U.K A Very Good Day For Burying Bad News

07 Apr 2010 01:11 AM PDT

Whilst the rest of us were yesterday marking that benchmark moment in our democracy when an election is called, the House of Lords was the scene of an awful climax to their Lordships’ expenses scandal.

78-year-old Lord Clarke of Hampstead was being flogged at the yard arm. Hard to know whether to feel sorry or angry for Clarke, a former postman and trades unionist.

Once an election is called, journalists go into overdrive. It’s a genuinely exciting time – a voyage into the unknown whose ending will affect all our lives.

Hence it was not until I crawled into bed at 11.43pm last night and turned on Today in Parliament, that by chance I heard the miserable peer quite literally reduced to tears as he was forced to make a public and
grovelling apology for over-claiming his expenses.

According to The Sunday Times, he had claimed some £18,000 a year for overnight stays in London when in fact he had driven home to St Albans – an hour away. It was a horrible sound, this poor old man –
taken to the pinnacle of his powers in his sixties as Chairman of the
Labour Party – was reduced to scattering his dignity all over the floor
of the House.

And yet what he did, he has told The Times newspaper, was a consequence itself of ‘peer pressure’.

“I got the impression that if I didn’t do what people did, it could bring a bad light on someone else”, he told the paper last year.

The police and the CPS had the decency not to prosecute Clarke, for ‘lack of evidence’. That in itself represents a damning indictment of the entire Lords’ expenses system.

There was, quite simply no paper trail, because Lords expenses were quite simply un-receipted. There was, it seems, a help yourself to the taxpayers’ till attitude. At least a dozen peers have been identified as
having charged – not the £18,000 a year that Clarke charged, but
hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for years. Nothing will happen to
them either.

The Lords Speaker Lady Hayman, herself listed as having charged for an out of town home as her place of residence whilst retaining another in London, has presided over a decision to regard visiting a home once a
month, as enough proof of primary residence for expenses claims.

But no other peer has had to do what was demanded of Clarke. He’s the first peer to have to publicly confess. To hear a 78-year-old cry in the hallowed confines of the House of Lords is bad enough. Will he be
the last?

Can it really be that after the abuse of a system that has cost tax payers millions of pounds, just one old man is to pay with his dignity? A good day for burying bad news?

Source: Snowblogs

Views: 49

Comment

You need to be a member of 12160 Social Network to add comments!

Join 12160 Social Network

"Destroying the New World Order"

TOP CONTENT THIS WEEK

THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SITE!

mobile page

12160.info/m

12160 Administrators

 

Latest Activity

Burbia posted a video

"EVERYONE'S BEEN SHOT UP HERE": Arsonists Set Wildfire In Idaho, Open Fire On Firefighters, Police

- Shocking news just broke that multiple firefighters and officers were shot in an ambush at the Canfield Mountain Natural Area in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.Acco...
13 hours ago
Doc Vega posted a blog post

Well Known Wilderness Photographer Disappears in the Cascades-Guess Why?

 In August of 2023 another aficionado of the great outdoors went missing. The chilling revelations…See More
20 hours ago
Doc Vega posted a blog post

The Draconian Show

Sometimes I talk to my invisible friend, IkeHe comes from another dimension when magnetic fields…See More
Friday
tjdavis posted a blog post
Thursday
Doc Vega posted a blog post
Wednesday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
Tuesday
Doc Vega posted blog posts
Jun 23
Doc Vega favorited tjdavis's photo
Jun 22
Doc Vega commented on tjdavis's photo
Thumbnail

Game Night

"Ha! Good one!"
Jun 22
Doc Vega commented on FREEDOMROX's blog post MRNA VACCINES: Question
"Listen man I know where you're at but back in October of 2023 thru December of 2023 for months…"
Jun 22
tjdavis posted a video

Architecton | Official Trailer HD | A24

SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/A24subscribeWritten and directed by Victor Kossakovsky and starring Michele De Lucchi. ARCHITECTON – Coming Soon RELEASE DATE: Comin...
Jun 22
tjdavis posted photos
Jun 22
tjdavis posted a blog post
Jun 21
Burbia posted a video

Europe Will Not Survive

The hubris.All things Archaix at www.archaix.com
Jun 21
FREEDOMROX posted a video
Jun 21
Burbia commented on tjdavis's blog post Track AIPAC
Jun 20
rlionhearted_3 commented on Doc Vega's blog post Latest Details on Missile Exchanges Between Iran and Israel
"May get really ugly over there?"
Jun 20
Doc Vega posted a blog post

Latest Details on Missile Exchanges Between Iran and Israel

Latest information about the air attacks between Israel and Iran as the US moves another carrier…See More
Jun 19
tjdavis favorited Less Prone's video
Jun 19
tjdavis posted a blog post
Jun 19

© 2025   Created by truth.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service

content and site copyright 12160.info 2007-2019 - all rights reserved. unless otherwise noted