The Jacqui Smith story is still raging this morning, with virtually all the newspaper front pages leading on it. She says "it's business as usual", which, some would say, is half the trouble.
Let me ask you this. If an employee of yours embarrassed you in this way and had previously done something similar (her husband wrote to their local newspaper saying what a brilliant MP Ms Smith was, without actually revealing himself as being married to her!), wouldn't you at the very least put them on a written warning? Bit difficult when it is your hubby, I suppose.
This is not a resigning issue - the 'crime' is far less serious than what she is accused of on her 'second home', but if this story continues its current momentum and she becomes a figure of derision, then the inevitable will surely come to pass. Jacqui Smith should be thankful Parliament is about to go into recess and we are all about to concentrate on the G20. At least, I think we are.
46 comments:
For once I agree with Toenails - shame & comedy - it's damming. Nice link with the Wheeler character: let's talk after June, see where the ground lies.
My mum - (bit like your partner - politics? I can spell it) said - she should go because she's terrible at her job.
It's done - sweepstake on date - June 12th - 9.30 pm.
I disagree on the 'resigning' issue. If I did this at work I would face a disciplinary hearing and would think myself likely to be sacked.
I also think that the voters in her constituency may have a view. She has a thin majority. After this she's political toast - people don't like to think that they are paying for this and itis just one more revelation about Ms Smiths expesnes.
If she had any sense she would go now before the alleged claim for an 88p bathplug hits the papers
Never be in a position where you can fire your spouse. Its a disaster waiting to happen.
It's finally dawned on me. This government is, in fact, a Carry On film. I just haven't worked out all the casting yet. Some of it is obvious: Charles Hawtrey = Alistair Darling, Bernard Bresslaw = Ed Balls, Hattie Jacques = Harriet Harman, Joan Sims = Jacqui Smith, Kenneth Williams = Lord Mandelson. But could Sid James really be Gordon Brown ?????
It's Blunkett all over again - wait for it, wait for it, start your engines........go!
Seriously, I can't get over the fact that a ham shandy was top billing in the Sunday rags - times really have changed............
It was completely avoidable if she ran a decent office and she is supposed to run the 3rd office of state - hokely dokely, I feel safe.
There was a home secretary called Smith;
Who went home to Reddich for a Spliff;
Her husband called Timney, said waft it up the expense paid chimney;
We don't want the press to have a wiff.
What do you mean "becomes" a figure of derision?
WV: nuter
It's theft by deception
Contrary to section 1(1) of the Theft Act 1978
SIMPLES
The French call the orgasm 'le petit mort', in this instance c'est le grande mort, le catastrophe.
Comedy - if Tories can be hit with slings and arrows then surely their best weapon is humour - err, hmm, yup, got a point there - it is tres amusant.
WV: Subjely - sounds fun, not into whips and stuff...Taxi? I'll get me hat
I posted on my blog yesterday the thought that the government can no longer govern effectively (not sure it ever could) as it is buffeted from one scandal to another.
Can Ms Smith concentrate on keeping us safe when she is spending time repairing her tattered reputation? It is time for Jacqui Smith to go, the same could be said for this whole sorry government.
LA
Of course it's a resigning issue, Ian. She's fiddled her second home allowance, watches pay-per view on expenses, as well as porn flicks.
She is in charge of one of the most important departments, which deals with law and order.
If she won't resign she should be sacked. It's time our esteemed leader set an example.
And, by the way, Eric Pickles should also resign after his dreadful admission and waffling explanation on Question Time.
Iain you are far to kind. She should go at once. She is just rubbish
Perhaps it is not, per se a resigning issue, but the effect is to damage her authority as a very senior manager.
A manager who is subject to widespread ridicule is unable to lead her team effectively. Regardless of how ineffective Labour have been in any case, this is not a resigning issue but a good cause for removal from her post.
I always believed that the Labour party were a bunch of w##kers.
Yentob's an arse which we're paying top dollar for.
