Eric Illsley MP to answer false accounting charges

Eric Illsley, who bagged himself £6000 by over-claiming for bills on his parliamentary expenses, is the latest MP to find himself in hot water as the expenses scandal rolls ever onward. The Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed that the Labour representative for Barnsley South, a seat he has held since 1987, has been summoned to appear in court where he'll be asked to answer three charges under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 of false accounting, says Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer. Illsley was one of the MPs identified by the Daily Telegraph in June last year for having made false council tax claims, having received over £10,000 for his second home, a South London property, in four years, despite the fact that council tax on the Band C house would have come to £3,996 over the same period. As he claimed regular payments of £200, he did not have to supply receipts in order to receive these amounts. He is alleged to have falsely claimed more than £20,000 in total between May 2006 and April 2008 and will appear at Westminster Magistrate's Court on June the 17th.

So far, three other MPs - all Labour - and one Conservative peer have been charged under the same act. All deny any wrongdoing. Evidence on a total of eight MPs has been handed to the CPS for a decision as to whether prosecution is in the public interest.

No futher details as of yet, but we shall - of course - be keeping a close eye on developments.

Osborne possibly faces possible reprimand, possibly

The name Julie Brighouse probably means nothing to you. We'd never heard of her until now either. All we really need to say about her is that she lived with her partner for seven months in a house near Tamworth - the trouble is, she was claiming housing benefit and income support during that time and "forgot" to let the benefits agency know she was not living alone. As a result, she was paid £5,329.89 to which she was not entitled.

Ms. Brighouse got caught, and was accused of benefits fraud. Once found guilty, she had to pay back the full sum along with costs amounting to £725 and was also required to complete 100 hours of community service.

You have almost certainly heard of George Osborne, because he's the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, the MP for Tatton in Cheshire and a man who has been the target of more than one article here - we maintain a particular loathing for him as one of Cameron's cronies and make no claims otherwise. Your man Ozzy finds himself standing outside the headmaster's office this morning because Parliamentary Standards Commissioner John Lyon says that he shouldn't have stated the mortgage on his constituency home - which he had declared to be his second home, thus making himself able to claim the mortgage payments on his expenses bill even though the second home allowance is actually supposed to be for MPs to buy a home in London so they can attend debates in the Commons (more about Ozzy's mortgage-related shenanigans here) - was £450,000 when it was, in fact, £445,000.

Citizens of Tatton! Want to see your MP picking the dog eggs off the grass and fishing the Special Brew cans out of the lake in your local park? We thought you might - we would too, even though doing so would mean travelling considerably further north than we're generally comfortable doing (even after immunisation shots). However - you can't. That's because George Osborne is one of the Special People and doesn't get punished for fraud like us common folk.

Five grand doesn't sound a vast amount of cash when we're talking about the price of a grotty council flat off half a million quid. But as Councillor Robert Pritchard of Tamworth Borough Council said following the prosecution of Ms. Brighouse, it's "a considerable amount of money which should have gone to someone who really needed it." As in, not to somebody who has a fortune of over £4 million and stands to inherit both the Baronetcy of Ballentaylor and a tasty share of his dad's profitable interior decor business. In other words, not somebody like George Osborne. With a salary of at least £64,766 he could in all probability be said to be in a position to pay his own chauffeur fees and still have change to buy a couple of DVDs of a speech given by himself, rather amusingly on the subject of value for taxpayer's money.

Now, never let it be said that Acid Rabbi treats people unfairly (even though such an allegation is undoubtedly true). In Ozzy's defence, we'll mention the fact that John Lyon has accepted the MP's claims that everything he claimed he claimed in good faith, having quite rightly sought advice from Commons authorities. We'll accept that - Lyon doesn't seem the sort of chap who will fall for any old bullshit to us. We do wonder, however, if those authorities standard reply to any question that boils (with very little heat) down to "can I rip off the British electorate please?" is: "Hey, why not? Go ahead, and sod the proles!"

