Category Archives: SNP

(2012) S.N.P. M.S.P. Bill Walker -SUSPENDED AMID WIFE BEATING ALLEGATIONS

Posted by Watt Tyler on

A SNP MSP who welcomed a cash injection for Women’s Aid has been suspended over claims he hit three former wives and a teenage step-daughter.

The Sunday Herald yesterday presented the SNP with evidence that two of Bill Walker’s former spouses got undefended divorces after alleging he assaulted them.

Another wife has claimed that Walker punched and kicked her in a San Diego hotel room, an attack she said was repeated on a family holiday.

Walker, the Nationalist MSP for Dunfermline who was elected in 2011, last month welcomed the news that Fife Women’s Aid had received a £400,000 lottery grant.

He said: “They do brilliant work, and it’s great to see significant funding supporting their service, enabling them to keep aiding abused women in Dunfermline and Fife.”

However, despite his public support for the charity, Walker is at the centre of domestic abuse allegations spanning nearly four decades, from the late 1960s up to the early 1990s.

This newspaper’s investigation is based on open court documents in the National Archives and interviews with two of the wives, both of whom supplied affidavits.

Jenny Kemp, the co-ordinator at Zero Tolerance, a charity that tackles the causes of men’s violence against women, said: “These allegations are shocking and suggest that Mr Walker is not fit to be an MSP.

Read on: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/revealed-msps-history-of-violence-against-three-ex-wives.16923079

 

MPs’ expenses: how they milked the system

Posted by Watt Tyler on

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MPs are required by Parliamentary rules to be “above reproach” when claiming expenses. But many found a way round the system, leading to widespread abuse.

Below we look at what they can legitimately claim and how some managed to maximise their income at the taxpayer’s expense.

What they can legitimately claim:

Under the additional costs allowance (ACA), MPs can claim expenses for the cost of running a second home for the purpose of fulfilling their parliamentary duties. In 2007/8, the last year for which complete figures are available, this stood at a maximum of £23,083.

The money can be spent on rent or mortgage interest payments. MPs who do not have a second home can claim for hotel rooms, for which they must submit a receipt.

Within the maximum ACA, MPs are allowed to claim up to £400 per month for food without the need for receipts and, until last year, up to £250 per claim in other categories without receipts.

This has since been lowered to £25. MPs can claim for utility bills, council tax, telephone bills, decorating, employing a cleaner, and even the purchase of furniture and electrical and household goods for their second homes.

The amount which MPs can claim for individual items is governed by the so-called ‘John Lewis List’. Personal items, such as toiletries and electric razors, cannot be claimed for.

The rules state that all ACA claims must be “above reproach” and there must be “no suggestion of misuse of public money”.

How they exploited the system:

A number of MPs used the allowance to pay for furniture and refurbishments for one property, before ‘flipping’ their second home designation to another property and claiming for improvements on that one.

Having used their taxpayer-funded expenses for renovations and repairs, some MPs then sold their homes at a profit. Some with constituencies in outer London bought second homes just a few miles from their main residence.

Others avoided paying Capital Gains Tax on the profit of the sale of their second home by telling the taxman it was their main residence.

A few MPs continued to claim expenses for mortgage interest on their second home even when the mortgage had been paid off.

Many MPs regularly claimed the maximum allowed for food. Others put in claims for utility bills, cleaning and repairs whilst avoiding the need to submit receipts by ensuring that the sums claimed were just below the £250 limit.

Others went on spending sprees towards the end of the financial year on order to reach their maximum ACA. Some bought furniture for their second homes but had it delivered to their main residence.

Among the frivolous and arguably unnecessary items claimed by MPs were radiator covers, pet food, manure and a duck house.

Read on

MPs’ expenses: MPs who milked the expenses system now complain about attempts to reform it

Posted by Watt Tyler on

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MPs whose controversial claims for accommodation costs, food and furniture were exposed during the expenses scandal are claiming the status of victims instead of offenders.

Members of Parliament whose controversial claims for accommodation costs, food and furniture were exposed during the expenses scandal are using an official inquiry to claim they were victims rather than offenders.

Several politicians revealed by The Telegraph to be taking advantage of their parliamentary remuneration have attempted to justify their behaviour to the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

Read on

Welcome to the sick joke that is Parliamentary “democracy”. How much longer can the People have trust in crooked, corrupt and EVIDENTLY CRIMINAL system?

