Are MPs revolting?

Interesting choice of words by The Mirror :-

Revolting MPs says they won't pay back expenses (their grammar, not mine!)

Revolting MPs last night threatened to dodge demands to repay thousands of pounds in the expenses scandal.

and in The Times :-

MPs threaten to reject ‘unfair’ expenses report (with a nice picture of those naughty climate change activists!)

MPs will attempt today to dodge demands to repay hundreds of thousands of pounds as the expenses scandal engulfs Parliament once more.

And in the FT there's this article, by Jim Pickard, which I'm sure he/theythey won't mind me sharing. :-

Union of the angry backbenchers - Tory 1922 Committee to meet Labour’s PLP

My sources tell me that backbenchers from the Parliamentary Labour Party are to meet their equally angry counterparts from the Tory 1922 Committee to discuss what to do about Sir Thomas Legg. They are all furious about the fact that his criteria are being applied retrospectively. “Why not just go back and decide that Germany won the 1966 World Cup?”, one asked me.

There was a meeting of 40 or 50 Labour MPs with Nick Brown and Harriet Harman this morning in Room 11 in the House of Commons. They were a tad upset, I’m told. Some were moaning that there were clerical errors in Legg’s paperwork (eg dates were wrong), others that papers had been lost.

Can anyone else think of an occasion when the two groups have gathered together? Curious times indeed. I’m not sure where and when it will happen yet; I’ll update you in due course.

UPDATE

Except they won’t get it. Despite a groundswell of enthusiasm among the Labour ranks for this meeting I’m told that Tony Lloyd, chair of the PLP, has put a kibbosh on it. “The prospect of a joint action…it’s just not going to happen,” says my (more authoratative) source. Could it possibly be that someone has been sat on?

Al Jalom's compares MP expenses by party.

Discovered via Dick Puddlecote, Mrs Rigby was interested to read the end result of Al Jalom's weekend endeavours.

He has done some number magic with the expenses claimed by the "Top Hundred Troughers". Mrs R thinks it's worth reading.

Here's an extract or two :

Of the top 100 Commons troughers,

• 62% are Labour MPs (against 54.1% of 646 parliamentarians)
• 21% are Conservative MPs (against 29.9% of 646 parliamentarians)
• 15% are Lib Dem MPs (against 9.8% of 646 parliamentarians)
• 2% are other (against 6.2% of 646 parliamentarians) (% figure corrected)

and

• Labour MPs are the biggest troughers taking 55.8% of allowances paid, while having 55.1% of MPs in the mix here.
• Conservative, while still in the same league are the least trougherous, taking 29.5% of allowances, amongst 30.4% of MPs in the mix here.
• This means Tory MPs cost, on average, about £5500 less than Labour MPs, and almost £9000 less than Lib Dems.

Of the top 50 troughing MPs

• 33 are Labour MPs (66% against 54.1% of 646 parliamentarians)
• 10 are Conservative MPs (20% against 29.9% of 646 parliamentarians)
• 7 are Lib Dem MPs (14% against 9.8% of 646 parliamentarians)

There is other mathematical and statistical wizardry, and Al Jalom says he might revisit the data and work out some more.

Interesting stuff, don't you think?

Frank Field is first!

Actually, Mrs Rigby doesn't know if he is first, but he's the first she has noticed in her wanderings round the internet.

Frank Field, who is Member of Parliament for Birkenhead, has published his expenses on his website. They can be found on the front page of his site, which is here

Hat's off to you Mr Field, for doing the decent thing.

Separately, Iain Dale had an informal poll for, asking visitors to his site who they would most like to see as Speaker. 2,100 people (members of the public who visit his blog) voted and this answer caught my eye. Mrs R hopes he doesn't mind it being shown here.

who you would like to succeed Michael Martin
Frank Field 19%
Sir Ming Campbell 18%
Sir George Young 15%
Kate Hoey 13%
David Davis 6%
Sir Alan Haselhurst 6%
Ken Clarke 5%
Alan Beith 4%
John Bercow 3%
Keith Simpson 3%
Sir Patrick Cormack 3%
Richard Shepherd 2%

Mrs Rigby thinks Mr Field would make an excellent Speaker, but she thinks his job on the back benches is more important to his constituents.

