Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
Hallo, hallo, hallo... a case for Inspector Knacker... all done up like a kipper » Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Peter Hain has been hounded out of office and is under investigation by the police for not properly observing the law on political donations. This Tory has been found paying his son, who was a full-time student at the time, tens of thousands of pounds of public money for work it appears he has never done over a period of three years. The Standards and Privileges Committee said it was "at the least an improper use of parliamentary allowances" and "at worst, a serious diversion of public funds".
Diversion... I like that... diversion. So, presumably Mr Conway has been 'diverting' public money away from the taxpayer and into the pockets of his student son at the rate of about 1,000 smackers every month for 3 years for allegedly working for him... despite the fact that he was living over 250 miles away from the constituency in Newcastle!
Well, Conway has been severely dealt with. the Standards and Privileges Committee are recommending he be suspended, not by the neck, but from the House of Commons... for a whole 10 days!
Perhaps when the police have finished crawling all over Peter Hain's bookkeeping they will spare an hour or two to investigate Mr Conway.
PS - At least Paul Staines had the bottle to cover this, that other Sleazebuster and investigative blogger seems to have missed out on the story. How can you be so close to Westminster and yet so far away from the action?
newmania said:
January 28, 2008 7:01 PM | permalink
Yes , not good , but he can be dismissed if needs be with no shadow cast on the Conservative party . No-one ever did anything so foolish as to pretend every single Conservative was beyond reproach in any way . Noone claimed top be "Whiter than white" as your hero Tony Blair did. With Labour the problem with funding did not start with the Deputy Leadership campaign did it and there is a good case that the Party is infected with corruption to the marrow.
After all does anyone seriously think running the election campaign someone like Brown did not know were the money came from ?
I have to say it was Labour really that started this whole obsession which , in my view , does little good ,it was the attacks on Major that lead to the silly regulatory atmosphere extended , of course , by the Stalinists with the absurdity of the standards board.
In short you are more to blame for the system and morally iniquitous within it not withstanding this blip….its nothing , not even a blip…it’s a bli.
Bob
Totally agree that alleging your son is 'working' for you as a researcher when he's being a student at uni is more reprehensible than merely not declaring donations a la Peter Hain.
The reason Iain Dale does not have the time to post on this affair is because he is too busy allowing comments through his comment moderation which attack me for alleged benefit fraud. This is following his post claiming that he would no longer tolerate this kind of nonsense.
January 28, 2008 7:01 PM | permalink
Yes , not good , but he can be dismissed if needs be with no shadow cast on the Conservative party . No-one ever did anything so foolish as to pretend every single Conservative was beyond reproach in any way . Noone claimed top be "Whiter than white" as your hero Tony Blair did. With Labour the problem with funding did not start with the Deputy Leadership campaign did it and there is a good case that the Party is infected with corruption to the marrow.
After all does anyone seriously think running the election campaign someone like Brown did not know were the money came from ?
I have to say it was Labour really that started this whole obsession which , in my view , does little good ,it was the attacks on Major that lead to the silly regulatory atmosphere extended , of course , by the Stalinists with the absurdity of the standards board.
In short you are more to blame for the system and morally iniquitous within it not withstanding this blip….its nothing , not even a blip…it’s a bli.