Throwing the Kitchen Sink at Clegg
With great poll leads comes great scrutiny and surprise surprise Clegg is already beginning to show signs he can't take the heat. In the debates he said in a rather saintly fashion that "there are still people who haven’t taken full responsibility" for the expenses crisis. While this is true perhaps Clegg should include himself on that list.
At this morning's presser he came out with a pretty poor defence of his own claims. "“It’s a modest, semi-detached, pebble-dash home, it was in a state of complete disrepair, the garden was a complete eyesore" - What would the neighbours say!?
Two payments of £2,600 on kitchen refurbishment were claimed for. The first ‘to supply and fit kitchen as plan at the above address to include units, worktops, sink / taps, oven, hob and extractor. The second for ‘improvements carried out at the above property: Plastering of lounge; decoration of lounge, sitting room, hall stairs and landing; Supply and fit new carpeting to hall stairs and landing areas; selection flooring and tiles for new kitchen; decoration of kitchen; cleaning as necessary; organisation and supervision of all the above work.’
You'd think that would do it right? But no there was more. Another £2,147 in fact for, you guessed it, his kitchen. ‘To supply and fit pipework and new waste pipe to pantry for washing machine, hack off and re-plaster kitchen walls. Supply and fit laminate flooring, boxing to pipes under boiler and tiles to kitchen.’
And what about that eyesore outside? Nothing that £4k of gardening didn't fix. In March 2008, his gardener even wrote a summary of his ‘plan of attack’ for the year, which was to weed the front garden and keep up ‘pruning around back’. Such a good service!
Let's not forget the year he claimed 101% of the mortgage limit. At least he didn't have to re-mortgage his house for his kitchen repairs...
Posts
16 comments:
Harry. Given the excesses of so many Tory MPs, the moats, the duck-houses the flipping etc. etc. and just how many of them were the worst offenders is it really a good idea to be going for the Lib Dems on expenses?
Really?
Mark, my view on all expenses fiddlers are well documented and as is my pleasure at seeing the old guard being booted out. While lib dems arent facing jail like some of our labour friends you have to admit Clegg's house sprucing is excessive?
Mark, Nick Clegg is very actively trying to portray his party as being "new" and unlike the "old parties". Like all political claims, particularly one on which this election may hinge, it bears scrutiny.
A lot of the backlash against politicians, which Nick Clegg has been so keen to attune himself to, has been due to expenses abuses. Clegg's expenses may not have been criminal but I don't as a taxpayer appreciate him having done up his house with our money, especially given that he's not short of money himself, and it certainly sheds some light on his claim to be unlike the "old parties".
Well if you want to go down this road that's up to you but I am sure it will end up reflecting much worse on the Tories and Labour than it will on the Lib Dems.
No Lib Dem MP flipped. No London based Lib Dem MP claimed a second home allowance. The upper echelons of the amounts of money that had to be paid back are packed with Tories and Labour MPs.
I think we have a much better story on expenses than the other two main parties. Not perfect of course but much better.
So you are happy to have paid for Clegg's kitchen?
Gore, Lansley and Gove flipped their properties, made tens of thousands out of the taxpayer, and they're still on the front bench. Cameron "disciplined" the backbenchers he could afford to lose for show. So yeah, careful what you start...
Gove genuinely moved his family not just on paper. the others though...
Sorry, I don't know why I've written "Gore, Lansley and Gove" there. I meant of course "Osborne, Lansley and Gove".
Charlotte controlling my mind again...
Harry, in response to your question about Clegg's kitchen, given that he has made it abundantly clear that when his house is sold any capital gain will go back to the taxpayer we could actually end up better off that his kitchen was done up. Are all Tory MPs going to do this?
Andrew Mackay, my (now former) Tory MP here in Bracknell for example had to pay back over £30,000 for the scam he was pulling with his wife Julie Kirkbride. He has made far more than this in capital gains but he won't be paying any of that back.
See what I mean. Dangerous territory.
Hypocrisy is the preserve of the left. Just look at Bliar and all the other champagne socialists. Clegg's no different.
The Liberal Democrats are the only political party which itself issued secret guidance to its own MPs on how to manipulate the system for partisan advantage, however...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6235338/Lib-Dems-tutored-MPs-on-how-to-exploit-their-expenses.html
Mark, you're actually backing up the point that Harry's making by taking the line of "don't raise our expenses because yours look worse".
The point isn't that the Lib Dems had the worst claims - but rather that they don't represent the sort of "new", clean politics that Nick Clegg is representing them as.
Regarding Nick Clegg's kitchen, exactly when did he say he would give capital gains from the house back to the taxpayer?
Paul. He's been saying it for ages and repeated it at his press conference this morning.
Thanks Mark - but when's the first recorded verifiable instance of him saying it?
Before or after the expenses crisis blew up?
Also Mark, I'd be very interested in your comments on the Telegraph article someone posted above. Have you blogged on this before?
My problem with clegg is this ...
If you are going to bring up fiddles and expenses then by god you had better be whiter than white (can i say that mr brown ? :P)
I will always challenge cleggy if you give it you have to take it - I hope he likes his new kitchen.