Why the expenses story is so damaging for Brown

Mark

Frugal son of the Manse! Just think of his Mrs putting on the nosebag with the arch apologist and hypocrite J K Rowling, while Madame Obama looks on. Sigh.

bitter and twisted

As I said in an earlier post, I think this is definitely big for Brown. The fortune paid for a cleaner for a FLAT! I have a family of six and a cleaner once a week on a house in London and it's nothing like that. Also, to think that it is morally acceptable that the taxpayer should be picking up the tab...this will not wash with the public!
This will be very awkward for Brown.
Interestingly, one of Iain Dale's contributors said the amount spent on the cleaner was JUST under what was needed to have to produced a receipt (this from memory, so apologies if not quite correct)

Marbury

I disagree. Stories like this only do real damage if they capture some fundamental truth about the person. McBridegate was damaging because it revealed a truth about Brown's political style. This story won't do much harm because, whatever his faults are, he is not - as even you must admit - a lazy and self-enriching politician. It won't stick.

Vulture

Last night's Question Time ( recorded before the Expenses story broke) came from Dunfermline in Bruin's constituency. I was struck by the number of people there who attacked Bruin and applauded attacks on him by Brute Anderson and Nadine Dorries though there were, natch, an Amen Chorus for whom he can do no wrong. I'd say that even there abt 50 percent of the audience were anti-Bruin, and this on his propaganda moutpiece Bruin Broadcasting Corporation. The game is up for the man who has ruined Britain.

Anand

Just had a look at the cleaners contract released by Downing Street on the Guardian website.

Brown pays for a 3 hour and a 4 hour cleaning session, but it is unknown as to at which locations. It is difficult to justify the requirement for a twice weekly cleaning service and I would venture to guess the redacted addresses show the true issue with this cleaning debacle.

I would bet good money that there are in fact 3 different addresses being cleaned as part of the overall contract, Mr Brown's flat, his brothers flat and one as yet unidentified place. Perhaps it is the flat owned by Sarah Brown before she married and which is in all likelyhood still kept in her name and being rented out privately for profit. I bet Brown has been charging the cleaning of this 3rd flat on expenses, which SHOULD be against the rules.

Alan Phillips

This is a sham, any serving government minister in G&F housing has very limited expenditure requirements, the fact that Gordon has the prime G&F abode with all the trapping that go with it show how crooked the system is. And forget the hotel option too, this would automatically prime the prices, and where should they stay Travellodge or the Dorchester? The Olympic village might be a great option, afterall, why pay twice...

RobertD

£6,000 over 26 months = £230 per month. Cleaning a small flat that is hardly used as owner has taxpayer provided residence from himself and family can't take more than 2 hours per week. At London cleaner rates of £10 per hour = £80 per month maximum.
THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE AND PASS THE TEST OF TAXPAYER VALUE, even if the claim is acceptable in principle.

It certainy does not pass the "wholly, necessarily, and exclusively for the purposes of the employment", supported with proper documentation, test that HMRC applies to the rest of us.

C Powell

The detail of the story is NOT "less bad"! Get a grip, will you!

This man has been living in a "grace and favour" house since 1997 in London and has had the use of a country home as well. A second home in London - let alone the cleaning bill - simply was not an expense within the rules since it was not "wholly, exclusively and necessarily" needed for his duties as an MP. These are the words in the rules and they are the same as the IR rules which apply to the rest of us.

What you journalists are wholly failing to understand is that these are expenses are not within the rules, even as drafted by the MPs themselves. Just because the Fees Office approved them does not make them within the rules, though that is the disingenuous nonsense being peddled by the likes of Harman, Bell, Mandelson and the rest and you're all falling for it.

All the monies claimed for TVs, toilet seats, plastic bags, 59p chocolate Santas, nappies etc should be repaid in full with interest, just as Straw should repay interest on the money he wrongly claimed for his council tax.

This is fraud and what is lacking are not "rules" or "clarity" or any other of the weaselly nonsense we're being fed but honesty and integrity.

That's what will stick in folks' minds because it is true. A pity that journalists apparently can't see this.

adrian drummond

What was his cleaner's hourly rate? I couldn't afford her and imagine most others too.

Austin Barry

I don't think Brown's cleaning costs destroy his image as a frugal Son of the Manse, rather they enhance it - he's using our money rather than his, frugality personified.

