I im
agine it’s the spare room tonight for the shamed husband of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith who was forced into making a humiliating apology for heaping huge embarrassment on his wife over a bungled expenses claim which included two porno films he watched while she was out.
She ‘mistakenly’ submitted an £67 MPs expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including the two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency, which she has since repaid.
Surely as her parliamentary aide, as well as her nearest and dearest, Richard Timney would have wanted to ensure that there were no financial discrepencies with her expenses, a hot topic at the moment as she is being investigated over the use of her second homes allowance.
And is her husband genuinely sorry for the embarrassment he caused his wife, or is it the fact that the whole world now knows that he watches porno movies on his own, and that this information is under public scrutiny too?
surely as her first and main home is her sister’s house, she should not claim anything like internet charges etc on her second home or can MP’s claim all for everything at each home. And MPs needn’t start saying this is a hangover of the bad old days – internet access at home only cam in the the second half of the 90s. An empty office block or better still army barracks should be converted into accommodation for them in London – 8 to a room – just like the soldiers and when in London they stay there
Seems to me that MPs can claim for anything they like! Why are they allowed to claim for Internet Connection…? Also after reading your links…A second home is a home that you have to pay for, surely, not someone elses home, even if it is your sisters! And if it is someone elses home, why are they claiming for it. They are just guests there!! This government need to get real…or get out!!!
Steve Cattell is right…convert empty buildings and let them stay there. They do not need plush apartments. You need a room and thats it.
I wonder how long he has been watching Porn movies and getting away with it….he has been found out! So what..The only problem I can see here is…He has been found out, she has claimed for it and is embarrassed….Buy the claim no….I would say by the fact that it is now public knowledge that her husband goes and watches Porn on his own!!!! Tough…it happens all over the world and in lots and lots of marriages…except in this case the tax payer has payed for it!
Oh sorry Ellee…I just noticed it had been paid back. Convert old Buildings in London, give them a room..pay for your own Internet Access and your TV Licenses…just like the Forces do in their Block Rooms..each man/woman in the block has to pay for a TV licence.
Hi Steve and Anne, clearly a lot of questions need to be answered on this issue and other areas of MPs expenses, especially as we are living in such hard times at the moment.
I think she should resign.
http://www.jeremyjacobs.com/2009/03/29/868/
I think part of the problem everybody is encouraged to claim what they are entitled to as the rule book says.
I know as a TU rep I am always told to claim for all sorts of things, but I will only ever claim for things that have made me out of pocket and not all the other additional items. For me it is a matter of conscience.
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh deary deary me !
Shurely shum mishtake ?
Timney probably got mixed up. Shaving Ryan’s Privates is easily confused with the Stephen Spielberg classic.
This sort of thing happens to me all the time.
🙁
What a silly little scandal. If Jacqui were to resign it should be in relation to her department’s operations and not this
Oh dear! Still, if Jacqui send him to the spare room, he does have the four tv channels he paid for.
It just shows that a lot of MPs are either being grossly fraudulent or showing no common-sense at all… Most people, and I am one, would only claim expenses that were necessary either for their work or for accomodation/subsistence. Clearly porn films are not in this category… Internet access should only be for when the bulk of the up-time has been used for work not for the odd five minutes checking email… The same should apply to accommodation and I think Steve’s idea has some merit. Calling your sister’s home your primary residence clearly isn’t the case. ANnoyed… too right I am, here we are paying taxes and being urged restraint and the people who are supposed to represent us are fleecing the country and showing no restraint at all… Its almost like looting the stores in an apocolyptic film…
Is there anything that they don’t get expenses for? This included 5 pay movies so what were the other three. Do we even have to pay for their recreational time. This is all proving that MP’s in their glorified world have truly lost it when it comes to the reality of how the rest of us have to balance our budgets and make ends meet. It has become a very expensive tax payers joke.
I should think she is furious with him. It’s all very “Mrs Pritchard”-ish.