The new, tougher expenses regime is damaging MPs' "mental wellbeing", the doctor who looks after them has said. Dr Ira Madan told a committee looking into the system that its "frustrations and difficulties" had increased workloads but decreased rewards. She also said MPs were tired of being the butt of jokes about their expenses. And she said they were coming under greater pressure because of the "increased ability for constituents to readily contact members by email". Following the expenses scandal of 2009, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority - Ipsa - was set up to more closely monitor MPs' allowances. But MPs have complained that the new system is costly and bureaucratic, and has left many of them out of pocket. They also complain of constant expenses jokes. "If they go to the hairdresser people will say 'Are you going to put that on expenses?'. It might be funny for the first one or two times but actually it gets right up their noses," she said. Aw....Diddums! Any Brits got one iota of sympathy for them? Whining about something that would not have been necessary at all if they hadn't permanently had their hands in the taxpayers pockets seems to me a bit thick when you consider what everybody but the rich in the UK is having to put up with financially. "We're all in this together"...my arse! Not if they can keep themselves out of it!
I read this over my breakfast yesterday. It left me speechless ... well almost! And one doctor between 650 odd of them. No desperately trying to get through on the phone for an appointment for them in the morning. But naive fools keep voting for them.
Sympathy for some of them yes. Lots of MPs (especially new ones) had absolutely nothing to do with the abuses of the expenses system. I have no doubt that plenty of MPs would strongly resist any real attempt at reform of their entire pay structure (as should have happened) but the time would have taken to do properly would have been unacceptable to the virtual lynch-mob created from the controversy. It was inevitable that the rushed attempt at a quick fix, under huge pressure from the tabloids and the public they control, would result in an equally flawed system as has become apparent. Significantly, I have concern, not only for the wellbeing of MPs but for their ability to actual do the job we elect them for if, as is claimed, it takes so much time for them to complete expenses paperwork. In any other role, that would be the key issue. I certainly don't see any legitimacy in getting a cheap laugh from anyone's suffering.
Erm, yes. That's what the article is about (unless you're accusing the doctor of lying to a parliamentary committee). It's not suffering on the scale of someone loosing their job and their home due to the recession (which in itself isn't on the scale of a starving family in an African famine) but, in context, it's still suffering.
I'd say the doctor is too close to the MPs and none of them understand what suffering is. MPs are well paid for doing what is increasingly a non-job, and they'll get a fat pension when they leave. As Peter Mandelson said recently, we're entering the post-democratic age. Have you seen how empty the House is for most debates these days? If they are worried about being the butt of jokes, they shouldn't have milked the system. They should be more worried about the effects of the policies they meekly vote for, then we might just have more sympathy for them. Any MP who can't stand the entirely justifiable disgust of the electorate shouldn't be an MP. Exactly.
Nice rhetoric, but I'm not sure that sentence is actually saying anything. I question your allegation of "non-job" - do you even know what MPs actually do? I agree they get paid well and I'd actually argue too well but that is a topic for a rational debate. As long as there is an irrational hatred of all politicians by so many people, such debates can't be rational. I'm not convinced this wasn't always the case. It's only relatively recently that the general public have seen Commons debates. Anyway, time in the chamber is just one aspect of the role of an MP. But many of them didn't. You're basically supporting bigotry, little different to hating all Muslims because of a few terrorists. How are you measuring MPs concern about the effects of policies? Do you really have the slightest idea what any of them think beyond what you drink up from the media?
I assumed that the doctor wasn't talking about all MPs.......unless those MPs who claimed sweeties or honest amounts, and were still in Parliament had, all of a sudden, decided to start taking the proverbial. She may even have been talking about the new MPs, but you'd have thought that if they were going to be good for anything, they'd have managed to work out the difference between, for example necessary expenses to do the job for their constituents and party related expenses a year into the Parliament. But I'm afraid that any MP who claims 30p for stationery in the first place is making the work for himself. They are certainly entitled, as is anyone in a private company, to the expenses agreed as necessarily entailed in doing their job......and excuse me if I think they should know what those expenses are...and have the necessary documentation to hand. Why on earth, if they are making legitimate claims and have the intelligence to hand over the requisite phone bill, VAT receipts. etc as proof, are claims being rejected at all? However, while I agree it is unfair to tar all MPs with the greedy bugger brush......it is not IPSA they should be railing against....it is the greedy buggers who made IPSA necessary in the first place. The IPSA chairman agrees that the rules need to be revised, and certainly making the system less bureaucratic wouldn't hurt....but imo, it should be borne in mind that their constituents did not ask them to become MPs.they chose to do so, and if they did not have the wit to find out what that entailed regarding remuneration etc, then they are even thicker than I have always given them credit for. They should be subject to the draconian Inland Revenue rules that apply to normal people who STILL manage to get their jobs done and pay tax on their expenses into the bargain.
Not really anti-British..given I am technically British myself.....but most definitely not enamoured of Westminster Government for Scotland. (or the UK come to that.........the standard just isn't great) I tend to like the Plaid and SNP Westminster MPs until I dislike them, while I work the other way round with MPs from the UK wide parties! I like rebels with some principles not lickspittles ensuring their jobs.
I think you're entirely misunderstanding (or misrepresenting?) the situation. This isn't about the new system being difficult for MPs to con, it's about the system being difficult just to use legitimately. Don't worry. That MP only exists in your imagination. Glad to hear it. That was my core point. Again, nobody suggested anything like that. Don't let you negative image of MPs colour your reading of the article.
