Hello,
Imagine if you will, getting up one day to find you'd been burgled and everything of value you owned had been nicked. Worse still you hadn't got round to renewing the insurance leaving you seriously out of pocket. Still not to worry -you're a plucky, robust sort. Of course you'll need to cut back a bit, raid the savings and maybe holiday at home next year. Still you say to yourself it could be worse at least none of your family were hurt during the burglary. Gradually the house starts to feel like home again and though you're still angry about the burglary, you can think of it without foaming at the mouth.
Then one day a postcard arrives. It's from the thief. He just wants to let you know he booked himself an extended holiday with the proceeds of the burglary and wanted to tell you all about the great laughs he's been having at your expense. The next morning his wife drops you a line to tell you about the lovely kettle she bought with that money you'd foolishly left on the sideboard. And not a word of thanks between them.
You'd be hopping mad, homicidal, crazed with rage. Walls would be punched, cats would be kicked, appliances would be hurled from top floor windows -only you don't have any appliances because the bastard burglar knicked them all. You'd be bloody furious so much so that you really would see the red mist there before your very eyes.
Someone nicking your stuff is bad enough but nicking your stuff and laughing at you is maddening beyond belief. You'd feel you were being goaded, belittled, insulted. You'd say he's taking the piss and you'd be right.
The above just about sums up how I feel about the article I linked to in my last post written by Austin Mitchell MP . Not only has he robbed us with his extravagant expenses claims, he's popped along to The Guardian to tell us all just how bloody funny he thinks the whole thing is. And yes, his wife, his unelected wife is at the expenses as well, having just splashed out £75 for a kettle. Some bird who happens to live with a MP has spent £75 of our money, £10:70 more than a single unemployed person gets to live on in a week, on a wretched bloody kettle. A kettle.
Words fail me! I'm reduced to opening and shutting my mouth like a big purple faced fish. Talk about a brassneck. As if the article itself isn't offensive enough he's laughing in his byline photo. Laughing at us like a man with a fucking subsidised kettle.
From time to time I fill out Community Care Grant forms for my more impoverished clients to help them buy furniture and household goods. There are no £75 kettles for these folk. As the grants are drawn from a limited budget people are expected seek out the bargains so whilst you might want a £75 kettle, the decision maker will call you up establish that you own a pot and your hob works therefore you don't need a kettle. Fancy a fridge? Not if you have a windowsill to keep a pint of milk on and no essential medication that needs keeping cool. What about an oven? No -you own a perfectly good microwave. A Duck House - no chance! A Bell Tower -piss off! Removal of that troublesome wisteria - when hell freezes over.
These grants are applied for by people with disabilities, ex-homeless and the like who have no savings and rely entirely on benefits for their income. They don't get £60,000 p/a -these are folk on four figure annual incomes. Perhaps one of the good socialists of the Labour Party could enlighten us. Are these people receiving far, far less help than they're due or having you lot just been ripping the piss right out of your expenses? After all expenses are just for what you need not wee treats. Or are some pigs more equal than others?
Cheerio
Showing posts with label expenses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expenses. Show all posts
12/11/2009
Look at This Cretin!
Hello'
Ladies and Gents I give you Austin Michell MP and his hilarious expenses claims with some help from the little lady. God I wish they'd all drop dead.
Cheerio
Ladies and Gents I give you Austin Michell MP and his hilarious expenses claims with some help from the little lady. God I wish they'd all drop dead.
Cheerio
4/15/2009
Benefit Scrounging Scum!
Hello,
Is there nothing an MP wouldn't claim on expenses? Is there no point where they think they might be able to manage to buy something out of their wages?
I merely ask because the loathsome James Purnell has been claiming £400 per month, roughly double what an unemployed 20 year old get's a month with with to buy food, pay their utility bills, water and sewerage charge, clothe themselves and travel to and from job interviews. He was trying to claim £475 per month but apparently that breaks the rules. Thank God there are some rules otherwise the claims of these scrounging scumbags would run into billions.
However our generosity to scrounger James does not end there, we the tax payer also splashed out £145,000 since 2001 to pay for cleaning (!!!!), utility bills and his second home in Islington. No doubt James reckons all these are essential costs.
The thing is all the people that Jamesey would cross the road to avoid, that he's happily tossing off Employment and Support Allowance regard their double figure pittance as essential, whilst James regards it as an incentive to be idle. I'm sure James is right -they couldn't possibly be paying a buffoon all that money could they? So with that in mind I suggest a national whipround to pay James the sum of £64:50 per week from now until he retires on the strict condition he stays out of the workplace, lest he cause any further damage to the country.
