Sally Bercow caught out with her Tweets down!

Now it can be told. Sally Bercow has now been found guilty of mentioning in her tweet, the name of a senior Conservative funder without first of all checking if he was guilty (or "innocent"). One would have thought that the speaker's wife would have known better than to "publish and be damned". Clearly not. That probably comes from being more involved with the opposition party who became famous in the last decade for their "light touch" regulation of the banks - for which we have all been paying ever since.

Now another politician convicted

This time, an ex-Conservative peer (Lord Hanningfield) has been convicted of stealing £14,000 of expenses when he was a member of the upper house. We wait to see what his sentence will be. In the meantime, Essex police have announced that they will be investigating his expenses claims while leader of Essex County Council.

Yet Another ex-MP is jailed for Expenses fraud

Today (May 20th), another ex-MP, Elliot Morley, who was an Agriculture Minister in the previous Labour government, was jailed for 16 months for "stealing" more than £30,000 in expenses during his time as an MP. Mr Morley is the last of the four to be dealt with by the courts.

MP number 4 pleads guilty

Today (April 7th, 2011) a fourth MP (Elliot Morley) has pleaded guilty to stealing £30,000 expenses. This money comprised expenses relating to mortgage costs over a three year period together with a loan that had already been paid off.

It is extremely hard to believe that he did not know that one mortgage had been paid off when he continued claiming for it, and then to overclaim for another just beggars belief. We now have to wait until the 12 May to find out how long he will have to serve in prison.

Rail Union Boss lives in subsidised housing

In today's Sunday Times, it is revealed that Bob Crow, the firebrand leader of the Rail Maritme & Transport Union, lives (with his partner) in accomodation meant for poor people who cannot afford to get onto the housing ladder, yet he is paid (in 2009) £145,548 according to the latest RMT accounts. He should be required to pay the full economic price of the accomodation or buy a house (without any discount).

Three MP's have already been jailed for stealing less money from the House of Commons. Why aren't the CPS reviewing whether Mr Crow should be charged with theft as well?

Another ex-MP is jailed for Expenses fraud

Yesterday (31 March 2011), Jim Devine, the ex-MP for Livingstone, was jailed for 16 months for defrauding the MP's expenses system of over £8,000. He declared himself bankrupt to avoid paying his ex-secretary £35,000 in redundancy payments and (probably) around £40,000 in fines and legal expenses.


The expenses fraud was bad enough, but to go bankrupt just to avoid (evade) paying your ex-secretary redundancy and your lawyers fees is absolutely unforgiveable.

MP number 2 is sent to prison and number 3 is convicted.

Yesterday, Eric Illsley, the recently resigned MP for Barnsley Central, who pleaded guilty (reluctantly) to theft from the taxpayer, was sentenced to 12 months in prison. On the same day, in the same court, Jim Devine, who replaced the much respected MP Robin Cook, was found guilty of fraud relating to parlaimentary expenses.

His offence was creating false invoices for things like printing which never occurred (apart from the false invoice, of course).

These people never learn.