Jacqui Smith

[ThinLizzy]

Did anybody hear Humphreys this morning on Radion 4 giving JS a good grubbing? It only confirmed my suspicions that she is being 'witch-hunted' for choosing not to be a 'proper' woman and be wife and mother. Surely if she chooses to spend most of her time in London at her sisters rather than as wife and mother in Redditch that's her business and her prerogative? And the slating she's getting for paying for her husband's porn, seems an implicit dig that because she's in London all the time she's a crap wife who can't satisfy her husband. Watch this space, the next thing the press will dig out is that one of her kids was caught dealing crack in the school playground.... dontch just love this misogynistic society we live in oh :/

edited for naughty spelling mistake!

[Marmora Man]

I heard the same interview and didn't catch the misogynistic overtones you did.

I heard a politician being grilled over claiming that her main home was a flat she shared with her sister - while the property she shared with her husband and children was designated a "second home" for the purposes of claiming expenses. So the house where her Christmas cards are sent to, where she keeps her photo albums, where her children bring their friends to play is subsidised by us taxpayers to the extent of buying faux suede cushions, plasma TVs, a bar b q, bath plugs and so on. Even if it were a genuine second home, which as John Humphrey's pointed out common senses says it is not, the idea that the taxpayer should fund such accessories is excessive.

In a more commercial world many employees are accommodated away from their family home. In my experience the employer usually picks up the costs of accommodation & subsistence - not refurbishing the designated accommodation in (??) style nor for such fripperies as a bar b q.

Any hounding of Jaqui Smith on this subject is proper and correct - Alistair Darling, Geoff Hoon, Gordon Brown and other ministers are hardly setting the right example and have also been hounded by the press.

[ThinLizzy]

Fair enough, perhaps though it is easily put right, in that she claim expenses for her London home instead. Just semantics really. The debarcle over the porngate affair is plainly annoying now -- yes it shouldn't have been an expense that the taxpayer pays for, but she apologised (for her husband's error!) and paid for it. Doesn't need the continual rumblings in the press. I think your argument is correct, but the style in which this issue is being pursued smacks of misogyny to me. Perhaps I'm just a raging feminist who has a cognitive bias for inequality in the workplace; she should simply swap address for the expense claim. End.

[Mick Mac]

Yes TL - It would be put right by having claimed expenses on the London home (rather than the more expensive one), but that is not what she did.

I don't think there is any suggestion she is not a good mother or wife.

[ThinLizzy]

Fair enough -- I must say, I do enjoy Humph in the morning :)

[SteveT]

She has been caught at it, along with Mcnulty, Hoon, Darling, and heaven knows how many more have avoided the mud.

I thought Humphries was quite laid back Lizzy, as I have heard him rip in to people in the past, and Jacqui Smith seemed unrepentent as far as I could tell.

What sort of system is in place where they can claim anything they like without question, and their only embarrassment

is when something is 'leaked', why are they treated as a special case?

She thinks by repaying the money all is well, no harm done.

People in other walks of life have paid with their jobs, and/or do time inside for these misdemeanors.

If they were straight honest and decent, I suppose they would never get to ministerial rank.

She was the one who was going to stick the boot into prostitution, yet she seemingly approves of porn being provided by us the tax payer.

How can we take them seriously when they display such dishonesty?

[????]

They all keep harping on about how they haven't broken any rules...neither has Sir Fred Goodwin. I spit on them, they just don't get it. It really shows how far they are removed from (or possibly don't care about) the public's mistrust and disdain for them...Snorky - got any gunpowder?

[LegalEagle-ish]

She no doubt claimed the London house as her main home cos she would be able to squeeze far more from us for the bigger Redditch place than the pokey London place she shares with her sister.

[bigbadwolf]

Eeerrrrmmmmmm excuse me but round these parts Jacqui is spelt with a T.

[onvisa]

I saw her having dinner with the fam in Locale on East Dulwich road on Monday night. She is fab!

[mockney piers]

Not often you hear good words said about MPs these days.

You're not Richard Desmond are you ;)

[onvisa]

No I just would prefer to share space with Jacqui rather than breathe the same air as Hazel Blears or Ruth Kelly

[mockney piers]

I was just having a cheap porn gag jibe, my apologies.

You get no argument from me on them.

Plus I actually thought she was a refreshing change when she came in after the populism and scaremongering of Clarke and the awful awful Blunkett.

Still if you take the piss, and she has...