(2009) S.N.P. Leader Alec Salmond -PARASITE

Posted by Watt Tyler on

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, claimed £400 per month for food when the Commons was not even sitting.
Later, after winning power at Holyrood, his appearances at Westminster became scarce but he still claimed more than £1,700 in expenses for food in 2007/08.
The SNP leader also had a hotel bill cut by the Westminster authorities when he charged the taxpayer for drinks from a minibar.
MPs can claim a maximum of £400 per month for food, without having to produce receipts, but questions will be asked why the First Minister spent so much. Commons records show Mr Salmond claimed the maximum allowance for eight months in 2005/6, a total of £3,200.
However, included in Mr Salmond’s claim was £800 for the months of August and September 2005, when the Commons was on its summer recess. Mr Salmond voted on July 12, 2005 but was not required to take part in another division until October 12.
The SNP’s victory in the 2007 Holyrood election curtailed his appearances at Westminster, but the food claims did not stop.
In the 2007/08 financial year, which covers the period between the end of March 2007 and the start of April 2008, he voted on only six days in the Commons.

How the Parasites in Westminster Waste YOUR Taxes.

Posted by Watt Tyler on

Quad bikes, window cleaning, beds, life insurance and mock Tudor fireplaces – these are just some of the things that the criminal pirates masquerading as Tory, Labour and Lib-Dem MPs at Westminster have claimed from your tax money as “benefits.”

Tory MP David Maclean claimed £3,300 for a quad bike which he claimed was necessary to get around his constituency in Cumbria. Not too surprisingly, Mr Maclean was also behind a failed bid to exempt MPs and peers from Freedom of Information laws that require public figures to reveal their expenses.

His fellow Tory MEP Giles Chichester sucked £500,000 into “office services” for a business – staffed by his own family and of which he was director. At the time, Mr Chichester had been appointed by Conservative leader David Cameron to ensure that Tory MEPs did not swindle the taxpayers.

Tory MP Derek Conway paid his sons, Henry and Freddie, £80,000 for being his “researchers.” Mr Conway was then exposed by the BNP’s spokesman on law and order, Mr Michael Barnbrook. Mr Conway was ordered to pay back a mere £13,160 after an enquiry found no evidence that Freddie did any research work for his father. He was ordered to cough up around £3,700 for Henry. Further investigations showed that the Conservative MP had spent more than £260,000 of taxpayer’s money in “salaries” to members of his immediate family over a six-year period.

Labour Party MP and former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett claimed more than £6,500 in allowances for gardening expenses at her home in Derby. This included bills for pruning shrubs, trimming the hedges and for dismantling and rebuilding a rockery. In 2006 she also tried to claim £600 in costs for her garden plants.

She was joined in this never-ending swindle by fellow Labour MP Barbara Follet who claimed £1,600 for window cleaning. To make matters worse, the invoices for the window cleaning were made out to her husband, well known fiction author Ken Follett.

Possibly the most outrageous swindler yet is Labour Minister Tony McNulty who claimed more than £60,000 for a “second home” which in fact is where his parents live. There is no excuse whatsoever for this blatant theft from the public purses, as Mr McNulty’s actual residence was only nine miles away from his parents’ house. Mr McNulty would have been arrested and charged with fraud under any normal financial regime.

Not to be outdone in the outrageous stakes was Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten. After he was forced to resign over a sex scandal involving male prostitutes, it transpired that he had claimed bedroom furniture and other household items from his Parliamentary allowance.

Labour’s former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott felt the need to redecorate his house in mock Tudor style, putting up reproduction panels and a beautiful fireplace. All very nice one might say — except that the taxpayer paid for all of it.

Labour husband and wife MP duo Alan and Ann Keen spent a mere £175,000 on a “second home” allowance to buy an apartment on the South Bank of the Thames — despite owning a home in Brentford, West London, which is only 30 minutes away by car. Mrs Keen also took out a joint life insurance policy worth £430,000 and claimed back the £867.57 a month premium on her expenses.

Scottish National Party Cllr. Robert Higgins

Posted by Watt Tyler on

THE Head of Wigtown Licensing Board, Robert Higgins, appeared in handcuffs in Stranraer Sheriff Court on Monday charged with drink driving.
A drink too many at a golf charity event saw him drive home with part of a fence he had demolished en route stuck in the framework of his car.
The Leader of the SNP on Dumfries and Galloway Council, who spent the weekend in police cells, was found by officers on Friday night sitting in his wrecked car outside his home, ‘Davaar’ in Royal Crescent, Stranraer, smelling of alcohol after leaving a trail of destruction behind him on the A75 Euro-Route.
The embarrassed Councillor stood before Sheriff Tom Millar to plead guilty to the three charges.