Before we pay James off though I'd be delighted if he'd pop in to my workplace and help us out with a couple of benefit gluttons we've been dealing with because we're having a bit of trouble. First up is a fellow, also called James, a lovely man, very polite, reeks of piss, wears a dressing gown as an overcoat, can't go anywhere without his mother, talks about his cat all the time and would like to join the police force. For some reason employers seem to be reluctant to employ him. I'd love Jamesey to tell us where we've gone wrong and identify exactly what sort of work this man is fit for because his department declared him fit for work despite him suffering a wee touch of Paranoid Schizophrenia. He scored zero points on the Incapacity Benefit Descriptors. If you've ever wondered what a benefit medical is like -this is a pretty good description. Very unfortunate but we simply must protect the public purse from scroungers.
Another chap I'd like to find work for is a charming, personable, clean young fellow who's hit hard times. He's twenty-three years old and was made redundant in October last year but got temporary Christmas work in November before being paid off again in January. He's applied for ninety-three jobs since December 2008, attended twelve interviews since January and doesn't seem to be having much luck. His weekly income is £50:75 from which he pays £5.00 per week towards water and sewerage, £ 10.00 per week to electricity, £7.00 per week to gas , £8.00 per week rent, £5.00 per week to his pay as you go mobile and the rest to food, housekeeping, clothing, travelling to interviews and stamps. Still with incentives like £50:75 per week is at any wonder he's not working? Perhaps James could set him to the righteous path of toil.
When Labour came to power unemployment was just short of two million. It is now much the same despite the 'New Deal', Tax Credits and various other carrots and sticks to prevent idleness being introduced over the years. Is it possible that unemployment might be influenced by something outwith the claimants control? Or are we just too generous to incompetent ministers who, when presented with an expenses claim form do nothing but take this piss? Perhaps it's time the benefit system was looked at by people who don't labour under the misapprehension that we're all as low as they are.
Cheerio
Is there nothing an MP wouldn't claim on expenses? Is there no point where they think they might be able to manage to buy something out of their wages?
I merely ask because the loathsome James Purnell has been claiming £400 per month, roughly double what an unemployed 20 year old get's a month with with to buy food, pay their utility bills, water and sewerage charge, clothe themselves and travel to and from job interviews. He was trying to claim £475 per month but apparently that breaks the rules. Thank God there are some rules otherwise the claims of these scrounging scumbags would run into billions.
However our generosity to scrounger James does not end there, we the tax payer also splashed out £145,000 since 2001 to pay for cleaning (!!!!), utility bills and his second home in Islington. No doubt James reckons all these are essential costs.
The thing is all the people that Jamesey would cross the road to avoid, that he's happily tossing off Employment and Support Allowance regard their double figure pittance as essential, whilst James regards it as an incentive to be idle. I'm sure James is right -they couldn't possibly be paying a buffoon all that money could they? So with that in mind I suggest a national whipround to pay James the sum of £64:50 per week from now until he retires on the strict condition he stays out of the workplace, lest he cause any further damage to the country.
Before we pay James off though I'd be delighted if he'd pop in to my workplace and help us out with a couple of benefit gluttons we've been dealing with because we're having a bit of trouble. First up is a fellow, also called James, a lovely man, very polite, reeks of piss, wears a dressing gown as an overcoat, can't go anywhere without his mother, talks about his cat all the time and would like to join the police force. For some reason employers seem to be reluctant to employ him. I'd love Jamesey to tell us where we've gone wrong and identify exactly what sort of work this man is fit for because his department declared him fit for work despite him suffering a wee touch of Paranoid Schizophrenia. He scored zero points on the Incapacity Benefit Descriptors. If you've ever wondered what a benefit medical is like -this is a pretty good description. Very unfortunate but we simply must protect the public purse from scroungers.
Another chap I'd like to find work for is a charming, personable, clean young fellow who's hit hard times. He's twenty-three years old and was made redundant in October last year but got temporary Christmas work in November before being paid off again in January. He's applied for ninety-three jobs since December 2008, attended twelve interviews since January and doesn't seem to be having much luck. His weekly income is £50:75 from which he pays £5.00 per week towards water and sewerage, £ 10.00 per week to electricity, £7.00 per week to gas , £8.00 per week rent, £5.00 per week to his pay as you go mobile and the rest to food, housekeeping, clothing, travelling to interviews and stamps. Still with incentives like £50:75 per week is at any wonder he's not working? Perhaps James could set him to the righteous path of toil.
