Skip to main content

How many dodgy Parliamentarians?: A breakdown, across the five main Parties at this election

The MPs' expenses scandal has rocked the foundations of the political establishment at Westminster and shed light on further expenses claims made by MEPs at Brussels.  

We in the Green Party here in Eastern Region have made a Clean Campaign Pledge ( http://www.clean-campaign-pledge.net/ ) because we are angry at the extent of the corruption exposed by the Daily Telegraph, and one of our main aims in this election campaign and the next general election is to clean up politics.  But we don't just talk the talk - we walk the walk.  Using figures obtained by the Telegraph, we have calculated the percentage of Westminster MPs from the three main parties who have claimed or tried to claim unnecessary, extravagant or downright dishonest expenses for such items as duck islands, trouser presses and rent or mortgage payments for 'flipped' second homes:


Labour MPs - 134/350 = 38%
Conservatives MPs - 84/195 = 43%
Liberal Democrats MPs - 13/63 = 20%

Given that much of the media have played up the role of UKIP as the main beneficiaries of the expenses scandal, with voters who are rightly angry at their MPs seeking to punish them, we have also calculated the percentage of UKIP MEPs who have been convicted of fraud or apparently confessed to it, or who have claimed a staggering amount of expenses despite having very poor attendance records at the European Parliament and voting 'no' to all legislation regardless of the potential benefit to the UK.  Compare this to the percentage of Green MEPs who have abused the expenses system or been convicted of fraud:

UKIP MEPs - 3/12 = 25% [This is a very conservative estimate; a full Telegraph-style investigation of UKIP MEPs would be extremely useful...]
Green MEPs - 0/2 = 0%

The choice is clear.  Whilst all other parties fall over each other claiming to want to fix the broken system, the Green Party's record shows that we are the real choice for voters this Thursday who want to vote for cleaner politics.

Comments

Jedda said…
Been working all day and have put so many students off UKIP thanks to you!
1 June 2009 at 13:32
Rupert said…
Voting UKIP is voting for the worst abusers of the system! Postscript:
Voting UKIP is like turkeys voting for Christmas.
See today's TIMES front page for more: 2 of the 3 MEPs they focus on as abuser-MEPs were elected as UKIP MEPs; and they contrast to them Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert, politicians with integrity: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6410920.ece?Submitted=true
2 June 2009 at 06:55
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More on why 20's plenty -- without need for any further 'trials'...

There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner.   When considering the val...
2 comments
Read more

Stansted: a reflection

The key question, in relation to protsts like that at Stansted last week, is: which side are you on? Are you on the side of big corporations profiteering from completely unsustainable climate-destructive behaviour? Or are you on the side of people with no vested interests just making a non-violent stand, at considerable cost to their own time and money, for the sake of all our futures? It doesn't seem to me a hard judgement to make... Rupert Read Green Party Councillor, Norwich, and Lead Candidate for Eastern Region for the Greens in the 2009 Euro-elections. DID YOU KNOW: A vote of about 10% across Eastern Region on June 4 2009 would be enough to get me elected to the European Parliament... http://rupertsread.blogspot.com
2 comments
Read more