This Government, from day one was comprised of people appointed to make the number one look good. In this they have been spectacularly successful. Since the second of these two is world famous for "number two's" you could go on and on with this theme. The Country is still wrecked, though.
She won't sack him, a fair chunk of the family income comes via his job (which comes from her, of course).
Is anyone aware of why we are all meant to be so sure she wasn't watching the films herself, either alone or with him?
Oh God, oh God, how can I get that image out of my head?
What exactly was she watching ?
Thumbing though the titles ,for , I think the most horrifying was the Shakespearian pastiche ,“ As You Like , It Rammed Up Your Ass" , a free interpretation I should imagine .
From the same big bad Bard stable; in “The Merchant of Penis “, I `d guess a pound of flesh makes an early appearance
.Then there is plangent yearning chord struck by “City Of Anals “,and I like the serenity of ’A Beautiful Behind ‘ . ‘Sorest Rump’ has much to commend it and ,'Shaving Ryan's Privates ', is almost funny. We can tell from 'A Tale of Two Clities' , that the classics are never far from the Director’s free hand
At times there is progression in the auteur`s thinking . The delightfully gamine early work “Guess who's cumming for dinner “, is revisited as a challenging and barely recognisable ‘Guess Who's Cumming to Gangbang Me ‘ with all the sinewy difficulty of the moderne . The haunting elegiac note of “O Snatch, Where Art Thou”…… shows there is far more to the genre than meets the eye and we are perhaps hasty in judging Jaqui ( Does Dallas) harshly.
Discipline him? He'd probably enjoy that. :o)
Check out this video of our Jacqui for some more filth, sorry she looks unrealistically hot in it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbRL5YGZ3tI&feature=channel_page
The PPV incident is not a resigning issue in itself, but on top of the second home expenses issue and her hands-off attitude to the Damien Green fiasco, all build to a picture of carelessness. And that is before we talk about her ability in doing her actual cabinet job. Perhaps she should resign to "spend more time with her family"?
The longer she stays in post, the weaker Gordon Brown looks.
Any chance of Smith attempting to recover her position by ensuring that the G20 riots are contained? Leading from the front, as it were?
Anyway, it is important to understand who submitted these expenses, who signed them off, and who authorised payment. Smith really cannot claim that this was an error - several people should have checked the claim before the cash was placed in her bank account. The Fees Office is clearly a rubber stamp, her accountants (assuming she has them) are complicit, and she herself is obviously guilty of making a false claim.
Never mind whether the money has been paid back (and is there any real evidence of how and when this was done?), never mind whether this was some sort of 'error', Smith has defrauded the taxpayer. Repayment of monies obtained fraudulently would not, in law, overturn a verdict of guilt - but it might mitigate. Ignorance of the 'rules' is no excuse, either. They are perfectly clear. However what we know is that MPs who are caught out always immediately say that their expenses were 'agreed by the authorities' (i.e. the Fees Office). I'd suggest that it is not up to the Fees Office to make submissions on behalf of MPs. The fact that such a submission has been made is itself a clear indication of Smith's attitudes.
What I find astounding is the mentality of anyone who believes that the costs of their own (or their husband's) sexual gratification should be borne by the taxpayer. Or is the position that in the Smith household the purchase of pornographic films is routine and somehow this claim was made 'mistakenly'?
And why the hell is the taxpayer picking up the tab for the other, more 'family friendly' entertainments? Are these something to do with her job as Home Secretary or as an MP?
So now we are going to have a review of 'the rules'. Why? Does anyone seriously believe that changing 'the rules' will change MPs attitudes? This is not about 'rules', it's about scruples, integrity, honour, decency and even commonsense - all of which the disgraceful Ms Smith patently lacks.
No! She's getting on with the job. As does he, the moment she leaves the house.
Do you really believe that Mr Smith is the guilty party?
What were the dates the pornographic films were viewed? Where was she? Those are the questions that need answering.