Despite all that, Lyon believes that Osborne has not been entirely honest in his claims and, later today, George will hear whether or not he is going to face any sort of reprimand. One thing that seems certain is that he will be required to pay something back, something said by the BBC to be a "relatively small amount of money." Not the full amount plus costs then, like Julie Brighouse? It seems safe to assume you won't be able to see Osborne picking up litter and removing graffiti in any Cheshire parks while doing community service, either. Pity, really - I'd take a few dogs down there the night before and get them to do what dogs do best.

Ms. Brighouse may be a benefits cheat, but we think her punishment was sufficient and we're sure she's very sorry. She really doesn't need to have the obvious fact that MPs are not subject to the same laws to which the rest of us must comply rammed down her throat too.

Nice work if you can get it...

Jim Hood (pictured right, in an image that rather reminds us of Godzilla attacking Tokyo), the Labour MP for Lanark and Hamilton East, has another job outside the Commons of which many of us would be envious - because it pays him money even when he doesn't do any work.

Mr. Hood receives a £7500 per annum retainer from Scottish Coal to act as its Parliamentary Advisor, which is paid to him in monthly installments. Under new rules, MPs must declare all money earned from second jobs, rather than just in £5000 increments as was previously the case. The MP's latest declaration reveals that he worked "nil hours" for one installment.

That's £625 for doing bugger all. Not a massive amount of money, all things considered, but like we say - nice work if you can get it.

Keens win back home

Ann and Alan Keen, the MP couple who have been in the news regularly of late since Hounslow Council contacted them wanting to know why they hadn't lived in the property designated as their official main home for at least seven months and threatening to take possession of it if they didn't come up with some convincing reasons pretty sharpish, have won the legal fight to evict the squatters who moved into the house and hung a massive sign reading "reclaiming your taxes" on the front.


According to Commons rules on claiming expenses, an MP's main home should be the one at which they spend most nights. They are then required to foot the bill for that property, but are free to make claims to cover the costs of a second home nearer Parliament (nine miles away, in the Keens' case) - which is what the Keens have been doing with their £750,000 flat in Westminster, even though it was claimed in court that they had not lived in the Brentford main home since August 2008. Though the couple say that they have lived in the Westminster flat only while renovations are in progress at the main home - reports suggest that no work has taken place there in eight months - Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon seems to feel the case is questionable since he has agreed to carry out further investigation.

Guido Fawkes, the king of political bloggers, raises an interesting conundrum. Pointing out that it may be merely a question of semantics, he noticed that during one court exchange only Mr. Keen was named as the Brentford property's owner. This does rather force one to wonder, if that's the case, how it was that Mrs. Keen was then able to claim expenses for the second home since if Mr. Keen is the sole legal owner of the Brentford house the Westminster flat is technically her only home and as such can only be designated her main residence. It certainly seems that she may have at the very least bent the rules somewhat there...unless, of course, there's a third property tucked away somewhere, of which she is the legal owner. You'd have thought that were that the case, we'd know about it by now but then again, when it comes to people of this calibre you never can tell. We'll be keeping a very keen eye out for anything interesting that the Commissioner's investigation may discover.

Mr. and Mrs. Expenses face investigation

Ann and Alan Keen found themselves in the news a couple of weeks back when it emerged that Hounslow Council were threatening to take ownership of their Brentford home if the couple - who are both MPs - failed to explain why the property had been left empty for more than seven months (possibly a year, according to some sources). They have since said that it is being renovated - but reports subsequently appeared saying that no work has been carried out on the site for eight months. According to The Guardian, neighbours claim they rarely saw the couple even prior to the date they are claiming work began on the house.

The Keens' "main home," empty for more than seven months, has been taken over by squatters who enjoy the support of many local residents.
Image from The Red Rag.

The house was subsequently taken over by squatters -with the support of many local residents - who hung a large sign reading "reclaiming your taxes" on the front of the building. A number of performing artists, including the well-known and very funny left-wing comedian Mark Thomas, have staged events at the property.