[david_carnell]

Ok. There are two (possibly three) seemingly different arguments going on at once here.

The first is over porn-gate. This is a load of hot air. The most laughable aspect is that it never cost the taxpayer anything. She submitted the expenses form to the relevant parliamentary office and it was rejected. But someone leaked it. And if it was an ordinary film the Mail/Express et al would never have got their pants in a twist over it. It's a non-story and from now on should be treated as such.

The second issue is expenses (and most particularly second-home expenses) for MPs in general. In theory it seems an eminently sensible idea. Many MPs constituencies are far from London and when they stay in London for House of Commons business from Monday-Thursday there should be accommodation. Now, I think it churlish to expect MPs to live in some sort of student-like halls of residence and therefore they should be free to pick where to live. I also don't think it unreasonable that the tax payer should furnish these homes to a decent standard. I don't want my law-makers sleeping on floors or eating only from tins.

Finally we reach this particular nubbin - (T)Jacqui's behaviour. Whilst she has not broken any specific parliamentary codes of conduct, her behaviour is morally dubious. Whilst I normally find David Cameron nauseous, he said this weekend that politicians should stop and think more often as whether their actions appear appropriate to the man-in-the-street rather than whether they follow guidelines. This seems common sense. A stricter, more transparent expenses system coupled with a higher parliamentary wage should eliminate the problem rather easily.

I do, however, think some sense of perspective should be retained. These are reasonably small amounts of money. Whilst this does not lessen the moral ambiguity of MPs actions it should be remembered that national corporations regularly avoid billions of pounds of tax through complex grey areas of tax evasion and avoidance. The Guardian recently ran a series of articles highlighting the, frankly, loathsome practises used by some highly recognisable FTSE100 companies and yet it receives very little coverage in society in general. Yet the sums of money being wasted are 100s of times more.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Line em all up against the wall.

[david_carnell]

Ahhh... the French method. A bit de trop I think for this situation.

[LegalEagle-ish]

They lined them all up against the guillotine didn't they?

[SteveT]

david_carnell wrote:- A stricter, more transparent expenses system coupled with a higher parliamentary wage should eliminate the problem rather easily.

Some might argue that politicians are over paid, when coupled with a blank cheque expenses sheet.

They get sufficient money for the amount they seem to achieve, why should they have an increase without any apparent increase in achievements.

Having to get your own porn in must be a strain remembering whether you've already viewed it.

I expect them to make much larger claims in future, so they can laud it over us with a proper lavish lifestyle, enabling them to make up for all those years of starvation as a backbencher with smaller expenses forms.

[PeckhamRose]

David_carnell that was an excellent reasoned post.

Still can't stand her though.

[david_carnell]

I've explained in full elsewhere SteveT, why I think MPs and Ministers especially should be paid more but in brief:

?I think the current salaries are low in comparison to the responsibility - especially if you compare it the private sector - and especially for Secretaries of State and Ministers

?To attract the most promising candidates into politics (i.e. not the power-hungry crazy ones) you should be prepared to pay top ???.

?With a higher basic salary MPs could afford two homes without having all this expenses shenanigans.

Like I said, the porn thing is a non-issue so I'm not going to talk about it further.

Achievements for individual MPs are very hard to measure; and doubly so if you happen not to agree with the measures they enact. I'm not sure what your alternative would be, SteveT?

@PeckhamRose - thank you. And, tbh, I don't really like Jacqui, Harriet, Hazel and many other male and female members of this government. There are one or two bright lights though.

[LegalEagle-ish]

The porn thing isn't a non-issue - cos she lobbied really hard to outlaw certain types of porn and make buying sex from any prostitute, no matter what her circumstances, illegal.

She's a hypocrite as well as a theiving cow.

[david_carnell]

Well, seeing as it was her husband (or possibly even son) who was looking at it then I fail to see the connection between her own moral fortitude and this incident - are we to be judged on the behaviour of our spouses/partners/children?

And she didn't thieve anything - it has cost the taxpayer nothing. It was leaked from the expenses office that she asked whether she could claim it and was told "No". I really don't see the problem.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Claiming her big country house as her second home to get more money for furnishing etc makes her a thieving cow in my books.

[david_carnell]

Oh, I see, sorry - I thought you meant the porn thing made her a hypocrite.

Theft is perhaps a tad harsh - duplicitous, corrupt, sneaky - I'll take any three from the top.

But you're not wrong.

[????]

And she's the Home Secretary! Are you sure you'll be canvassing for them next Juneish DC?