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.

Dodgy Git Of The Day...er, Week

Once again, finding a suitable candidate has been a tricky task. Last time we did Dodgy Git of the Week - or indeed, Dodgy Git of the Day as it then was - the problem was that there was such an abundance of dodginess and such a plethora of gits we just couldn't narrow it down to one person, so we gave the award to the entire British Parliament.

Today, it seems the problem relates to some American pop star or another who last made a decent record in the 1980s. Whoever it was, apparently they've gone and died so the newspapers are full of that - and no doubt the Government will be using it as a golden opportunity to announce martial law or the enforced closure of the Daily Telegraph or something along those lines - which has resulted in British politics being rather overlooked for the first time in months.

However, our politicians won't ever let us down and of course we can always rely on at least one of them to do something suitably dodgy and gitesque. Thankyou Ann Keen, Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth, you stepped up to the challenge.

Now. Mrs. Keen is, as we all know, married to fellow MP Alan Keen and they have a house in Brentford, just ten miles from Westminster. But hey - that's far enough for them to have a second home closer to Parliament at the tax-payers' expense, so you can bet your bottom pound sterling that they made sure they got one. Trouble is, they then forgot to live in the main residence - which they have to pay for - for seven months, and now the local council want to take it away from them and use it for some worthwhile purpose. That seems pretty damn dodgy in its own right, but why is Ann getting the Dodgy Git award all to herself?

A few years back, in 2005, one of Ann's staff members injured themself at work which resulted in spell of absence from the job. When they returned, it was decided that they would need to complete an occupational health assessment. The staff member decided he or she would like this done privately, since they had private medical insurance. There was still a £150 contribution to be paid, however, and although £150 isn't a great deal of money in the big scheme of things nobody would want to pay it if there was a way to avoid doing so. But good old Ann, with her rather juicy MP's salary, stepped up to the mark and paid it for her loyal employee.

Such altruism! Such charity! How on Earth can Acid Rabbi possibly see such noble actions as deserving a Dodgy Git Award, you may be thinking? Well, this is Ann Keen, remember, one half of the notorious scam duo...sorry, married couple who claimed nearly £138,000 for a second home and then let their main one go to waste, even though as London residents they're surely familiar with the sight of people sleeping on the cold, wet streets. So what did she do? Obvious. Like we say, nobody wants to be £150 down if there's a way to avoid it, and for Ann there was a way - she just submitted an expenses claim and we paid for it instead! £150 for private medicine which, though a tiny amount, could have gone to the cash-starved National Health Service that the vast majority of us have to make do with.

Well done, Mrs. Keen. You are a fine example!

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.