Sir Graphus

It's rather a lot to pay a cleaner. It's also rather ill-advised to have any relationship with a lobbyist, although normally the money would flow the other way. He can't help having a brother, but I'd be happier if there were a bit more visible distance between them, given their respective professions.

The cleaner issue is probably all above board. It might be worth a squint at EDF's activities.

Liz Brown

Doesn't the tax payer pay for his Sky subscription, lightbulbs and etcs/ No, Gormeles' hands are not clean

catesby

£8 an hour would have been a generous rate for a cleaner in 2006. Any self respecting cleaner could "do" a family house in 3-4 hours. Brown appears to have claimed double this for a small flat. Was the cleaner also doing Brown's washing and ironing his shirts? It's the only explanation I can think of.

John Page

There's plenty in Brown's arrangements that was petty and grasping, reflecting the man.

C Powell

Anand: you make an interesting point. Note that the cleaner was being paid for 10 hours work a week and the claim of £6557 was over 26 weeks, which works out at £25 per hour. Are we supposed to believe that Gordon's share was half of this and that she was being paid £50 per hour. Even £25 per hour is excessive. I just don't believe we're being told the truth.

@ Marbury: I disagree. Gordon has abused the second home allowance to allow his wife to take a large lump sum in cash out of his second home paid for by us and conveniently transferred into her name. The McBride affair showed that Brown's claim to be an honest sort of person was so much phooey and this story just adds to that.

Anand

Totally Agree C Powell, there is no argument for maintaining a 2nd home in London when living in Grace and Favour accommodation, and definately no argument for putting ANY of the costs associated with such a technically 3rd home through the ACA system. Its in BREACH of the rules and needs repaying.

It beggars belief that the PRIME MINISTER claims ACA on a THIRD home when he has been living in Downing Street since 1997

DaveP

Some journalist now needs to find the cleaner, if they even exist. Would make a good read.

Anand

It is a fair rate for the cleaner, £357 a month for 43.33 hours a month according to the contract. That's just over £8 an hour, a good rate for a London cleaner.

Browns portion according to the contract is for 7 of the 10 hours a week, so 70% of 357, guess what this amounts to each month?

You guesed it, £249.90p a month

JUST inside the limit where a receipt would have been necessary. I have the feeling this STINKS to high heaven of engineering to squeeze the taxpayer for the maximum un-audited sum.

Ian C

James,

Get Fraser to get the NotW to send their friendly investigative reporter to find the cleaner who cleaned his flat to establish the location. He has been married since 2000 so it should be easy to trace.

Surely Brown has been living in either no 10 or No 11 Downing Street and these are cleansed by the civil service. He has only been Chancellor or PM so why should he be entitled to claim a separate London house allowance when his job(s)had more than one provided?

Forlornehope

What could McBride have made of "sharing the services of a cleaner."?

Talia

A cleaner is a luxury: I cannot afford to have a cleaner. Whether or not he broke any rules, we should not have to pay when he chooses to employ domestic help.

The Bellman

It adds a little to our stock of knowledge of his character: as well as frugal, he's a dirty sod.

I can just see him, slumped on a badly-stuffed sofa in front of *Newsnight* - possibly throwing the odd empty can of lager at Paxman - his badly-shaven jowls pouched with Wotsits, lips and chin dusted a livid orange, with takeaway containers strewn on a floor awash with nail-bitings, cracked Nokia fascias and broken moral compasses.

Dave

Actually, the cost could be justified by Brown. If you look at the nosepicking he exhibits in the Commons, he probably does much worse at home, hence extra scrubbing manpower.

Wily Trout

I have just heard a story about a recent meeting of headteachers, called to give their opinions and expertise straight to Brown. They gave their views and Brown didn't like what he heard, so he swore at them, screwed up a piece of paper he had before him and threw it at the wpb, and shouted 'NEXT' before having them ushered out. They were flabbergasted.

CarolineL

£3000 over 26 months for cleaning. That's not much. Or should we pay cleaners less than this? Eh? Yes I suppose Gordon Brown got into politics so that he could line his own nest along with Jack Straw by claiming paltry amounts from the parliamentary expenses system. What a non-story. Maybe there should be more conversation about issues that have some substance. All this story seems to show is that the expenses system is unnecessarily complicated and bureacratic and certainly needs an overhaul, but to focus the main political debate on this (as if the cabinet are all greedy and corrupt) rather than on the real political issues is just pandering to low order stupidity I'm afraid.

strapworld

For a man that keeps telling us all about the minimum wage LOOK at what he pays his gardener in Scotland!
£1500 a year! £4.11p a day ('51375pence an hour)
£28.85 a month!