The couple have claimed more than £130,000 over the last four years to cover the costs of their official second home, situated in Westminster. As we are all well aware, the second home allowance is supposed to pay for a home closer to Parliament than an MP's main home (designated as the one at which they spend most nights) so that the MP can attend Commons debates without having to travel large distances daily. Brentford is nine miles away from Westminster - so if the likes of David Howarth and Grant Shapps can travel from their own constituencies of Cambridge and Welwyn Hatfield (50 and 20 miles respectively), what prevents the Keens from travelling such a short distance? I know people who have walked that far to get to work...but I suppose they weren't self-serving, money-grabbing scam artists so they don't count. Mr. Keen claimed £1611 for running a car in 2006-2007, so he wouldn't have had to walk anyway.

So not only is it highly morally questionable whether or not the Keens should have claimed for a second home that - by anyone else's judgement - they had no reasonable need for due to the fact that they were quite literally just down the road from their place of work, they also should not have claimed expenses for that property according to Commons rules because they have evidently been spending most nights there.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon appears to agree that it looks rather as though the Keens may have deliberately abused the system. As their constituencies (Brentford and Isleworth is Ann's, Alan represents Feltham and Heston) both fall outside the area designated inner London they are entitled to the second home allowance, no matter how unethical and ridiculous their claiming of it seems. But if the renovation story is true, they should at the very least have informed the Commons Fees Office and kept them up to date with what's going on. Meanwhile, the very fact that Mr. Lyon has agreed to investigate the case is an indication that feels there is sufficient reason to doubt the truth of those claims.

On the 25th of May this year, The Times printed a story revealing that Mrs. Keen had taken out a life insurance policy on her husband for £430,000, and then claimed the £867 monthly payments as part of her expenses which are supposed to cover costs arising directly as a result of a politician's work. Their Westminster flat cost £750,000, so not having to foot the bill for the Brentford house has no doubt been very useful in helping them meet the mortgage repayments. Don't forget that both of them receive the MPs' salary of £64,766 - plus Ann gets another £30,000 or so on top of that because she's also the Under-Secretary of State for Health Services. That title probably refers to the health of the couple's joint bank account - £159,532 is a fairly healthy annual income by anyone's standards. It's certainly enough to expect them to pay their own bills.

Here at Acid Rabbi, we've been trying our hardest to avoid using that ugly term troughers, of which the newspapers (and other bloggers) are so keen, but we really cannot think of a better term for Ann and Alan - or not one that wouldn't get us in trouble for slander, at any rate. While we cannot be certain just yet which property should really have been declared the main home, it is obvious that the Keens' main interest is in lining their own pockets and for that reason they must go.

The example set by MPs

There has been much in the news during the last few months on the apparent need for Parliament to clean up its act in order for it to set a good example to the public, a subject discussed by the really quite adorable Reverend Richard Coles - possibly Britain's only truly cool vicar - on yesterday's Daily Politics TV programme in his typically eloquent way.

Reverend Richard Coles - possibly Britain's only truly cool vicar.

MPs and their ethics, of lack thereof, has of course been the topic of a million news reports and probably even more blog posts (a sizable percentage of them here on Acid Rabbi). Rev. Coles is in a very good position to comment upon the supposed failure of Parliament to provide the electorate with moral guidance because of his position in the Church of England, an organisation that also once served in such a capacity but which has seen its authority all but vanish within the last couple of generations. But why did the public feel that they no longer needed to look to the Church for an ethical example? After all, a surprisingly large section of the population still believe in God - when asked, more than 70% will describe themselves as Christian (0.7% list their beliefs as Jedi - which amusingly outnumbers the 0.5% of us who are Jews).

Perhaps, in these days when almost all of us benefit from an education and access to a far larger amount of information than ever before, we feel that we are capable of deciding for ourselves. Most of us have well-formed values and morals of our own and will make our own minds up when confronted with decisions.

According to a 2007 BBC survey, 83% of the public believe that Britain is in a moral decline. Yet that same surveys reveals that 92% of people would stop to help a stranger who had collapsed in the street. Interestingly, 97% of those who claimed to have no religion said they'd help in this way, compared to 92% among those who claimed to be Christian.

