Friday, May 15, 2009

Ken Livingstone: Labour Whips Officially Encouraged Troughing

Received from a reader...

"I was at a talk given by Ken Livingstone at Oxford University last night, and he said something which, if true, I found appalling. When asked about MPs expenses, he claimed that when he was an MP, the whips called a meeting and said that they had noticed that many MPs were not claiming their second home allowance even though they were entitled to it. If this was the case, they requested that the MPs claim it and give it to the Labour Party. They were apparently encouraged to claim it, and were told it was there as a supplement to their salary. MPs were apparently told it was "not a matter for the Inland Revenue".  Now this was Ken Livingstone talking, so the above comes with all the usual caveats. He was also speaking about the early 1990s, so it's not exactly recent. But nevertheless - appalling."

I'd look into this a bit further myself but I am on my way to Aberconwy at the moment to speak to a Tory dinner tonight and then visit the Lloyd George Museum tomorrow. But don't worry, I'll be stopping every now and then to update the blog. Keep your emails coming!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

31 comments:

rob's uncle said...

Surely it is well known that MPs were given these 'allowances' in lieu of a salary increase which Mrs T vetoed? So it is not surprising to learn that anyone not taking them was thought to be letting the side down.

It is better to give them generous pay than stint them & encourage bribery & corruption.

Anonymous said...

Throughout the scandal, I've asked, cui bono. And the answer is the whips / House of Commons Commission. Of course they'd encourage troughing; it makes backbenchers more beholden to the whips.

Anonymous said...

I imagine Ken Livingstone's expenses would have made some interested reading when he was an MP.

Though in fairness, he always made a point of recycling the empties.

strangedeath said...

Did you know that the Lloyd George Museum is the only such museum in the UK? I think we should have a few more, dedicated to our former leaders.

cymrumark said...

Enjoy your visit but you will be deep in Plaid territory :)

Anonymous said...

Throughout the scandal, I've asked, cui bono. And the answer is the whips / House of Commons Commission. Of course they'd encourage troughing; it makes backbenchers more beholden to the whips.
Throughout the scandal, I've asked, cui bono. And the answer is the whips / House of Commons Commission. Of course they'd encourage troughing; it makes backbenchers more beholden to the whips.

Tomfiglio said...

Why is he telling us now? Why did he keep his mouth shut at the time? Weaselly little hypocrite.

Anonymous said...

Liberal Democrats get the begging bowl out!

http://tinyurl.com/quzlls

Anonymous said...

@Tomfiglio

For the same reason the guy (or gurl) who writes DoverWatch does it anonymously.

Brown's blackshirts would have crucified him.

Non Runner said...

From looking at the BBC's list of expenses, I wonder whether the Telegraph will move on to staff allowances next. These are far more generous than the second home allowances, going up to £90k.

We all know that most HoC staff are unpaid interns, you just need to look at www.w4mp.org to see that. I wonder how many MPs are getting their offices run by interns for free then giving the allowance to their families?

As I see it, the only way to restore confidence in Parliament now is a general election. And a general election any time soon could change the face of British politics for good.

jon dee said...

Anyone who witnessed Nick Brown's ambivalence when interviewed about Elliot Morley's behaviour, would not be surprised by this revelation.

No shock horror here, but clearly a hope that this mere formality would nicely disappear in Sir John Lyon's long grass.

Anonymous said...

Hardly a surprise. Michael Martin, before he was Speaker, was known as one of the people you should visit soon after arriving at Parliament. WHen you did so he gave you all the best tips on how to maximise your expenses. That man is at the very centre of the problem which is how MPs view their expenses, not necessarily the system itself.

Man in a Shed said...

Isn't this the same thing Labour does with Council expenses and allowances ?

Hint - Council elections coming up !

UB41 said...

What beggars belief is that the people (or person) who could take some action in calming this down does not.

Can the Speaker not release some sort of press statement timetabling the actions the committee will be taking?

To the general public they (GB and teh speaker) appear to be behaving like naughty boys who have been caught.
That may be the case, but show some leadership please!

Anonymous said...

In the 1990's, I was working my "doo dah's" off to support a couple of toddlers and my wife and I - so now I learn I was also working to support the Labour Party!
Kick a man when he is already out cold on the pavement with the current revelations,why don't you!

Anonymous said...

The Lloyd George Museum is a really good one - near Criccieth in Snowdonia,well worth going to.