Only then can the blame be pinned directly at her husband.
Mind you the way this lot operate it is a wonder that they did not blame their children.
@ Strapworld
There are one or two reports that her son has indeed been 'fingered'.
Not too sure about that choice of term...
I'm not always a complete pisshead but, yer know - anywho: I used to play a game with an extremely clever girl who i'm gonna meet again in 15-20 years - when is the Home Sec gonna fall? It's 1 all (she got Big Ears before me).
If you can remember Blunkett had about 3 weeks where nothing appeared to be happening and you had to tap into your own political momentum to read theirs - she's dead.
He should be fired, as should she.
Home Secretary - my foot.
See how low we've sunk.
Dalesman - Pickles did make a poor explanation but he has done nothing fraudulent. He actually claims for and uses a flat as a second home. You might think he does not need to, I think its fair enough.
Lets not forget what Smith has done. Indeed it is a delicious irony that her present embarrassment comes from her fraudulent claim.
If she had been satisfied in claiming for a flat near Westminster as a true second home rather than use the money to fund her de facto first, her real, home then none of this would have happened.
But two other disgraceful things - as a result of her fraud she has claimed thousands for furnishings for her real home (the porno flicks are an irrelevance really) and it is her husband who she pays £40k a year from the taxpayer to fill in her paperwork - and whose ended up embarrassing her.
Putting Pickles into this boat is really sloppy thinking.
BTW - where did this info leak from?
He gets 40K off us - expensive shag perraaps?
Is she being escorted in that Mercedes thing? Meyerbach - could be wrong.
Of course its a resigning issue. It wasn't her husband who submitted her expenses claim.
I don't know what goes on in the HoC, but whenever submit an expenses claim I have to confirm that the exepenses are "wholly and exclusively .. blah, blah, blah"
"Of course its a resigning issue. It wasn't her husband who submitted her expenses claim."
Think that little wrinkle hasn't been fully processed by Call-Me-Dave, who has just stated that it isn't a resigning issue...
Open goal. Dave boots it over the crossbar and into the stand. Crowd jeers...
Trevorsden - I agree that Pickles is not yet in the same boat as Smith. She is shameful for making some of the claims she has.
That doesn't mean he is blame free. You are using the same excuse as the MP's, "it's within the rules".
He lives 37 miles from his place of work. I used to travel further than that, and many people still do. His explanation was pathetic, and got the laughter it deserved.
It's time the gravy train hit the bumpers.
What's happened here cannot be excused, but shouldn't the Fees Office have spotted the invoice, questioned her and disallowed it - end of story? Either they missed it and someone got hold of the Virgin Media statement (if so, how did it find its way into the public domain?), or the Fees Office itself leaked it to the media after missing the irregularity and paying her, in which case we need some explanation of why it did not do things properly.
Did they also put in a claim for the box of mansized Kleenex?
The Telegraph have a story about labour husband and wife MP who are using the second home allowance to buy riverside flat in Westminster.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5071069/Husband-and-wife-MPs-build-up-250000-nest-egg-on-taxpayer.html
Their home is " a terraced house in Brentford. It is just nine miles by road from parliament,"
So Dalesman (and your points are quite fair) ...
having defended Pickles - I have to maybe become a tad hypocritical and say I think this is wrong.
9 miles is not 37. (indeed it seems shocking to me that 9 miles qualifies as 'outer London')
I live about 45 - 50 miles from Westminster and about 15 minutes from a station. Not much different from Pickles in the realities of public transport.
I have to be honest, I would feel there - if I were an MP - that a flat would be justified.
9 miles is not.
On this latest issue - where one of them is a minister - I wonder if they can BOTH claim a second home allowance? That to me is wrong (I suspect the Wintertons do this and the Balls').
And given this story I wonder if the Left, having a go at Pickles, will now speak up?