Imagine that you are walking past a cash machine when it suddenly ejects a £20 note. What would you do? In April this year, a couple were sentenced after they took £61,000 from just such a cash machine. Wondering whether this was an indication that the British are indeed no longer to be trusted, the Times decided to carry out an experiment in which a reporter visited cash machines, withdrew £20 and then walked away without taking the money to see if passers-by or the next person in the queue would pocket the cash. The experiment was carried out four times in London's Moorgate and on each occasion the next person in the queue caught up with the reporter and handed over the money. In Shoreditch, one man kept the £20, another returned it. In Islington, the reporter tried it twice - both times, the money was returned to him. The same thing happened in Portsmouth, even though the reporter spent two hours playing the same trick. Six people in Cheshire did likewise, and again in Wilmslow even though the reporter pretended not to hear the person trying to get their attention. "It's just a case of behaving as you'd want people to behave to you," said one Cheshire resident.

In Gateshead, in the same month, a high street branch of Barclays was left unlocked overnight by contractors. The first person to discover the mistake immediately alerted the police. A similar incident took place at a North Yorkshire branch of HSBC in February. We read often of elderly people being mugged and beaten, but little of the hundreds of thousands of people in this country involved in charitable work to raise funds to improve old people's lives, nor those who work in jobs supporting them. Every British town has at least one charity shop, staffed by volunteers giving up their own time to help some deserving cause or another. These are hard economic times for many of us, yet we gave £1.3 billion to charities in the financial year 2007-08.

If we no longer need the Church as a moral compass, do we need politicians to set us a good example? Are they even in a position to do so?

Do we need the church as a moral compass anymore? It seems that many people do not, and will act in a trustworthy and charitable manner simply because they choose to do so. Do we need politicians to set us a good example or, as well-informed adults, are we capable of making our own decisions and living out lives in a way that we decide for ourselves? Besides, aren't MPs supposed to be our servants rather than rulers teaching us lowly and simple common folk how to live in the correct way?

Acid Rabbi welcomes Grant Shapps

Deciding to have a rare look at our e-mail inbox (acidrabbi@yahoo.co.uk, if you were wondering where to send the offers of money/first-born/death threats) reveals that we have our first Parliamentary follower on Twitter: Grant Shapps (pictured right), Conservative representative for Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire. Mr. Shapps, we would like to add, evidently thinks that the 20 or so miles between his constituency and London is a sufficiently short distance for him to travel to work, and as such he doesn't have a second home even though he'd be entitled to one under Parliamentary rules.

Anyone who has read this blog in any depth will be well aware that we are no fans of the Tories (nor any other party, for that matter) but a quick look at what Wikipedia has to say about the man reveals his efforts to help Britain's homeless - he even went so far as to sleep rough on Christmas Eve 2007 to highlight the fact that there are 130,000 homeless children in England. With that in mind, we are pleased to welcome him whatever his political persuasion.

Help the homeless
Donate to Shelter

Bill Cash reselected

The Conservative MP Bill Cash, who achieved notoriety by claiming for a supposed second home that on closer investigation turned out to in fact be a flat in London's pricey Notting Hill inhabited by his daughter (big thanks for that one, daddy!), has been reselected as an MP by his constituency Conservative party and as such will once again stand for Stone in Staffordshire come the General Election.

Bill Cash: a greedy, money-grabbing liar...but you can be sure his daughter loves her daddy very much. So would you, in return for a rent-free flat in Notting Hill.

Mr. Cash became one of the best-known MPs caught up in the expenses scandal, and not just due to the obvious tabloid headline pun potential of his name, either. The sheer audacity of the claims he made - which are intended to cover the costs of a second home near to Westminster so that the recipient is able to regularly attend Parliamentary debates - caught the public's attention almost as much as Sir Peter Viggers' infamous duck house and the wicked webs woven by the likes of George Osborne and Shahid Malik.

Tory leader David Cameron later wrote to the MP, saying: "As you know, I was asked last week about your claims under the ACA. I responded by saying that I thought it was important you answered the serious questions that were being put...you have now given full answers to those questions. You have yourself suggested that you pay £15,000 to the Fees Office for the period in question. I am grateful for your offer to do so." (The letter in full).

