Shahid Malik - yet a bloody gain

This is getting beyond a joke.

Why's he still in the government?

Why's he still an MP?

Why's he not been arrested?

From the times

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 17 Jun 2009

John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, has decided to hold a formal inquiry into Mr Malik’s expenses claims.

His decision will be a political embarrassment to Gordon Brown, who reappointed Mr Malik to the Government last week, after he was cleared by a previous inquiry of breaking ministerial rules.

The MP for Dewsbury had stepped down as a minister last month after The Daily Telegraph reported a claim by his landlord, Tahir “Terry” Zaman, that he was charging Mr Malik well below the market rent for his Yorkshire home.

Sir Philip Mawer, an independent adviser to Mr Brown, cleared Mr Malik of breaking ministerial rules over those rental arrangements. However, Sir Philip did not look at whether Mr Malik broke separate House of Commons rules on expenses.

Following Mr Malik’s reappointment, the Telegraph last week disclosed that the MP had claimed public money meant to fund members’ offices, to pay rent on “office space” in his house in his Yorkshire constituency.

At the same time, he was claiming under a separate allowance to fund his designated second home in London.

After receiving a complaint from a member of the public, Mr Lyon’s office yesterday confirmed he would investigate. His findings will be made public and passed to the Commons standards and privileges committee, which can recommend suspension of MPs.

Mr Malik said in a statement last week that as well as the £6,000 he claimed on his allowances for his main constituency office in Dewsbury, he claimed another £200 a month for “additional office space” between 2005 and 2008.

That additional space was the downstairs of a Dewsbury house, he said, and upstairs was his “living accommodation”. He said he paid the rent on the upstairs himself.

The relevant edition of the Green Book, the rules for MPs’ expenses, makes clear that MPs cannot claim rent for an office in their home.

The minister also faces questions about statements he made to the Commons authorities about his designated “main home”.

Last week, he said that until he sold it last year, his designated “main home” was in Burnley.

Commons rules say an MP’s “main home” is where he spends more nights than any other. Mr Malik has publicly stated that he lived in Dewsbury from 2004.

Asked yesterday whether Mr Brown still had confidence in Mr Malik, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Yes”. He will not step down as a minister during the inquiry. Downing Street said there were “many precedents” for this.

Mr Malik said in a statement last week that he had “acted at all times within parliamentary rules”.

Brian Binley £57,000 expenses

Direct copy form the mirror

Nuff said

A tory Mp claimed £57,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses to rent a flat from his own company.

Brian Binley raked in £1,500 a month to rent the flat in Central London for more than three years despite House of Commons rules banning MPs from renting properties from themselves or their firms.

The Northampton South MP, 67, was first told the expenses were not allowed in April 2006. But he was allowed to continue claiming until April this year after making an appeal to Speaker Michael Martin, it was claimed.

Meanwhile, Labour's Jim Devine was barred by the party from standing at the next election amid the expenses storm.

The MP for Livingston, West Lothian, is said to have claimed for £2,100 home repairs on a fake receipt and £2,300 for shelving done by a pub landlord. He denied wrongdoing.

Radio switch off

In about 2015 anologue (am and fm) radio will be turned off, in favour of an all digital radio.

Thats 5 years to ensure a good proportion of national coverage ( i think they are saying 90%).

5 years to get all the radios changed - watch the electronics junk mountain grow.

5 years to get car radios updated - so that digital will even work in them (too much movement of the reciever leads to poor reception and resolution in poor signal areas)

Transmitter numbers will need to be increased to increase coverage.

Who gets to pay for this- who do you think.

Will it be done in time - what do you think (analogue tv's about to be turned off, and there's still a boat load of numties who don't know what a set top box is)

Still Gov'll be able to sell lots of shiny licenses to small 'community and local' stations - who do you think'll get that money?

Tax on telephones

Here we go - yet another crappy gov idea that everyone else has to pay for whether they want it or not.

The premise - get superfast broadband into everyone's homes by year x.

Get everyone else to pay for it - £6 per year to subsidise - prob won't cover the full costs, and those in urban / suburban areas will be subsidising those in rural areas.

Most older people aren't interested anyway.

For crying out load, just leave the market places alone, and let them decide for themselves, stop interfering, we don't want it.

Hazel Blears is sorry!

Bless

Hazel regrets doing what she did on the eve of the european elections, and denies that it was meant to inflict maximal damage on Gordy. She says it wasn't a plot to to get rid of the pm, and wants to get back to helping the labour party connect with the British people.

No, someone who make a decision to resign on the eve of an election, who wears a brooch with the words "Rocking the boat", and makes a speech commenting on Gordies youtube appearence, with the the title "YouTube if you want to", is not one of Gordies fans.

But to then say she didn't mean it, she apologised, it was regrettable that she caused such a firestorm, might be seen by some as an act of genuine contrition.

Until you see that the government didn't collapse (as a cynic might have thought she thought it would), that her constituency is looking at ways to remove her, that Gordie wants her back, and that he had written 'a really nice letter following her resignation'.

Others might see that as out and out hypocrisy.