If that same gardener is employed for only six months the figures are:- £8.196 a day -£1.025 an hour and £250 a month.

Obviously Brown does not practice what he preaches.

Alfred T Mahan

Anyone want to start a fighting fund for a private prosecution for fraud of some of these contemptible crooks? I'd chip in.

Jonathan

CarolineL: "£3000 over 26 months for cleaning. That's not much."

according to figures released by Downing Street. The PM was paying £35.70 per hour for the cleaner.

Now some of that will be employers national insurance premiums etc... but she must have got at least £25 per hour. Which doesn't sound too bad to me.

Anand

Lots of misinformation being peddled all over the interwebs today, Brown himself has been paying £249.90 a MONTH for 7 hours cleaning every WEEK, go do the maths and come back with the real hourly rate which is about spot on market rates.

Real question is why he needs 7 hours a week of cleaning and why on his 3rd home is it paid for by the taxpayer.

Forlornehope

He must have the domestic habits of Rab C Nesbitt to require that amount of cleaning. Then again, he probably has.f

Robert

"Jonathan
May 8th, 2009 2:40pm

... The PM was paying £35.70 per hour for the cleaner....

If you believe that, you'll believe anything; we have to ask: "what exactly was paid, and where did the difference go?"

The going rate would be around £10/hour.........let's ask the cleaner.....!

peter

Smear tactics.

Nothing more.

Short on facts, long on character assassination.

Good ol' Spectator.

rmh

I wonder if she was cleaning up his mobile phone filled walls, washing his laundry, ironing his shirts and so on.

Was this a full domestic service or was this a hoover, a dusting and a wash the bog style arrangement?

3 hours to clean a family home (with a 3 years old) is a decent amount to get a decent cleaning standard.

Seeing as he famously worked 12 hour days, just wtf kind of mess was he making in his bed, kitchen, bathroom and lounge?

Was Neil from the Young Ones crashing there?

David Lindsay

Gordon Brown's cleaner, blah, blah, blah.

The widest incomes gap since the Sixties.

Child poverty targets simply scrapped.

Four British soldiers killed in Afghanistan in a single day.

And absolutely no difference between the parties.

Which there isn't: the Tories' "do nothing" economic policy would by definition translate into "change nothing" if they moved from Opposition to Government.

It was not worth holding the last two General Elections, and it is not worth holding the next one.

Derek

I wouldn't call it fraud; I'd call it theft.

Tankus

what are the tax implications of the cleaner being paid by a third party ?

was there police vetting ?

jim

@CarolineL.
I suppose the story is trivial but it is easier for people to connect with. It is immoral cheap behaviour and captures all the elements of what has gone wrong.
The real issue is trillions chucked away on nothing and imminent national bankruptcy, but many still don't want to believe it. So trivia will suffice for now. Rage comes later.

hadrian

In my innocence I had always assumed 'expenses' were paid for costs incurred in the line of WORK, not domestic arrangements. Wish I could afford a cleaner but as it is I cannot- No expenses are offered and my modest salary means I hive to hoover, dust ect myself or one of the family do, at any rate. Most 'hard working families', to use Broon's phrase, just don't stretch to taxpayers covering their domestic chores! Disgraceful!

dearieme

Someone should surely check to see whether his brother was also able to claim cleaning expenses from his employer, and, if so, how many hours he was claimimg for.

mac

Peter,

Exactly what the noble Lord Mandelson's saying.
Are you in any way related?

TGF UKIP

Don't worry chaps, even now the newshounds will probably be out tracking down said cleaner.

The probable explanation seems to me crystal clear. Little brother works for a company in the private sector influencing his big brother on said company's nuclear ambitions. However, even said company would not wear their Director of Corporate Communications putting his domestic cleaning costs through on his exes.

Bet any money, we have been paying little brother's cleaning bills for him via big brother's ACA claims.

PS Don't forget this is only the start. So many dubious claims and so many dubious explanations, journos all over the country are going to have a field day tracking down and exposing all the fibbing and crookery.