Constituency Conservatives chairman John Pendergrast claimed that Mr. Cash had received an "overwhelming" show of support, but the exact margin by which he was reselected is unknown as the decision was made by secret ballot. Mr. Pendergrast said that while he is "proud to support" Mr. Cash, "the electorate of Stone...are the people who make the decision."

Has the chairman not realised that Stone's Conservative party are but a small section of the electorate? Mr. Cash has been an MP for 25 years but he shouldn't start settling back in just yet. When his suitability and worthiness as an MP is put to the test for real - ie; when the entire Stone electorate are involved in the vote - he may well find that support suddenly becomes distinctly underwhelming since it is a safe bet that those residing in his constituency are likely to be no less angry nor any more ready to forgive and forget that they have been cynically taken for a ride than any other community that has just discovered their Parliamentary representative is a greedy, money-grabbing liar.

George Osborne faces inquiry

George Osborne, the Conservative MP for Tatton who is currently caught up in a row resulting from his claim that the Government refused him permission to see information related to spending, is facing an inquiry into irregularities amongst his expenses submissions. Previous accusations made by the Daily Telegraph, which claimed that Mr. Osborne had deliberately avoided paying Capital Gains Tax, will not be investigated.

George Osborne says that he is "relaxed" about the investigation.
Image adapted from one by M. Holland at Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner will look into claims made by the chairman of Mr. Osborne's constituency Labour party chairman, Laurie Burton, that the MP wrongly designated a property that - going by Commons rules - should have been desiganted his main residence as his official second home. Those actions, already discussed on this blog, allowed Mr. Osborne to personally benefit to the tune of £748,000.

Mr. Burton also alleges that Mr. Osborne claimed to cover the cost of mortgage expenses which were, he says, "not necessarily incurred" - virtually a direct accusation of deceit. The MP became a figure of fun shortly after the Commons published details of expenses claims, which revealed that he had claimed £47 to pay for two CDs of a speech given by himself on the topic of "value for money."

That Mr. Osborne "flipped" the designation of his home for the purpose of personal financial gain seems unarguable. That may not have been strictly against the rules - though the second home allowance is intended to cover the cost of a home closer to Parliament than the MP's constituency home, there has in the past been no regulation stating that the second property need be anywhere near Westminster, only that the MP should spend less time there than at the main home - it seems obvious that he did abuse the system to satisfy his own greed, as have many others. Had any of the £749,000 been paid into the public purse, things would be very different; but thus far Mr. Osborne has paid back just £1195.49, including what the Conservatives' website calls "the cost of a particularly expensive car journey" - a £440 trip in a taxi, late one night. As a result, we can only hope that Mr. Osborne will find himself subject to the strictest punishment the Commissioner can use should he be found guilty.

In the meantime, David Cameron is so keen on being seen to be doing more in response to the expenses scandal than Gordon Brown, it would come as no surprise whatsoever were Mr. Osborne to be forced out of the Shadow Chancellor's office - even if only temporarily and until proven innocent - by the beginning of next week. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Big Fight

George Osborne claimed yesterday that he had been prevented by the Government from seeing the Combined Online Information System database containing details on spending in 12,000 key areas. Shadow Chancellor Osborne says that he made two requests to examine the database but was denied permission on both occasions.

Lord Mandelson has now stepped in, saying that Mr. Osborne must withdraw what he calls a "very serious allegation" which he states is untrue.

FIGHT!

One man is going to be exposed as a liar, but who will it be? Both have a dubious record. "Uppercut" Osborne has been caught up in the expenses row after it emerged that he had repeatedly "flipped" his designated second home, netting himself a cool £748,000 in the process. Meanwhile, "Mangler" Mandelson (we thought about calling him "Marquess of Queensbury" Mandelson, but he has plenty of titles already) has twice been forced to resign after allegations of shifty goings-on and was also caught up in the notorious Deripaska Affair.

TWO MEN, ONE FIGHT. TWO LIARS, ONE WINNER. THE FIGHT OF THE YEAR.

MPs forced to declare details of second jobs

New laws have been introduced stating that in future all MPs will have to disclose details of how much time they devote to and how much they are paid for employment outside Parliament, rather than merely having to declare the existence of such employment as has previously been the case, even if that employment is not related in any way to their position as an MP. At present, they are only required to mention outside interests if they are relevant to the topic under debate - for example, an MP who holds a directorship in a telecoms company would be required to admit as much while debating policies related to that industry - but are not required to go into detail.

