I Don't Think I Could Say This Any Better!

Just Put The Grecian 2000 On Your Expenses, Prime Mentalist!

So I'll just cut and paste directly, the excellent Richard Littlejohn's comments on Jonah.

"As Chancellor of the Exchequer and now Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has never attempted to conceal his visceral contempt for those who try to avoid paying their 'fair' share.

When he was at the Treasury, he raised stamp duty four times in as many years. He has made it his life's mission to abolish tax loopholes, exemptions and allowances.

Brown beefed up Revenue and Customs enforcement, ruthlessly targeting small businesses and the self-employed, taxing 'benefits in kind' and severely restricting the scope of legitimate expenses.

Part of his cunning plan to save the world, involves demanding that independently governed states close their offshore tax havens. Yet all the while he has been a major beneficiary of the biggest onshore tax haven in Britain - namely the House of Commons, where the rules which govern ordinary mortals simply don't apply.

As far as our elected representatives are concerned, irritants like capital gains tax, council tax and taxes on perks are for the 'little people', not for them. Theirs is a larcenous land of loopholes, exemptions, expenses, allowances and shameless fiddles, which spits in the face of every honest British taxpayer.

By now, we've all pored over the demeaning details of MPs' expenses claims - from jellied eels and Jaffa Cakes to Two Jags' two toilet seats and Tudor beams. They have exploited the notorious 'John Lewis List' to furnish their homes in style, at no cost to themselves, kitting them out with everything from state- of-the-art plasma TVs to wet rooms and cutting-edge kitchens.

Risibly, every single one of them claims that this extravagant expenditure is essential for the execution of their parliamentary responsibilities and they are therefore entitled to be reimbursed, in full, by the British taxpayer.

Let's agree that MPs from far-flung constituencies need a crash pad in London and should be entitled to claim for rent and utility bills and reasonable out-of-pocket expenses, such as train fares.

But why the hell should we be expected to pay for their food and foot the bill for their gardeners and cleaners, let alone treat them to extensive electronic toys and home improvements?

Some of their home make-overs are so lavish, I'm surprised they haven't featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs.

We're only playing within the rules, they bleat. Even that's debatable. Where, for instance, does it say in the rule book that an MP can't function without a patio
heater? Garden furniture is specifically excluded but that didn't stop Jackboot Jacqui claiming for one, along with the kitchen sink and her husband's porno movies.

The argument that the system's at fault and, anyway, everyone takes advantage of it, simply won't wash. Parliament made the rules and Parliament appoints the people who administer them, which explains why practically everything goes through on the nod.

There are so many snouts in the trough that you'd be forgiven for thinking that a swine flu epidemic had broken out at Westminster. But however outrageous some of these chiselling claims, the real scandal is far greater.

And it isn't just that MPs avoid paying the 'benefit in kind' taxes which any normal taxpayer would be hit with in similar circumstances. (You try telling the Revenue that a new bathroom is essential to your profession and see how far it gets you.)

It is the cynical way in which they manipulate the system to their maximum advantage, chopping and changing the designation of their 'main' and 'second' homes at will. This enables them to make multiple claims for furnishings and avoid capital gains tax when they come to sell.

The rules say an MP's 'main' home is where he or she spends most of their time.
Yet the Balls-Coopers, Westminster's expenses golden couple, designate their house in London as their 'second' home, even though they live there practically full-time and their children go to school round the corner. That lets them claim 'double-bubble' expenses.

Ed Balls said yesterday that generous allowances were essential if politics wasn't to be confined to 'rich people with trust funds'. That doesn't mean MPs should expect to live as if they've all got trust funds, courtesy of the taxpayer. Or keep the profit when they sell houses bought for them by the taxpayer.

Hazel Blears changed her 'second' home three times in a year, pocketing a £45,000 profit along the way. Geoff Hoon has played the system with such expertise it has allowed him to build up a £ 1.7million property empire.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, changed his 'main' home four times in four years. He even charged a £10,000 stamp duty bill to the taxpayer.Consider that, for a moment. The man in charge of stamp duty is avoiding paying it himself.

You might expect Gordon Brown - Mr Hair Shirt Moral Compass himself - to be above all this money-grubbing sleight-of-hand, given his hatred of loopholes and tax avoidance.

Er, not quite.

When he was Chancellor, he had a grace-and-favour apartment in Downing Street and a bolt-hole flat nearby, which he bought in a fire sale from the estate of the late crook Robert Maxwell - appropriately, you may think, given that Gordon appears to have modelled his pensions policy on Captain Bob's.

Until shortly before he became Prime Minister, Brown designated his bolt-hole as his 'second' home for the purposes of claiming allowances, which included paying his brother six grand for 'cleaning services' - as you do.

With all the accounting acumen for which he is legendary, he even spread the cost of a £9,000 new kitchen from Ikea over two financial years, which allowed him to stay just within the maximum second home allowance limit.

When he inherited No 10, he followed the example of any shrewd businessmen looking to keep as much of his own hard-earned as possible - he put the flat in his wife's name.

This left him free to switch his house in Scotland to his 'second' home. Consequently it, too, has now been extensively renovated at the expense of taxpayers, who also pick up the tab for his gardener and cleaner.

Another bonus is that if he sells the flat when he's kicked out of office next year, he won't be liable for capital gains tax - which he would have been had it remained his 'second' home.

Cute, eh? No loopholes, exemptions, avoidance or special allowances there, then.
But given that he's lived pretty much cost-free in Downing Street for the past 12 years, we might ask why Gordon has charged anything on his expenses. After all, just because he can, it doesn't mean he's obliged to.

He's not short of a bawbee or two and is famously parsimonious. And as Prime Minister he's paid £194,250 year and rarely has to put his hand in his own pocket. He's got a six-figure, index-linked pension to look forward, too, and no doubt a few directorships in the pipeline.

So why does he stoop to charging taxpayers for tarting up his house in Scotland and paying his gardener and cleaner, let alone picking up the tab for his lightbulbs and Sky Sports subscription?

He didn't have to wait until now - after whistleblowers and the Press exposed MPs' expenses as a venal, corrupt racket, which officially sanctions systematic lying and stealing - before denouncing it.

Could it be that he clearly doesn't believe that he has to pay his 'fair' share?

If he thought the system was bent, he's had a dozen years in the two most powerful offices in Britain to do something about it, not milk it for all it was worth."

The Penguin