Maria Miller

Labour, tory, libdems, whatever, they (nearly) all have their snouts in the trough filled with our money.

Yes, we are all in it together, we keep filling the trough and they keep gobbling it up.

Yes indeed, and wasn't she a...Labour MP? Seems she's done alright for herself anyway - chair of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, no less! Let's hope she can now afford to pay for her husband's porn channel viewing.

Jackie Smith springs to mind. How on earth did she get away with it?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/08/maria-miller-row-mps-standards-legal-fears
This has just appeared on the Guardian website at lunchtime.
MPs have always made a big play of the fact that there are lay members on the committee, but they do not have a vote, and there are only three of them. What's the point, if not to whitewash?

It's Prime Minister's Question time on Wednesday, Ed Miliband will be having a field day with Maria Miller, let's hope she is sacked or resigns soon she is a disgrace.

durham, I should have put " " round 'rewarded' which was meant ironically.

Exactly, Eloethan. A bit of selective memory loss there. There was a list of MPs who had been sent to prison on our local radio this morning. All Labour MPs. The only tories sent to prison were in the other place, two of them.

Other MPs have gone to prison.

POGS

^I'm sorry but if it is the case that other MP's from Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems have done the same, and they have, why don't they also have a petition to make them resign.

I am not condoning Maria Miller, as I posted before, I just can't understand how there is a group loss of memory when it comes to other MP's and parties when it suits^ .

I agree completely. In the real world, it would be classed as gross misconduct leading to instant dismissal and this is what should have happened to every single one of them - still, it would be naieve to expect one cow to lead another to slaughter.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2014/04/07/bercow-s-big-test-confronting-the-miller-judgement
Hopefully Mann will not let it go at this.

It isn't really an apology when it's preceded by "I have been told to apologise", and is accompanied by an expression that looked like barely concealed irritation.

Having said that, I don't think an apology, sincere or otherwise, sufficiently addresses her deliberately evasive and obstructive behaviour.

Not quite sure what sort of reward that is, Anno. More like a poisoned chalice.

I hold no brief for Maria Miller, but those who are hounding her are the Tory press and even some of her fellow Tory parliamentarians and grandees like Lord Tebbit. Nobody denies that others made false claims and some did go to gaol for it, including a Labour MP who used to be my head of dept at college. David Laws held up his hands and resigned though he has since been rewarded by being appointed as a sidekick to Michael Gove.

www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-government-sack-maria-miller-mp
When you get on the site, there are about ten petitions about Maria Miller, all slightly differently worded.

Some MPs have been to prison for less than the independent committee said she should repay. The committee of MPs said she only neede to repay £5000+. It's not group loss of memory.
I used to teach a couple of stops further down the line from Basingstoke, and lots of people in the village commuted to London daily from there. In fact some of the kids I taught used to sign themselves in, then catch the train to London and be back for the school bus!
So it's not impossible to just claim travel expenses or the occasional hotel bill. I understood that the home where your family lived was the first home, not the second, so you could not claim for that one.

For me, it's the fact that she deliberately obstructed the enquiry and delayed proceedings for as long as she could that makes me condemn her more than the rest. As well as the fake 'apology'.

I'm sorry but if it is the case that other MP's from Labour, Conservative and Lib Dems have done the same, and they have, why don't they also have a petition to make them resign.

I am not condoning Maria Miller, as I posted before, I just can't understand how there is a group loss of memory when it comes to other MP's and parties when it suits.

It seems that MPs can't be trusted not to take advantage of a system that allows them to increase their earnings in ways that were not intended for that purpose.

We obviously have to be fair to MPs who live far from London but why do we have to assist them to buy property and, by virtue of house price inflation, let them make a big profit - in the case of Maria Miller a cool one million pounds.

They should receive a rent allowance.

We imprison petty criminals and promote major criminals to high office. Can't remember who said that but how true. Sack her.

Maybe those MPs who make a killing on the sale of properties WE have paid the mortgages for should be required to pay their hand-out back out of the proceeds. There should be a clause in the agreement that says that any profit made should be repaid to the tax payer, based in the principle that they should not be in it for a profit. There should also be a ceiling to what can be paid out, so we are not forking out for luxury pads.

How can the MMs of this world square this with their consciences (?) when so may people are homeless or in housing need.

What so annoys me, apart from the bear faced cheek of the wretched woman, is that any profit that they make on the backs of the tax payers in the rise of the price of their house back goes right into their pockets.

It is doubly annoying when the Tories are busy taking from the poor, in order to avoid tax rises, but to squirrel away dosh from the tax payer is utterly immoral.

As David Cameron said recently "It is [y]our money" - if this were someone on benefits who had made an incorrect claim, their benefits would have been stopped - this lady has clearly made an incorrect claim and in my opinion any income she receives from us taxpayers should therefore be stopped - permanently

Who are Cameron's advisers? They must be so out of touch. Or is he becoming just as pigheaded and arrogant?

I think they see advisors in a different capacity to the way we see them: we usually take their advice where politicians seem to flit from advisor to advisor until they find one that agrees with them.

Don't all MPs end up being pigheaded and arrogant?

I did think he had the makings of a man of principle but somewhere he has gone off the track.

It does seem to happen to all of them and it's why an end should be brought to the whole career politician ever being elected.

I've signed the petition.

Who are Cameron's advisers? They must be so out of touch. Or is he becoming just as pigheaded and arrogant? I did think he had the makings of a man of principle but somewhere he has gone off the track.

I cannot vote for a party which contains the likes of Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson so I will just have to spoil my ballot paper.