CarolineL

Jim (and others) - my point is exactly that this issue is in many aspects a trivial one. There are certainly cases that need to be looked at more closely and a more clear set of guidelines for MPs to avoid expense claims that are against the spirit of the rules, but I haven't seen *any* examples of clear corruption from this current release of expense claim information. This doesn't indicate immorality or even cheap behaviour necessarily. The issue I have with all of this is that the press is latching on to this issue to garner a 'lowest common denominator' knee-jerk response which is reciprocated by the news-consuming public by and large, and so the feedback loop continues. I think that politicians of all parties are damaged by this kind of coverage, not just the current cabinet. Maybe I'll sound idealistic here but I know that the vast majority of MPs do a great deal of hard work and I'm not really interested in trivial fault-finding. Of course corruption should be pointed up but that is not what we have here so far. It doesn't help things when Harriet Harman, for example, rises to the bait and remarks that the expense claims 'look bad'. I actually disagree with her - in large part most of what I've seen doesn't seem very worthy of comment at all. Let's not let trivialities drive the political debate and entrench views in a school playground fashion - let's engage our brains instead!

CarolineL

oops ...and spell trivialise properly! :)

UK Fred

Can anyone, GB especially, explain why MP's allowances are not subject to the rule of "wholly, necessarily and exclusively" for the purposes of the job, the taxation rules that the rest of us have to suffer? Why are MP's allowances exempt from taxatin.

Rhys Burriss

Which Party leader will have the imagination to declare as follows:

##

In the light of the sacrifices which the electorate will have to make to put the economy right following politicians' mal-governance, those of us privileged to be entrusted to become MPs and Government Ministers after the next election shall be required to give a lead and make appropriate sacrifices as regards our remuneration.

Accordingly, if my Party is returned to Parliament with a majority at the next General Election its first task shall be to vote through the following provisions:

1] A reduction of MPs' basic salary to £50,000 p.a. (approximately 200% of the national average wage ) - this stipend to be fixed for the duration of the next Parliament with no possibility of uprating for inflation or any other reason;

2] Total abolition of 'second home's allowance' - for the three or four nights per week when Parliament is sitting MPs may claim - against receipts - hotel expenditures of a maximum of £100 per night ( unless their constituencies are within a 90 minute commute of Westminster when they may claim nothing ) ;

3] Neither the Prime Minister ( if I am elected ) nor any other Government minister shall be paid a penny in addition to our already generous MP's stipend for the extreme privilege of being not only an MP but a member of the Government;

4] MPs shall be permitted one full time member of staff at Westminster and one in their constituency office, the stipends of each of these staffers to be £25,000 p.a. ( approximately the national average wage ).

This statement of my Party's absolute pledge is given now to enable all of my Party's intending candidates for Parliament
to decide whether they still hope to serve under these, admittedly, less generous arrangements. If they prefer to withdraw, and to make way for candidates whose principal motivation is to serve the electorate ( rather than to help themselves to taxpayers' money ) all to the good. ## ?
I submit that not only is a statement such as that above necessary to begin the climb-back to public respect from the gutter and pigstrough into which the majority of members of Parliament have abased themselves - but also it would guarantee that Leader's Party 's election to Government.

For MPs to plead that the House authorities signed off on their blatant dishonesty is absurd. If the House civil servants told an MP he could knock someone on the head with a hammer it would not excuse the offence of Actual Bodily Harm.

Similarly with dishonesty and fraud. The offences are those of the MPs making the dishonest, fraudulent claim. If civil servants aided and abetted that is no defence to the principal offender.

Charlie

There is sufficient doubt for brown to justify the cleaning bill. A 2 bed flat should not take more than 2 hours to clean.
10 hrs per week to clean a 2 bed flat, no wonder we do not get value for money from our taxes.

Johnny

If you recognise, as you seem to, that it is an unfair story and that there is no wrong-doing, then shouldn't you condemn the Telegraph for running it?

Shameful coverage

porkus

Fraud Act 2006 = Any taxpayer can ask for legal aid to recover money from a public servant. Just don't get killed in the rush !!

Dave Joned

The Snouting Tories in tomorrow papers....strange that the Spectator aren't running repetitive big headlines for the blue piggies in the trough.......wonder why?