Reasonable and essential expenses.

Mrs Rigby wants MPs to show exactly what they've successfully claimed, and been given, by the fees office. She wants them to do it voluntarily, and to do it soon.

Mrs R doesn't want to see "redacted" lists, she wants to see exactly where her and Mr Rigby's money is, and has been, going.

You see, Mrs R got a bit annoyed after she followed Iain Dale's link and listened to Lembit Opik on the radio. She's sorry to single him out and write his name here for all to see, but in amongst all the news items about expenses this one struck a chord. He spent, and claimed, £700 for a television for his "second home". He'd tried to claim £2,500 for a presumably bigger and better one. The higher claim was rejected, so he bought it anyway - out of his own pocket - and put that television in his "main" home. That means he spent £3,200 on a pair of televisions, and got £700 back. Mrs R will concentrate on this £700 which was paid out by the fees office.

Using Jacqui Smith's "Court of Public Opinion", Mrs Rigby rules that this cost is unreasonable. There are two reasons she can think of right now.

1) Mrs Rigby knows that somebody earning minimum wage (£5.73 an hour) would have to work more than three 40-hour weeks to take home more than £700. (On National Minimum Wage somebody who works for 40 hours a week, excluding meal breaks, earns £11,918.40 - before national insurance and income tax deductions.) She wants to know why their taxes should buy an well-paid public servant's spare television.

2) Mr and Mrs Rigby can't afford to spend £700 on a single television for their only home. She's a bit irritated that any MP thinks it's okay to take the Rigby family's taxes and spend them so indiscriminately on themselves. She thinks a cheap television from a supermarket or electrical chain store is just as good for watching the news - if watching the news is why a television is "essential".

Mrs Rigby doesn't think expensive televisions are any more "reasonable", or essential, for an MP to do their job than cutting their grass.

Frank Field has an idea.

Mrs Rigby has got a lot of time for Frank Field, she thinks he talks a lot of sense.

This is what he has to say about MP's allowances here

There is literally no obvious way out of the appalling mess in which MPs now find themselves over our allowances. The opportunities we have had - in deciding how to disclose information about our allowances - were squandered.

He suggests that Mr Brown should

... invite again the leaders of the other parties to join him in Downing Street. The purpose would be to agree an all party leadership recommendation to the Kelly Committee and they should not leave Downing Street until the outline of an agreement is made. If he doesn't, one of the other party leaders should take the lead.
They should then ask the Kelly Committee to speed up their enquiry. It should be asked to report on the second homes allowance within a month.

Mrs Rigby wonders if anybody will listen to his ideas.

Mrs Rigby was not amused.

Mrs Rigby was not amused to see The Speaker wagging his finger at Kate Hoey when she asked a question about Police involvement in the expenses saga. It's the sort of thing she would expect an irate parent to do, when confronted with a petulant child.

It seemed that Mr Martin was a bit annoyed that the media have been publishing details of MPs expenses and allowances, something he's been trying rather desperately to avoid. He must have been in a very bad mood because he was also curt with Norman Baker and Patricia Hewitt.

The Speaker is meant to defend the Commons, and represent all Members of Parliament, not attack them if they say something he, personally, doesn't like, so it's a bit odd that a spokesman for Mr Brown later said he thought The Speaker was doing a good job.

It looks as if a few MPs thought the same as Mrs Rigby, because Douglas Carswell has tabled a cross party motion calling for Mr Martin to step down.

We'll have to wait and see what happens next.

Public Money, or the Government's money?

David Cameron made a speech that used words Mrs Rigby hasn't heard for a long time.

He said MPs should take personal responsibility for their actions, which should be reasonable in the eyes of the electorate. He mentioned things like scrutiny, accountability, ethics and also reminded MPs that the money they put into their pockets is public money.

It's nice to hear a politician reminding MPs where the money they are using comes from, and is so completely different from a comment left over at Old Holborn

You pay your taxes. It's the LAW. It's not your money, it's the Government's money.

Mrs Rigby knows which point of view she prefers!