When Labour came to power unemployment was just short of two million. It is now much the same despite the 'New Deal', Tax Credits and various other carrots and sticks to prevent idleness being introduced over the years. Is it possible that unemployment might be influenced by something outwith the claimants control? Or are we just too generous to incompetent ministers who, when presented with an expenses claim form do nothing but take this piss? Perhaps it's time the benefit system was looked at by people who don't labour under the misapprehension that we're all as low as they are.
Cheerio
3/13/2008
I Demand Heads on Sticks!
Hello,
Why the world persists in provoking me remains a mystery. Every so often I try to be reasonable. I sit myself down and say Clairwil, 'forgive them for they know not what they do'. It doesn't work 'they' are a bunch of demons. In this case 'they' are our political representatives and they've riled me with their wicked expenses fest.
As long term readers (they do exist- I am convinced of it) are well aware I toil in the welfare rights racket for most of my working week. A phrase that regularly pops up in explaining benefit levels is 'applicable amount'. The applicable amount is set by civil servants who clearly haven't tried living on it and agreed by MPs. So, for example were my boss to get her dearest wish and toss me onto the dole tomorrow. My applicable amount as a spinster of the Central Parish would be a whopping £59:15. That is the amount the law says I need to live on. If I moved Mr Clairwil in and he was unemployed we'd get £92:80 between us. No matter how much I wanted a new kitchen, bathroom, stationary, holiday I couldn't claim any expenses. Not even for traveling to job interviews or buying a cheap interview suit. In fact the state would be under no obligation to keep a roof over my head. My monthly JSA wouldn't even cover my monthly mortgage payment and I'd be ineligible for help with the interest payments for 26 weeks -by which time my lender would have turfed me out. It may surprise you to learn that if I had a second home I wouldn't be able to claim for that either.
The Loretto educated (fees £12,000 p/a roughly equal to two years Incapacity Benefit) Alisdair Darling, has claimed in the past that folk on benefits have it too easy. That there is no excuse for folk lying about doing nothing whilst taking money from the public purse. This isn't an argument without merit there is a substantial minority that rip the piss out the system and they should be dealt with, but lets face it the jobseeker doing a couple of cash in hand cleaning shifts a week deserves more of our sympathy than the self serving principle vacuums at Westminster. It would be nice if our elected friends led by example on that one. Mind you scapegoating the poor does wonders for taking the heat off oneself.
MPs' expenses are set against the 'John Lewis list' -the maximum amount that can be claimed for little extras in one's second home -which can also be claimed for. Our remarkable benefit system allows folk on Income Support to claim something called a 'Community Care Grant' if they are deemed to belong to a vulnerable group (disabled, homeless etc). Folk claiming a Community Care Grant are subject to and I'm not making this up the 'Argos list' . However Community Care Grants shouldn't be confused with expenses. No-one is guaranteed one and payouts are limited by the local budget as well as the Argos list. In my entire six years in the benefits racket I cannot think of a single instance of a claimant getting all they asked for even on the most modest claim and that includes the most pitiful request that only a Nazi would find undeserving. The all time killer being a request for a camping heater from a 96 year old fellow spinster privately renting an unheated bedsit. Not a typical case by any means but galling when considered in the context of £10,000 claims for a new kitchen by MPs paid £60,227 p/a. I should also point out that MPs expenses are unaffected by local budgets.
I'm also puzzled as to why I am expected to take my work expenses out of my own pocket when the local MP refers any case he can't be bothered with to me. I'm not able to claim overtime for the hours I've spent this week on three really tricky cases he's dumped on me. I earn £20,000 p/a, a third of his wage yet I am expected to work three times as hard. It's just as well I can though because if forced to live on what he thinks I'm worth on Incapacity Benefit or Jobseekers Allowance I'd be homeless.
What makes politicians so grand that they cannot be held to the 'Argos list'? Are they saying that every MP is inherently better or more deserving than the elderly, the sick, the disabled? If so then let's hear the arguments. What is it that makes MPs so high maintenance that they can't get by on a reasonable amount of money? £60,000 is a great wage. They could live very well on half that and take their expenses out the rest. Everyone else, no matter how deserving is expected to cut their cloth according to their means which is fair enough. The mystery is why Mps can't do the same.
I know I won't get heads on sticks, if I did the world viewed from the moon would resemble a party hedgehog of slaughter, which spoilsports object to. That being the case would MPs mind awfully treating us us all as equals and spread the cash bonanza or reign their Viv Nicholson instincts right in.
Cheerio
Why the world persists in provoking me remains a mystery. Every so often I try to be reasonable. I sit myself down and say Clairwil, 'forgive them for they know not what they do'. It doesn't work 'they' are a bunch of demons. In this case 'they' are our political representatives and they've riled me with their wicked expenses fest.
As long term readers (they do exist- I am convinced of it) are well aware I toil in the welfare rights racket for most of my working week. A phrase that regularly pops up in explaining benefit levels is 'applicable amount'. The applicable amount is set by civil servants who clearly haven't tried living on it and agreed by MPs. So, for example were my boss to get her dearest wish and toss me onto the dole tomorrow. My applicable amount as a spinster of the Central Parish would be a whopping £59:15. That is the amount the law says I need to live on. If I moved Mr Clairwil in and he was unemployed we'd get £92:80 between us. No matter how much I wanted a new kitchen, bathroom, stationary, holiday I couldn't claim any expenses. Not even for traveling to job interviews or buying a cheap interview suit. In fact the state would be under no obligation to keep a roof over my head. My monthly JSA wouldn't even cover my monthly mortgage payment and I'd be ineligible for help with the interest payments for 26 weeks -by which time my lender would have turfed me out. It may surprise you to learn that if I had a second home I wouldn't be able to claim for that either.
The Loretto educated (fees £12,000 p/a roughly equal to two years Incapacity Benefit) Alisdair Darling, has claimed in the past that folk on benefits have it too easy. That there is no excuse for folk lying about doing nothing whilst taking money from the public purse. This isn't an argument without merit there is a substantial minority that rip the piss out the system and they should be dealt with, but lets face it the jobseeker doing a couple of cash in hand cleaning shifts a week deserves more of our sympathy than the self serving principle vacuums at Westminster. It would be nice if our elected friends led by example on that one. Mind you scapegoating the poor does wonders for taking the heat off oneself.
MPs' expenses are set against the 'John Lewis list' -the maximum amount that can be claimed for little extras in one's second home -which can also be claimed for. Our remarkable benefit system allows folk on Income Support to claim something called a 'Community Care Grant' if they are deemed to belong to a vulnerable group (disabled, homeless etc). Folk claiming a Community Care Grant are subject to and I'm not making this up the 'Argos list' . However Community Care Grants shouldn't be confused with expenses. No-one is guaranteed one and payouts are limited by the local budget as well as the Argos list. In my entire six years in the benefits racket I cannot think of a single instance of a claimant getting all they asked for even on the most modest claim and that includes the most pitiful request that only a Nazi would find undeserving. The all time killer being a request for a camping heater from a 96 year old fellow spinster privately renting an unheated bedsit. Not a typical case by any means but galling when considered in the context of £10,000 claims for a new kitchen by MPs paid £60,227 p/a. I should also point out that MPs expenses are unaffected by local budgets.
I'm also puzzled as to why I am expected to take my work expenses out of my own pocket when the local MP refers any case he can't be bothered with to me. I'm not able to claim overtime for the hours I've spent this week on three really tricky cases he's dumped on me. I earn £20,000 p/a, a third of his wage yet I am expected to work three times as hard. It's just as well I can though because if forced to live on what he thinks I'm worth on Incapacity Benefit or Jobseekers Allowance I'd be homeless.
What makes politicians so grand that they cannot be held to the 'Argos list'? Are they saying that every MP is inherently better or more deserving than the elderly, the sick, the disabled? If so then let's hear the arguments. What is it that makes MPs so high maintenance that they can't get by on a reasonable amount of money? £60,000 is a great wage. They could live very well on half that and take their expenses out the rest. Everyone else, no matter how deserving is expected to cut their cloth according to their means which is fair enough. The mystery is why Mps can't do the same.
I know I won't get heads on sticks, if I did the world viewed from the moon would resemble a party hedgehog of slaughter, which spoilsports object to. That being the case would MPs mind awfully treating us us all as equals and spread the cash bonanza or reign their Viv Nicholson instincts right in.
Cheerio
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