Harriet Harman MP says that the public have the right to know if and how much MPs are being paid for jobs outside Parliament.
Image by Steve Punter, taken from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative CommonsAttribution ShareAlike2.0 license.

Several members have expressed support for the moves, including Labour's John Mann who called the new laws "an important step forward." Some others - such as Conservative Douglas Carswell, conversely warn that there may be undesirable effects: "Abolishing outside interests would make all MPs totally beholden to the party whips," he says, explaining that MPs will now find themselves entirely financially dependent upon their party, causing them to be unwilling to risk angering party leadership. Commons leader Harriet Harman, meanwhile, says that the public have the right to know who other than themselves is paying an MP.

Some MPs have argued that the new rules will discourage members from either taking up outside employment or continuing in jobs they held prior to their election; jobs which, they claim, enable them to remain in touch with the economy and workplace as experienced by their constituents. However, the lucrative City and directorship jobs held by many MPs bear so little similarity to those held by the vast majority of constituents that they are as good as useless in this respect - Oliver Letwin's (pictured right) directorship job at N M Rothschild Corporate Finance Ltd (where he puts in eight hours a week and receives an annual salary of £60,000), for example, is not going to help him understand the employment and financial concerns of a single parent working part-time for the minium wage in Weymouth McDonald's, nor any other of the most vulnerable and worst-off residents of his constituency.

The new rules were agreed in April, before the current expenses scandal began with the Daily Telegraph's publication of details from the leaked document listing all claims made by all MPs. Allowing the public to know if their representative is being paid from a source outside Parliament and the salary they receive adds a new dimension to that ongoing row - if an MP is known to be earning, say, £100,000 a year in addition to his or her Commons salary (which is at present a minimum of £64,766 per annum), is it then acceptable for that MP to claim expenses on a second home, or for food, or for any of the other things they are entitled to claim for? All MPs representing constituencies outside central London are permitted to do so, but since this cost will be met by the tax-payers (most of whom earn far less), is it morally right for them to do this or should wealthy MPs be expected to pay their own way thus freeing up funds for more deserving causes such as the NHS?

Oliver Letwin image by Cooperniall, taken from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Harry Cohen MP quits "to spend time with family"

Harry Cohen, the Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, is stepping down at the next General Election in order to spend more time with his family, especially his ill wife. What a nice man he must be, giving up a £64,766 job for such selfless reasons.

Harry Cohen (right), with Andy Burnham (left), Labour MP for Leigh.

Spending more time with the family is, as we all know, the reason often given by MPs when they decide to leave Parliament for all sorts of things that they'd prefer not to list - quite a few of those who have recently announced their resignations as a result of the expenses scandal have used the excuse, and it's rapidly becoming a virtual admission of guilt for any unspecified wrong-doing. So, what's Mr. Cohen been up to just lately?

Leyton and Wanstead is in North London, around 40 minutes on the tube from Westminster (much quicker by bicycle, I've found) which is by anyone other than an MP's standards really quite a reasonable commute. It's far enough to make Mr. Cohen eligible for the second home allowance, however, because he also has a main home in Colchester; so naturally he made the most of that one. And when we say he made the most of it, we mean he really made the most of it - he's claimed £104,701 in the last six years.

What's more, he's been an MP since 1983, so the total claimed is quite possibly astronomical - what he claimed between 2002-7 alone is the highest of any MP representing an Outer London constituency. The back-bencher, who claimed in the past that he was "the most professional MP Leyton and Wanstead has ever had, and that includes Winston Churchill," maintains that he will be cleared of any wrong-doing by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, a statement that will probably prove to be true since he has claimed only what he is permitted by current Commons rules - he has not "flipped" homes to avoid paying maintenance or Capital Gains Tax, nor has he "forgotten" when a mortgage was paid off and continued claiming for it.

