NOT A CLUE

Margaret Beckett is taking the moral high ground over plots to topple El Gord, saying that it would be grossly irresponsible.

This statement comes from the totally responsible MP who claimed £15,211.21 for work on her house, including £600 for hanging baskets and pot plants (not “POT” but plants in pots).

Mrs Beckett, 66, claimed second home allowances of £72,537 for her constituency home in Derby in the four years between 2004 and 2008, despite having no mortgage or rent to pay on the property.

Mrs Beckett earns £104,050, but during her spells as environment secretary and foreign secretary she earned £141,866.

During much of the time she was making the claims, she was living rent-free in Admiralty House, Whitehall, which enabled her to rent out her London flat.

Some of the larger purchases were made days before the end of the financial year, a time when some MPs appear to “use up” money still available to them from their annual allowances. On March 20, 2005 the then environment secretary spent £1,480.84 at Comet on a new larder fridge, a freezer, dishwasher, dryer and washing machine.

She also claimed £3,250 for food and £1,000 for interior decoration in the same year.

A month after she was upbraided by the fees office in 2006, Mrs Beckett submitted an invoice dated March 30 – the last day of the financial year – for £4,753, which covered the conversion of a bedroom to a study, work to “extend base of wheelie bin store” and work to install a new floor in the sitting room.

The following year her “annual interior and exterior work” came to £2,198, with another £3,313 for rewiring, replacement radiators and carpentry and £3,155.48 for a new boiler.

Mrs Beckett said: “Grace and favour homes are not rent free, we are taxed on them as a benefit in kind.”

She said her large gardening bills were submitted by mistake.

Margaret Beckett

Job: Minister of State for Housing and Planning
Salary: £104,050
Sample expenses claim for second home in Derby: May 9 2005 to Jan 31 2006
Food: £1,800
Utilities: £1,824
Telephone and communications: £191
Cleaning: £1,245
Service and maintenance: £1,920 (£600 disallowed for hanging baskets and tubs)

As she is obviously interested in gardening a bit of horticultural advice, which every good “son of the soil knows”-when you are in a hole and it is deep enough-stop digging.

Nobody believes politicians anymore, all we see is the hypocrisy and greed, and until they stop preaching to us that is all they will be-hypocritical and greedy.

It doesn’t seem to have sunk in Ms Beckett’s cranial space that the Labour party is finished, it is a non entity and should leave the political arena as soon as possible.

The only snag is so are the other two major parties.


“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.” ~Alan Simpson


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