.

well thankfully the MEP's are all dead men walking and will be out of our lives for good, except those that get kicked upstairs to be yes men.

Tommy Monk wrote:

sassy wrote:@ Fred, absolutely agree.

@Tommy, I think you will find this is in a league all of it's own:

Tory election spending: 12 police forces hand files to prosecutors and more may follow

Only days after we were told police forces may seek prosecutions against sitting MPs “within weeks”, up to 20 Tory MPs are facing court action for alleged spending fraud in the 2015 general election.

And more police forces have yet to make a decision.

Theresa May’s Conservative government is now in serious trouble. With her majority in Parliament wafer-thin, if only a few of these MPs are prosecuted and lose their seats, she will lose her mandate to govern.

She might consider holding a snap general election, but she would not be able to rely on her party alone to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act brought in by her forerunner David Cameron (ironically, to keep himself in office) and the Opposition parties may well wish her to suffer the damage that political impotence would do to the Tories if they became a minority government.

On the other hand, any governing party having to call a general election after being forced to admit in the courts that it had cheated in order to win the last one is unlikely to hold the public’s confidence.

The Electoral Commission is holding an inquiry into whether the Conservative Party – nationally – broke spending limits, and this may well create further upset.

And what will the MPs under suspicion say, if they lose in court? Already some have broken ranks to complain at their treatment by Conservative Central HQ – can this not be interpreted as an admission of some kind of guilt?

   A dozen police forces have passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations that up to 20 Conservative MPs broke local spending limits at the last general election.

   Prosecutors have to decide whether to charge the MPs or their agents, after a 10-month investigation into whether party spending on an election battlebus that brought activists to marginal seats was wrongly recorded as national spending.

   Prosecutors have already received files from 12 police forces – in Avon and Somerset, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, London, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire.

   Warwickshire police also said they had interviewed two people as part of their investigation, and a decision would be made soon about whether to hand the file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

   Downing Street refused on Wednesday night to comment on the development, but senior party figures are concerned that any successful prosecutions of sitting MPs could lead to election results being declared void, causing a string of byelections as the Brexit negotiations draw to a conclusion in late 2018 or early 2019.

   Police have not named the Conservative MPs or agents under investigation, but it emerged on Tuesday that Craig Mackinlay, the Tory MP for South Thanet, was interviewed under caution over spending returns related to his electoral battle against the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage.

   Channel 4 also revealed separate allegations concerning South Thanet, showing that the hotel expenses of a team of Conservative party officials, including Nick Timothy, who is now May’s chief of staff, had been recorded as national rather than local.

   A separate Electoral Commission inquiry into whether the national party broke election spending limits is also under way and is expected to come to a head soon, potentially within days.

   There was even speculation in Westminster that May would consider seeking an early general election to draw a line under the spending allegations about the 2015 election.

   Adding to pressure on May, the party is facing a mutiny from Conservative MPs under investigation who feel they have been hung out to dry by the party, which organised the battlebus campaign centrally.

http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2017/03/16/tory-election-spending-12-police-forces-hand-files-to-prosecutors-and-more-may-follow/



Last year the police were given an extra year to investigate and this has been huge and ongoing ever since.   Of course, been kept well under wraps by the media, apart from the wonderful Channel 4 News, who did the original investigation.

I'm not happy about it... it cost Nigel Farage a seat in parliament in south thanet... I'm just saying I don't remember you making a fuss about it when labour were doing the same...

even if there is a rerun I doubt #faragEGO will win. the UKIP ship has sailed. the party is in self destruct mode.