Michael Martin, dry run for the MP expenses scandal

[TonyGosling]

Michael Martin, dry run for the MP expenses scandal
Michael Martin - Weevil at the core of Parliament

Not content with stealing tens of thousands of pounds of public money EVERY YEAR to pay off a non-existent mortgage. This shameless thieving weevil is still defiling democracy's sacred Woolsack.

How are such things possible in the days of speed-of-light communications?


Shameless: Speaker in £100,000 court bid to keep MPs' expenses secret, and YOU pick up the bill



Speaker of the House Michael Martin turns to High Court to shield MPs’ expenses details



The Speaker of the House of Commons yesterday took to the High Court the fight to stop details of MPs’ expenses being disclosed, despite receiving legal advice that he is pursuing a case that he cannot win.

Michael Martin will cost the taxpayer at least £100,000 trying to prevent publication of details of how MPs spend the £23,000 additional costs allowance, in the face of a tribunal announcement last month that they should be released.

Last Wednesday the House of Commons Commission appeared to have conceded defeat in the three-year battle, saying that no further legal steps could be taken to prevent release. The information on 14 named MPs had been prepared for release yesterday afternoon.

The move followed advice from the commission’s lawyer that said it would lose a High Court appeal.

It emerged yesterday that the Speaker had found a second lawyer, who agreed to take on the case and claimed that the commission had a greater than 50 per cent chance of success. Mr Martin’s decision to appeal to the High Court was made after an informal meeting yesterday, convened at 20 minutes’ notice and at which not every member of the commission was present................
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3621850.ece

[TonyGosling]

Speaker gags debate over his £100,000 taxpayer-funded court bid to keep MPs' expenses secret
By IAN DRURY - More by this author » Last updated at 17:03pm on 26th March 2008


Speaker turns censor: Michael Martin wants expenses to be kept secret

Commons Speaker Michael Martin today banned MPs from talking about a High Court appeal to stop the publication of senior politicians' expenses.

Labour backbencher David Winnick voiced concerns after Prime Minister's Questions that the appeal had been lodged, though he expressed sympathy that some MPs did not want the addresses of their second homes revealed. He asked whether MPs could vote on the issue.

But Mr Martin told MPs they could not discuss the case, which is expected to cost the taxpayer up to £100,000.......
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=544468&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

[Rory Winter]

[TonyGosling]

Speaker under new pressure over £1.7m home improvements
By BRENDAN CARLIN and TOM HARPER - 30th March 2008

Beleagured: Speaker Michael Martin's official spending has caused anger
Commons Speaker Michael Martin faced a mounting chorus of demands last night to come clean over how £1.7million was spent on refurbishing his Commons residence since he took up the job.



Westminster insiders privately predicted that the "staggering" scale of the expenditure – disclosed by the Commons authorities only after a Freedom of Information request – could be the final straw for his beleaguered position.

Only last week, the Speaker provoked a barrage of criticism after defying an FoI ruling by launching a legal challenge to prevent full details of MPs' second-home allowances being published............

........Mr Martin also faced mounting anger yesterday over the £1.7million spent on the imposing Speaker's House and gardens at the Palace of Westminster since 2001, the year after he took up the job.

More than £720,000 has gone on the house itself, with almost £150,000 for "furniture and furnishing maintenance", £13,000 on "works of art" and £291,000 on "building restoration and refurbishment", while new air-conditioning cost £191,000........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=549648&in_page_id=1770

[Rory Winter]

The storming of another Winter Palace is called for. Bring on the world revolution!

[TonyGosling]

'Speaker Michael Martin must go', says Tory MP
By DOUGLAS CARSWELL, MP for Harwich 12th April 2008



No other MP's have been willing to speak out. I'm told it's "just not cricket". Well I'm trying to represent my constituents, not play cricket so speaker Martin must go.

And so it goes on. Another month, another set of damaging stories about MPs' expenses.

Yet more public money and public trust is spent on legal action by the Commons authorities on trying to delay the inevitable..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_artic le_id=559309&in_page_id=1770

Never has there been such bitter contempt for politicians or the standing of MPs been so low.