Shahid Malik - still

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/11/shahis-malik-expenses-admission

After just yesterday posting about the re instatement of Mr Malik the fishy smell grows.

Hes been claiming for 2 offices in two homes, when he may have had only one, or two, with living area, or one with living area, or just living area - AAAAAARGGGGGH!

C'mon Gordy - are you really that stupid to re instate this crook (strong language from me I know), or has he got something on you, or perhaps he's vowed to be a crony.

Just in case it gets lost, here's the full text of th article from the Guardian

Shahid Malik has admitted that he claimed costs of office space in his constituency home as well as his designated second home simultaneously, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The admission comes within days of the MP for Dewsbury being reinstated in government by Gordon Brown as part of his reshuffle.

The prime minister brought Malik back to the fold as communities minister just weeks after he stepped down as justice minister in the wake of reports in the Telegraph that he was paying well below the market rate for the rent of his home in his constituency.

Brown made the appointment after receiving assurances from Malik that his financial affairs were in order.

But it emerged yesterday that Malik had claimed more than £6,500 for a property described as "office 2" on his parliamentary claim form, which has turned out to be the ground floor of his constituency home in Dewsbury.

Malik said he needed the extra office space because the constituency office he inherited was not big enough. But his expense files show he moved out of the original office into a new office in April 2006 but continued to claim £200 a month on his office allowance for "office 2" until at least April 2008, according to the newspaper.

Malik insisted last night that he paid rent separately for the "living area" of his consituency home. However, no formal rental agreement existed for the "living area" and Malik did not disclose how much rent he paid.

The Telegraph said he confirmed his controversial "two homes on expenses"arrangements last night.

Brown's official spokesman made clear it was up to Malik to explain his use of public money.

Malik reportedly told the Telegraph that he had rented the office space because the office he inherited from his predecessor as Dewsbury MP, Ann Taylor, had been too small, he said. "I rented additional office space in my constituency because the office which I took over from my predecessor did not have enough room to accommodate my staff, who were working with me to serve the needs of my constituents.

"I worked from the additional office space between Thursday and Monday and during recess periods and a member of my staff was also based there until moving to the new offices in 2007."

Commons documents show that Malik left his predecessor's office in April 2006 and began claiming Commons office expenses on a new office, in a shopping parade on Daisy Hill.

Malik has claimed £6,000 a year for the rent on the office in Daisy Hill since then.

Both his constituency office and constituency home are owned by Tahir Zaman, a friend of Malik, according to the paper.

Malik stood down from government last month when it was reported that he was paying Zaman well below the market rate.

Brown brought him back into government after an investigation by Sir Philip Mawer, the prime minister's adviser on ministerial rules, cleared Marlik of any failure to comply with the ministerial code.

After initially resisting, Brown has agreed to publish an edited sumary of Mawer's report.

The prime minister's spokesman stressed that Mawer's investigation related to allegations of a breach of the ministerial code in relation to supposedly preferential rent offered to Malik on his Dewsbury home.

Questions relating to his expenses claims were for the MP himself to answer.

Asked whether the prime minister was confident that Malik had been completely frank with Sir Philip about the financial arrangements surrounding the Dewsbury property, Brown's spokesman said: "We would expect all government ministers to comply fully with the independent investigator and we have no reason to believe that's not the case with Shahid Malik."

The spokesman stressed that Mawer's investigation related to allegations of a breach of the ministerial code in relation to supposedly preferential rent offered to Malik on his Dewsbury home.

Questions relating to his expenses claims were for the MP himself to answer.

Transparency for everyone - Shahid too!

Shahid Malik has been cleared of any expense inproprieties, so it says in a report by Sir Phillip (must be good, has a Sir in the title).

In the new spirit of transparency we (the great unwashed non politicians) weren't to be allowed to see what it says because it contained personal details.

However, in the spirit of Gordon wanting to keep his job (for a while), he has bowed to public pressure, and a 'sanitised' version of the report will now be published.

Oh, and Mr Malik got his job back at the ministry (in the Dept of Communities and local justice instead of the Dept of Justice at least).

Now, is it just me, or does this smell a bit fishy? We are told that we can't see the report on a 'public' servant (if you don't want the publicity, don't go in for a job which by its very nature is in the public eye), and then we are told by a grovelling snivelling power clinging political leader in the last days of a corrupt government, 'oh all right then we can see a little bit of it, because we know whats best for you, and if we don't then you might get a bit shirty'

I'm sorry Gordy, the whole point of everything thats been happening over the last few weeks should have told you that we aren't standing for this hidden from public view nonsense any more - if we want to know about any aspect of a politicians life, if it concerns the performance of his duties or his remunuration for whatever reason, then the public - the paymaster - should have a right to know - if you don't want to confuse the two, then don't confuse the two. There should no issue ever of privacy for these sorts of reports (I agree the case is different for security reasons, but this clearly isn't), everything should be out in the open, published, and available to see, then we wouldn't need the guardian to do this necessary work.

source http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5494389/Gordon-Brown-forced-into-revealing-report-on-Shahid-Malik-finances.html