That Mr. Cohen has played by the rules is not in any doubt, but once again it has been demonstrated that those rules desperately need to be changed. Only those MPs who live a significant distance from the Commons should be allowed to claim for a second home at the tax-payers' expense, and when one considers the very good salaries they receive they should not be permitted to claim such large amounts. They are the servants of the people, and while we should expect to pay them an adequate amount to carry out their job effectively, at the moment it's more as though we are serfs paying duty to the mighty barons so that they can continue to live in their castles.

Mr. Cohen says that John Moore, the ex-Conservative minister, once told MPs to "Go out boys and spend it" after he had announced a huge increase in their allowances in an effort to prevent a Parliamentary revolt over pay. "That makes it part of my salary. It really is part of my salary in all but name. That is what it exists for," he says. We cannot fault him for his greed - he is, after all, merely human; and so many of us are greedy that it's a rare person who can truly claim that were they part of a system such as that enjoyed by MPs they too would not have done the same. But that doesn't make it right - all decent people would feel shame once their greed was exposed.

This rather suggests two things. One is that Mr. Cohen, who says "I am doing nothing wrong whatsoever. I am using it for parliamentary purposes. It is a legitimate and proper use of it," does not feel shame and as such is evidently not a very decent man. For that reason, the people of Wanstead and Leyton should feel glad to be getting rid of him, no matter if he appeared to serve them well enough that they continued to vote for him for 26 years. Secondly, the rules must be changed to prevent those MPs who, through no fault of their own, cannot resist the temptation to grab whatever they can - it's not their fault, it's just how we are as a species. But we tax-payers work hard for our money and most of us enjoy far smaller salaries than Mr. Cohen and his colleagues, so why are we expected to foot the bill for their lavish and luxurious lifestyles?

Some may argue that Mr. Cohen's case also reopens the debate on whether or not MPs should be expected to live in their constituencies. Referring to his claims, he says that they are "the legitimate costs of having a constituency home to do my job. We don't have a system where people are required to live in their constituency." If we did, his main home would have been in Leyton and Wanstead, putting him in a position to better understand his constituent's concerns. This would not, however, have prevented him from claiming for a second home as he would still have been entitled to claim expenses on another property altogether, much as George Osborne designated his Cheshire residence as his second home when he wished to avoid paying mortgage interest on his London property. Though the second homes allowance is intended to cover the costs of the home supposedly closer to Parliament so that the MP will not be required to travel large distances, there is no part of that rule specifying that the property needs to be anywhere near Westminster, nor even in London. Another rule that needs to be changed to prevent abuse and greed!

Ann and Alan Keen may lose home

Ann and Alan Keen, the married couple who are both Labour MPs, may lose their Brentford house following demands from Hounslow Council that they explain why it is unoccupied.

Ann Keen, MP for Brentford and Isleworth.

The Brentford property, according to the council, has boarded-up windows and paint splashed over the inside of the upstairs windows. Certainly sounds uninhabited to me - and a source from the council says it's been that way for seven months, according to the BBC, who also say that the couple have thus far declined to comment. Either that or they're using it as a crack den.

Alan Keen, MP for Feltham and Heston.

Interestingly, this is the house the couple have declared to be their main residence, which entitles them to claim expenses to cover the costs of maintaining another property that they have designated as their official second home, closer to Parliament. The Keens were amongst the first people to be named in the controversy surrounding the expenses scandal due to the fact that their main residence is just ten miles from the Commons, yet as it falls outside of the area deemed by Parliament to be close enough to Westminster to make a second home unecessary, they are nevertheless entitled to claim for its upkeep; this being used to demonstrate that even those MPs who have not broken the rules may still not have acted morally. If they are shown to indeed not be spending any time at the Brentford house, this could well be one of the most blatant examples of expenses abuse so far.

Darren, keen on getting a roof over his head before the winter.

The council says that it has written to them and explained that urgent action is required in explaining their circumstances, but it is believed that they have not yet responded. If they continue not to do so, the property may become subject to the Empty Dwelling Management Order law, by which it can be repossessed and put to a better use.

How many homeless people do you think are going to be sleeping on London's streets tonight? It seems obvious that the Keens don't care, or they wouldn't let a house go to waste.

Donate to Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.