Not Only Incompetent But Fraudulent!

Our ever popular Home Secretary has been diligent and efficient in one area, I am surprised to learn. Sadly it is nothing to do with her job at the Home Office, it is to do with feathering her own nest by claiming that a house in London is her "main home" despite the fact that she has no ownership interest in it whatsoever, it belongs to her sister. This cosy arrangement has meant that the fat kebab stuffer has pocketed around £200,000 in tax free allowances on top of her salary as an MP and a minister, currently £142,000. She also pays her husband £40,000 a year to write letters to local newspapers praising her performance.

There are also additional costs that the taxpayer is shouldering for the Home Secretary because of her cosy and lucrative living arrangements, as her sister's house has to have a 24 hour police guard, a cost which would have been avoided had Jacqui moved into the official residence of the Home Secretary. But of course, that would have disrupted the flow of tax free allowances into her coffers, and never mind the taxpayer or the need for the police to be doing better things to protect the rest of the population. Still, must come in handy when the scaredy-cat needs a take-away!

I wonder how this will play in her constituency? Her website doesn't mention that for tax free allowance purposes she has her main home in London, any more than it broadcasts her husband's role in writing letters to local papers whilst forgetting to mention the relationship. (Mind you, that sort of amnesia seems a quite reasonable defence mechanism!) I think I might have to draft a letter to the Redditch Snitch and Observer.

She's not alone in arranging her "residence" to max out her allowances - Ed Balls and his husband Yvette do the same, and Ann Keen, recently in the sunshine for being sued as useless by a constituent, has recently bought a flat in central London despite her constituency of Brentford being an easy commute to Westminster. This was done together with her husband, also a Labour MP for a West London constituency, nice little earner for the family!

And of course, there are Pigs all over the political spectrum. From the Mail's site -
"Last year, married Conservative MPs Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton caused a furore after claiming £165,000 in parliamentary expenses for their £700,000 second home in London, six years after they had paid off their mortgage.

The couple were censured by the watchdog for an 'unequivocal' breach of parliamentary rules after switching ownership of the apartment to a family trust and paying rent to the trust, the cost of which they then claimed from the taxpayer.

After the ruse was exposed, the Wintertons - who were not obliged to pay back the money - decided to let out the family home to tenants and move to new rented accommodation.

They then started claiming this rent from the Additional Costs Allowance."

The Penguin