I can't understand where the difficulty lies in separating out spending permitted in the undertaking of their employment and handing it in to ISPA all ready to be rubber stamped. Hundreds/thousands of self employed people all over the country manage to do that all the time, and still do their work, as does everyone who claims expenses from their employer as a part of their work.......but then, they both have an added incentive to it correctly and timeously because otherwise the taxman would be down on them like a ton of bricks. Our MPs, at least, are spared that problem with their expenses. Actually not..........in the imagination of the Telegraph, though........ Daily Telegraph The doctor did blanket so I did blanket...simples...but neither of us meant blanket! . I was suggesting that as part of the discussion..am I nobody? Sure as hades I'd not be taking on any job unless I was well sure what I'd be getting out of it. Would anyone with a lick of common sense? And given they get training.....yes training...in claiming their expenses I really do query the standard of MP we attract nowadays. I'm still trying to work out though how a system of claiming expenses is deterring people from less affluent backgrounds from becoming MPs But you know the parts of the original link which made me that the system had increased workloads but decreased rewards and they were coming under greater pressure because of the "increased ability for constituents to readily contact members by email". At last they are entering the real world where they have to work nearly as hard for their money as those of us who pay their wages do.
That clearly isn't how it's working though. Unlike the "systems" a lot of people (myself included) work under where it is just rubber stamped, the IPSA system seems to be very strictly checking each and every item (hence all the "insufficient evidence" rejections) - perfectly legitimate given the background but that does make it different to other places. The suggestion I've seen elsewhere, when the system was first brought in, is that one of the problems is that the definition of "sufficient evidence" is unclear. I can't let that stand. The doctor "generalised" because she was talking about the processes all MPs have to use and the potential impact it could have on them. You were generalising that all MPs are crooks. She was giving an overview of the situation, you were committing libel. To equate the two only compounds your crime. If you choose to believe that every single MP is thick rather than the possibility that the system is impractical, I think it says more about you than them. Because if it makes it difficult (or impossible) to make legitimate claims. Independently wealthy MPs can write off some expenses if the time and effort to successfully submit the claims is excessive. Poorer MPs can't afford to do that. I suspect the amount of work and commitment MPs put is has as wide a range (with the same extremes) as the general public. You are, yet again, condemning them all for the failings of some.
The doctor is pandering to her patients, ie saying what will please them. If MPs aren't tough enough to accept what their constituents think they shouldn't be MPs. People are entitled to their views in a democracy, upsetting though it appears to be for some MPs to hear them. Yes. Do you? I said MPs jobs are increasingly non-jobs because they have allowed their powers to be removed from them and given to the EU and to quangoes (which can implement EU law without the need for MPs' pudgy little hands to wield their rubber stamps.) At least 75% of our laws are now made in response to European legislation, with the EU having an enormous body of law called the Acquis Communautaire over which parliament has minimal influence. It's hardly surprising that the HofC debates are so sparsely attended these days. I'm perfectly rational. If anyone's hatred of politicians is irrational, they only have themselves to blame because they're not serving the public any longer. Democracy was never perfect, but we could vote out a ruling party and elect a new one, and the new government could undo anything its predecessor had decided. That simply cannot happen now and MPs have stood meekly by and let it happen. I'm certainly not supporting bigotry. Very few Muslims are terrorists, but most MPs did without a doubt milk the system, though some took it to extremes. I don't know if the latest batch of new MPs is milking the system (though I think it would be extremely naive to think they were all on the straight and narrow) but I do know they are no more serving the public than the rest. I've talked to several and they were free to explain why they think as they do, but all I've had were platitudes. I've given up caring what they think, nor do I care what the media says about them. I judge them on the way they vote.
I learned how to do things. I am 60+ years old, and I am still learning how to do new things. People in their eighties learn how to do new things......and, most of the time without getting specific training to do it. And I am intelligent enough to be able, after training and a short time of practise to understand what a system is about and how to operate it. And even without the training, which our MPs and their office staff get, I have a good grasp of english and a tongue in my head.if anything was unclear, I'd have noticed it in the training phase and asked for clarification. Are you telling me our MPs and their helpers are less intelligent than the average pensioner, particularly pensioners without degrees? Of course the Doctor generalised! I do not for one nano-second believe that all 650 MPs have trotted along to her surgery and whined..but she didn't say some MPs or even many MPs..she just said MPs and left the reader to draw their own conclusions. But I can't trot along and ask her to clarify her remarks, though I would if I could. I checked the article again...and she did not do "potential to" she did "is and are and were"...and, in my book, "is, are and were" don't mean "potentially". Where did I say every single MP? I said every MP who came into the job without ascertaining what the remuneration package etc entailed. And I certainly don't think we have 650 MPs who did not even have a look at the information their political parties give them about the way things in Parliament work. Nope, not buying that. If you had said because sometimes the expenses are not paid timeously, then that would have been different, and something I would agree needs to be tightened up. But I return to the fact that if the claims are legitimate..and presented with the requisite paperwork, they will be paid....and I would assume that it would be possible to re-present a rejected claim with the correct paperwork. Why any other claim was rejected is something you'd need to ask the MP. I would have no problem separating party political/private spending from my work expenses...would you? You are not talking about a one-man band here. A local councillor puts in a lot of work and commitment...an MP pays people both in Westminster and in the constituency to take a lot of that load off his/her back.