Back in the constituency during the recess, I have been struck - as have many colleagues I speak to - by the strength of public feeling........

[fish5133]

Look guys our politicians are doing a very difficult job and deserve every penny they steal. Its not easy issuing orders to kill hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children. It takes guts to double the tax of the low paid by removing the 10p tax rate. They need a bit of loose change in their back pockets to pay their masonic subscriptions.

[TonyGosling]

Speaker is cleared over wife’s £4000 bill for taxis
MICHAEL SETTLE May 15 2008



Michael Martin, the Commons Speaker, was yesterday cleared of misusing public funds after his wife Mary spent more than £4000 on taxi journeys to buy food and other goods for her husband.
John Lyon, Westminster's sleaze watchdog, dismissed a complaint from campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance, making clear that her taxi journeys were "reasonable in all the circumstances".
Indeed, it was revealed that, under the rules, Mrs Martin could have spent not the £4139 she did over four years to this February, but as much as £10,000 as the annual limit is £2500..............
...................He went on: "If so, it's shocking that they are able to use taxpayers' money for taxis to do their domestic grocery shopping. If this is within the rules, then the rules urgently need tightening up."
The Speaker is currently heading up an inquiry into the future of MPs' expenses, due to report before the summer.

[TonyGosling]

surely he can't survive this farce

[TonyGosling]

surely he can't survive this farce

[TonyGosling]

surely he can't survive this farce

[TonyGosling]

Commons Speaker under fire again as his CLEANER is awarded an MBE

By Brendan Carlin
Last updated at 11:20 PM on 14th June 2008

Commons Speaker Michael Martin came under fresh fire last night after his cleaner – who was involved in a row over his wife’s taxi expenses – was given an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.



Gloria Hawkes, 64, a friend of Mary Martin, was caught up in the controversy earlier this year over a £4,139 taxi bill run up by Mrs Martin.

Mrs Hawkes’s discretion and loyalty were singled out in an official citation accompanying the announcement of her honour for community service yesterday.
speaker
Hawkes

Who recommended her? Commons speaker Michael Martin, left, is under fire after his cleaner Gloria Hawkes, right, was given an MBE

But the expenses row led to the resignation of the Speaker’s spokesman Mike Granatt after he admitted he had misled The Mail on Sunday over the shopping trips.

He said the Speaker’s office had failed to let him know the person accompanying Mrs Martin was not an ‘official’ – as originally claimed – but Mrs Hawkes.

Commons standards watchdogs have since cleared Mr Martin of misuse of public funds even though Mr Granatt was forced to clarify the trips were not to buy food for official receptions – but for informal occasions.

But yesterday Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who has already called on the Speaker to step down, asked: ‘Why should his cleaner get an award when someone else who has made a contribution over many years to a community hospital or in some other area of public service may not?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/mailonsunday/article-1026534/Commons-Speake r-CLEANER-awarded-MBE.html

[TonyGosling]

MPs on all sides step up pressure on Gorbals Mick over Damian Green affair
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1092710/MPs-sides-step-pressur e-Gorbals-Mick-Damian-Green-affair.html

[fish5133]

[TonyGosling]

First secret (rigged) ballot?
Tory speaker in a Labour Parliament?
John Bercow. The Time Bomb Speaker. They elected a slimeball. Even worse than Michael Martin if that's possible.

NADINE DORRIES: Bercow is an oily opportunist lacking loyalty and courage... and I speak as a Tory
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194464/NADINE-DORRIES-Berco w-oily-opportunist-lacking-loyalty-courage--I-speak-Tory.html

QUENTIN LETTS: God help us (and our pathetic MPs) if this shameless, bumptious, expenses-fiddling greaser becomes Speaker
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1193582/QUENTIN-LETTS-God-he lp-pathetic-MPs-shameless-bumptious-expenses-fiddling-greaser-Speaker. html

[Thermate911]

[rodin]

Its all right now, he's been replaced.

Monopoly Media v Expenses Bait taken by MPs used to reshuffle the pack

Another one takes up position

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5616521/John-B ercow-will-stop-claiming-for-second-home.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bercow

UK Demographics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom