Saturday 13 March 2010

The Definition of a Main Address



I'm sure most of the interested population were raging yesterday when they heard Baroness Uddin was not to be prosecuted for defrauding the public of £100,000.

Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, denounced the change in the law made last month. It allows peers to designate as their main home a property they visit no more than once a month. The Lords' House Committee believed a 'main residence' might only need to be visited by a peer once a month.

The Labour peer and donor Lord Paul revealed this week that he would not be prosecuted either. He was investigated by police after he admitted that he never slept in the property outside London he called his main home.

A law rushed through the Lords to protect their own who steal from the taxpayer. A 'main address' requires only one visit a month. A woman, who is in the top 2% of earners in the UK, lives in social housing with a subsidised rent and yet no questions are asked. More 'lords and ladies' submit fraudulent claims and will face no further police investigation. Lords and ladies they are not; they are thieves.

The electorate are being treated as fools and unless we demand more of our MPs then we are fools. For starters, isn't it time we demanded self-regulation anywhere in government was ceased?

18 comments:

JPT said...

Baroness Uddin = the sly subtle radicalisation of Britain.

Quiet_Man said...

We should be so lucky as to even to be able to afford a second residence, never mind keep it standing empty.

Sooner we start hanging a few pour encourager les autres the better.

Sandy said...

Strange, that is not the definition used by the DHSS.

I wonder why that is ?

JRB said...

Such is the obscenity that is the culture of greed and sleaze which our politicians have wrapped themselves in.

Baroness Uddin avoided prosecution thanks only to a recent ruling by her fellow Lords which conveniently stated that peers could nominate a property as their "main home” even if they only "visited" it once a month.

In an equally cynical abuse of the law, three MPs are invoking a three-hundred year old law in an effort to avoid public persecution.

Come back Guy Fawkes, all is forgiven, and FYI - Semtex works wonders.

Oldrightie said...

"The electorate are being treated as fools and unless we demand more of our MPs then we are fools. "

The electorate, we are told by opinion polls, are chafing at the bit to vote this crowd of thieving crooks back in. Ergo, we, as a nation, appear to be the fools the ruling junta take us for.

subrosa said...

Nearly completed radicalisation JPT.

subrosa said...

To be honest QM I think they'll all get away with it, each and every one of them. If this woman managed it I don't see why the others won't too.

subrosa said...

I wonder why they didn't use the DSS definition Sandy. That's a silly question - we know the answer.

subrosa said...

They seem in touchable JRB. I remember many years ago having lunch in Westminster with a friend who worked there. She talked about two MPs who had been recently bankrupted but the public never knew because MPs closed ranks. She was astonished at what they got away with. (My friend was a trainee accountant with one of the big firms and was seconded there for some reason. So long ago now I don't remember all the detail.)

subrosa said...

Yes indeed OR and we're not demanding higher standards of our MPs and others. The words high standards seem to have vanished. They were always around in my younger days.

Apogee said...

Oh dear, before the Race Stazi start screaming, I am talking genetics, what everyone has in their make up.
Look at the family histories of these people. It is possible you may find a predisposition to this kind of behavour.
Rich family in the States adopted a kid from birth,and after 25 years of nothing but trouble, crime wise. They decided to find out why,and they had the money to do it, the kid had never wanted for anything. So they researched the history of this childs parentage, was not easy but money was not a problem.
After a long ,long hunt, they found a history of criminality in his family that went back a couple of centuries.The adoption authority had known a little but didn't mention it.
There are places in this country where to mention a name in conversation will spontaneously bring forth a litany of crime spanning generations without the person you are talking to being asked for that information.
Some years ago I read of an area in Pakistan,up in the north west which was apparantly well known for producing thieves and bandits.
Just as animals are bred for particular characteristics, so can be humans, either by accident or design.
So while the individual is not to blame for their family, the history of that family could well be a factor in the suitability of that person to be in a place of responsibility in a government.Most people are aware of this at some level of conciousness ,and it may explain how so many in both the commons and Lords have the same behavour characteristics.
Just a thought.

Sandy said...

Thanks SR I wasn't really looking for an answer ;)

But the comparison is worth expanding though, that both are recieving public funds on certain conditions.

DSS recipients are however treated like potential criminals unless they can prove at regular intervals they are doing nothing wrong. Constant threats of criminal proceedings against those suspected of abusing the system and squads of inspectors investigating claimants.

MPs and the Lords, well that is different.

subrosa said...

A well reasoned thought Apogee.

On a lighter note, do you think genetics cause so many to vote labour in the west? ;)

subrosa said...

That's exactly why we have to protest loudly Sandy. How can we change the system? They'll never change it that's for sure. Oh they'll tickle round the edges and explain their 'work' with much verbosity but we know what they're doing. Nothing really.

Joe Public said...

They ought to sack those who wrote the rules, and, those who approved the rules.

subrosa said...

Well said Joe and too damned right.

But of course the majority will vote for those who abuse us hoi polloi sadly.

Anonymous said...

Mandleson must be mighty sure of himself to allow this to go on only weeks before an election.

He must be very sure that Brits are the kind of people who just sit back and wait for the next bucket of "waste product" to be dropped on them by the aristocracy.

If you are a plebeian, the rules of the DWP apply and you get prison. If you are an aristo the rules of the House of Lords apply and you continue to steal your way through life cheating on your benefit claims and (at least in this case recorded by a member of the investigative team of a broadsheet newspaper) cheating on your attendance allowance too, by turning up in the chamber and ducking out 5 minutes later and taking a taxi for other parts.

There are around 900 of them. On the basis that over half the Commons were found to be cheating on their benefits that means that a further 450+ in the aristos house are also benefit cheats.

I never thought I’d say this but I genuinely think the French had the right idea about these people. I wish the Brits were gutsy enough to say “Stop. You are just the same as us even although you have a title... in this woman’s case for her work for women’s rights. Now live by the same rules or you lose your fat head”.

Where's me knitting? Je vais ĂȘtre tricoteur!

subrosa said...

Among my friends Tris, they just say that this is the norm from our great and good. Terrrible that we've got to the stage of accepting such fraud without punishment.

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