Of course, if there WAS a Gordon Brown Museum,it would consist of a cleaner's cupboard and some old bitten fingernails and a few jars of make-up with a sign on the door; "Will the last person out,please turn off the light"......

Indigo said...

Wow, just wow.

So, if true, this is how the Labour Party would like to keep its funds in credit and pay for the next lot of election campaigning - from the taxpayer via the wallets of Labour MPs?

I want Parliament dissolved NOW.

Savonarola said...

A number of Labour MP's will lose their otherwise safe seats as a result of troughing. These disaffected persons will then bare their soul to provide the real story behind the scandal.

The expenses troughing required collusion between PM/Cabinet/Whips and HoC Clerks and MP's.

We have read the headlines on individual scams. The issue is how did it all come to this? The real villians are the top boys who never get caught. Much like the Mafia.

Anonymous said...

The surprising part of Livingstone's quoted revelation is that Whips requested that the MPs claim it (second home allowance) and give it to the Labour Party.

That is corruption par excellence!

Pol-e-tics

Jon Lishman said...

Well, Livingstone will probably just deny it. But it's just the tip of the iceberg, surely.

At the end of the day, if the end of the wedge gets any thinner people will quite literally be at the end of their tethers. We can't just be left to stew in our own juice.

Parliament must be dissolved, mangled metaphors notwithstanding.

Anonymous said...

Not news I'm afraid - if you listen to what Stuart Bell said earlier in detail he made it clear that this has been going on since the 1980s and all parties encouraged it. Given that it has been going on for over 20 years (disclosure of the amounts received only started more recently) perhaps the more interesting question is why it has only been made public now. Cui bono as the say?

Anonymous said...

And what have the Conservative Whips been doing since the 1980s - perhaps troughing came more naturally to them?

Anonymous said...

does anyone know if this is for real??

http://www.mortgages-for-members-of-parliament.webs.com/

Simon Gardner said...

From what Sky was recently reporting, tomorrow’s Telegraph features Nadine Dorries (tee hee). She apparently has a very long diatribe on her blog...

Ross said...

Is it my imagination or have quite a lot of the trougher been former whips?

James Arbuthnot, Jacqui Smith, James Gray etc

Mr Men said...

Can anyone tell me (as if I didn't know) where the freebie TV's and Sound Systems etc etc end up after an MP loses his seat. After all the Tax Payer has paid for these items. Are they donated to a charity or hospitals? Or would that be too easy and honest.

B Griffiths said...

Hi Iain, I live in this corner of north Wales, the Lloyd George museum in Llanystumdwy, while you are there go to see Ian Parri who owns the Tafarn y Plu(pub)in the village, he's an excellent columnist in the Welsh paper 'Daily Post', I'm sure he'd like to chat with you.

And if you have time go visit the beautiful seaside villages of Llanbedrog, Cricceth and Abersoch - if the weather is nice that is, expecting rain though. Try some Welsh while your here = Bore da - Good morning + Diolch yn fawr - Thank you very much + Nos da - Good night. Hope you have a good time.

Anonymous said...

It never ceases to amaze me how Tories are so ready to smear leftists for personal corruption, based on no evidence whatsoever, as a number of commentators here have done.

Indeed it's far more likely given their puritanical and spartan tendencies that these leftists will eek out a relatively frugal personal existence, preferring instead to lavish public money on policy.

By all means criticise their policies, but leave out the personal smears. Tories are smelly enough in that area as it is, without spreading it about.

It's clear that Ken Livingstone never claimed the second home allowance, the source of most of the fraud.

J H Holloway said...

'Indeed it's far more likely given their puritanical and spartan tendencies that these leftists will eek out a relatively frugal personal existence, preferring instead to lavish public money on policy.'

Really? Ken Livingstone hired his live-in-partner (and mother of his two youngest children) as his office manager, paying her a salary of nearly six figures. The appointment was only revealed in the press after Livingstone was thrown out.

So for his eight years in office the Livingstone household income was well over £225k.

Seems to be a terribly expensive lifestyle, being a metropolitan socialist....

Watt Tyler said...

Not that I'm a thick old tart - but where's the surprise here ?
John Reid was done over the subsidy to his office and ( but, surprise, surprise) nothing was done.
This guy is a senior party grandee and is thought reasonable !
Kiss my shiny round backside

azuresheen said...

I see the original informant must have some type of selective amnesia that caused him not to include that Ken Livingstone told the students that he did not support this policy and didn't do as instructed...