Denis MacShane weaselling when interviewed by Cathy Newman:
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Rotherham Politics
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Denis MacShane weaselling when interviewed by Cathy Newman:
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Rotherham Politics 
Please don’t get the wrong idea this is not about publicizing my book…. …no, no not at all!
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Charlotte Leeming on tonight’s BBC Look North gave him a run for his money.
Top job Charlotte!
MacShame managed to drop out the issue with Kevin Barron into the interview.
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What I can’t understand is why people who have committed much greater expense frauds have got away with no jail sentence. Jackie Smith who was claiming an awful lot for a room in her sisters house when she had a grace and favours place to live. One would also be interested to know what Tony Blair was claiming when he was living at No10, not much chance of that it was shredded. I am no Labour supporter, but it is time to get off Denis’s back and point the finger at the biggest abusers of the expenses who got off scott free, add David Laws to that list.
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David Laws should be at the top of the list after wrongly claiming £40,000 together with Maria Miller, who got away without having to repay almost £40,000 of taxpayers’ money that she wrongly claimed. The double standards are puzzling.
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Ask Kevin ‘I claimed everything I could within the rules’ Barron, he should know.
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Robin. I think Jackie Smith was claiming 20K a year for a room in her sisters house, that she wasn’t entitled to. This must have been a fair old wad and there were other things as well, the video her husband claimed for was a smoked screen for her real abuse of the system. Blair should be in prison for war crimes, without even considering his expense claims that nobody is allowed to look at. Blair shouldn’t have been claiming a penny for properties when in 10 Downing St.
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Tim,
Have you any evidence that Blair’s expenses files were shredded ?
The Daily Telegraph MP Expenses files say:
“Tony Blair re-mortgaged his constituency home and claimed almost a third of the interest around the time he was buying another property in London. He also put in a claim for almost £7,000 of roof repairs just two days before stepping down as Prime Minister.”
That at least might imply that the files were not shredded.
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OK
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1181415/MPs-EXPENSES-Blairs-43-000-expenses-shredded-incompetence.html
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Funny how th only MPs to be jailed are Labour MPs even though politicians from all parties have been fiddling expenses. No bias from the legal system there then.
There are other like Mcshane in the LP . Rank and file members need to get down to their party meetings and deselect these parasites.
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“Funny how the only MPs to be jailed are Labour MPs ”
Because they are the MP’s who have been caught fiddling expenses.
No Tory MP’s have been jailed for fiddling expenses but two Tory Lords have;
Former Tory peer Lord Taylor was given a 12 month sentence in 2011 for claiming £11,000 in false travel and overnight subsistence allowances and Lord Hanningfield, also an ex-Conservative peer, was given a nine month sentence in the same year for illegally claiming £13,000 in parliamentary expenses.
The diligence of the ‘Telegraph’ in exposing MP’s false claims for expenses is to be applauded particularly as Harriet Harman tried to exempt MP’s expenses from exposure under FoI rules.
In January 2009, Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons, tabled a motion which would exempt MPs’ expenses from being disclosed under a Freedom of Information request, in order to prevent any further disclosure of information. Labour MPs were placed under a three line whip in order to force the motion through the Commons. However, opposition parties stated they would vote against the proposals, and large-scale public opposition emerged. The proposals were ultimately dropped on 21 January 2009. The Commons authorities announced that full disclosure of all MPs’ expenses would be published on 1 July 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal
Why would she try to hide MP’s expenses?
Answers on a postcard to “Honest Guv,I’m a straight kinda guy”. c/o Labour party HQ.
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Didn’t Speaker Gorbals Mick Martin have MPs’ expense claims made before the FOI act came in shredded, claiming that as they weren’t accessible they might as well go through the shredder.
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Tim, I agree Blair should be standing trial at the Haig.
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Robin,
It’s The Hague in English, or Den Haag in Nederlands (the Dutch language).
(Sorry to be picky Robin, but I used to live there and I really like the place. )
I also would like to see Blair on trial, and almost anywhere.
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There were never any weapons of mass destruction, a fact I knew when Robin Cook stood down from the cabinet, the reason I went on three peace marches against the Iraq war. If Saddam had weapons he would have used them against the USA and UK forces, none were ever found. Add to the fact the carnage we now have in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Blair rather than improving the situation, he helped make the life’s of 10’s of millions a complete misery and caused how many thousands of deaths of civilians and British forces. What Denis did pails into insignificance.
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Tim: You are so right, but I still can’t get over the shock of finding out that Denis was using my taxes to swan around Europe attending book judging panels whilst claiming to be an unofficial envoy of Gordon Brown’s and then billing the taxpayer for it!
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