Richard Timney has shown a failure in standards thinking he could claim for porn films on taxpayer's money and whoever checked his expenses failed to spot the porn films. In a professional environment (and being engaged on Parliamentary business whether an MP or a researcher is professional in my book) watching and claiming money for porn is wrong.
I've blogged about other questions which need to be asked about Timney - have whatever computers he uses been checked for other inappropriate content? Is this a one-off occurrence? If he is claiming that it was purely a "one-off" then he should be happy to present his IT kit for checking out by an independent auditor.
If memory serves getting any pay per view feature on Virgin Media needs a few buttons to be pressed and you are told that there will be a charge for the feature being watched. So any claims of these being "accidental" would be as near baseless as you can get.
People accessing porn where I have worked in the past have been sacked. On that basis alone Timney should be sacked and Jacqui Smith should resign. His judgement has been shown to be flawed, whatever auditing she put in place for his expenses was not thorough enough and her credibility has been hammered by this issue.
Having a review of expenses, which will not report until sometime late next year is no good.
MP's wages and expenses should be regulated by an independent body, and the whatever is needed to set this up should be put in place now.
Enough is enough and should be sorted out now, not in 12 months time.
Why has John Lyons and his commission never come out and tell the public what they do when they receive a complaint about an MP.
John Lyon is in receipt of over 100K a year from the public purse this makes him a Public servant and as such open to public scrutiny.
John Lyon and his commission must not be permitted to hide and conduct their crucial investing of MP's in secret.
The last time I checked we were not some Robert Mugabe type regime, well not for the want of trying by Zanu- Labour!
Just as an aside; were they cleared to submit the bill for the other films that were watched. If they were cleared to get paided to watch these films I want to know why?
What part of Ms Smith’s or her husband Dicks’ parlamaintry duties did the other film’s fulfill?
"This is not a resigning issue"
May be not but if I may draw an analogy.
About 10 years back it was reported in local press where I live that officers at a local authority in the South West of England were caught downloading porn on to their office PC's. They were subsequently sacked as this breached well established PC usage protocals within the LA concerned.
Now Mr Smith wasn't donwnloading porn on a PC but he was getting it using work based resources - i.e., an expenses claim.
Maybe his employer didn't establish a sufficiently robust protocol on the legitimiate usage of work resources. Fair enough but then doesn't that at least make her seriously negligent for not doing so?
That said if we follow the argument that MP pay be increased by £40k (?) to replace these expenses claims then they can download as much porn and play with Mr Palm and his five sultry daughters as much as they want all day long using their inflated salaries instead, and we would never even get to hear about it ...
I do actually feel sorry for their children.
Its one thing to catch your father having a quick one off the wrist in the privacy of the family living room. But for it to be effectively announced in the national sunday newspapers is a tad embarrassing ....
Well, the cow seems to be claiming for every household expense she can, including coal. The fact that they even think that his is just a matter for "Oh shit - whoops - sorry" indicates that the disconnect between MP and taxpayer is total.
Killemallet... by the way, you were right about the buttplug thing yesterday. I nearly did say it!
I was listening to a piece on BBC radio 2 with people phoning in about this and it seems that people are mistaking the right to watch porn and the issue with Smith and her husband. It matters not that Mr Smith watched porn, I could not care less is he did or not, but to watch these films, ANY films for free paid for by us all is totally wrong.
Smith has claimed that her home is her second home thus allowing her to claim all things for it even an 88 pence bath plug.
She should resign over this. If I fiddled expenses then I would expect to be sacked.
What's so utterly tragic about this episode is that people like her occupy some of the most important offices of state. Surely we deserve better? Too many of the political and influencing elite throughout the world are completely out of touch with the reality of daily life.
BECOMES a figure of derision? Oh please. She is known as Jackboot Jacqui because of her authoritarian ways, hectoring and lecturing we plebs about why the surveillance society of Big Brother is good for us. She is already a figure of derision. The hand in the till re second homes is serious, the blue movies, hilarious but she is a frigging minister of state!
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