THE "SUN" SAYS Not guilty of fiddling? Pull the Uddin one

SHANAHAN
Not guilty of fiddling? Pull the Uddin one


Published: 05 May 2009

IT'S a while since he rode a winner, but the legendary Lester Piggott was still a star attraction handing out trophies at Newmarket races.
Lester, of course, was lost to the racing scene for a year after being jailed for tax fraud.

And when he came out he was further humiliated by being stripped of his OBE.

More medals may soon be making a return journey as claims of Army heroism in Afghanistan are investigated.

If porkies have been told, those involved will rightly lose their awards.

So why can't we apply this rule to the House of Lords?

It's a disgrace that men and women can keep the titles Lord and Lady for life regardless of what they do.


Home Secretary ... Jacqui Smith
Look at Labour's Baroness Uddin and the £100,000 she's claimed on an empty flat.

She was a local councillor and Tony Blair crony whom he put in the Lords after she failed to be picked as a Labour candidate.

She lives in a taxpayer-subsidised east London house while claiming her main home is a flat in Kent.

Except that until rumbled by The Sunday Times she appears never to have lived in the Kent property.

But by registering her main home as outside London, she qualifies for lavish Lords allowances. When she realised reporters were on her tail, she dashed over to the Kent property - where neighbours had never once set eyes on her - and furniture and workmen started arriving in a frenzy of activity.

"Lady" Uddin makes £29,000 a year like this. Along with other goodies like free food and free travel, she's had £359,000 from us between 2001 and this year.

She swans around the deprived streets of Tower Hamlets - one of Britain's poorest boroughs - in a flash BMW 4x4 for which the list price new is almost £60,000.

These allowances are a gigantic scam. How do Labour expect to stop benefit fraud on poor estates when their own representatives are up to their ermined ears in fraud?

If it is a crime for a jobless brickie to fiddle housing benefit, then it should be an even greater crime for a Lord or Lady to be chiselling the taxpayer. Labour don't realise the extent of public anger over the Westminster gravy train. Tell you what, "Lady" Uddin. You insist the Kent address is your main home even though nobody has ever seen you there.

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Prove it by letting us see your utility and council tax bills from that address. And if it's your main home, how come you aren't registered to vote there?

Her "Ladyship" is not alone in her ducking and diving. It's par for the course at Westminster. We need a House of Lords to keep the Commons in check. Those in it ought to command respect.

But Labour have stuffed it with duds and crawlers who see their titles as official permission to rob the taxpayer.

I bet you once Labour lose the election, we'll see "Lady" Jacqui Smith and "Lord" Prescott lapping up the cream.

Fraud has become so institutionalised under Labour that peers and ministers don't see these scams as a crime, just their "entitlement".

A police and Parliamentary investigation has been demanded into "Lady" Uddin's allowances.

If it turns out that the Kent address has not been her main home she should hand the money back and suffer the same indignity as Lester Piggott by losing her title and paying the price in prison.

But I fear it's a racing certainty that won't happen.

DO you agree with Fergus? Have your say below.


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whilst speaking the truth is admirable we all know nothing will change these alledged fraudsters - t...
posted by: PabloHemingway

she'll either play the race card or say that its against her human rights to pay it back! typical we...
posted by: garythesaint

How many Politicians have been SACKED or PUNISHED for dipping into the Public Purse? Probably about ...
posted by: vor

ALL COMMENTS [15]

As the SUN saw the "Baroness" of "Bethnal Green"

As the SUN saw the "Baroness" of "Bethnal Green"

Coming here next: Another world exclusive on the Toytown Council

About the Toytown Council:

It is the Council of mendicants, persons who resemble toys. They could easily inhabit the world of made up local council. They are not real. they are only ever to be found in the Toytown Borough in London

'East London MP' George Galloway continuing his world stage activities

http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-email-to-george-galloway-cat-man.html

Has 'an MP' George Galloway signed up as an extension of the 'East London Advertiser' trade 'war' on Tower Hamlets Council?

EAST LONDON PRESS report
1045 Hrs London Thursday 21 May 2009

Is Mr George Galloway signed up to be an extension of the 'East London Advertiser' trade 'war' on Tower Hamlets Council?


"

MP’s fury over council freesheet ‘blagging’ Royal pass


20 May 2009

By Victoria Huntley

AN MP has today called for a full inquiry into attempts by a Town Hall weekly newspaper subsidised from council tax to get a pass to cover a royal visit by claiming to be part of Mirror group newspapers.

A reporter from 'East End Life' applied to the Newspaper Society, which represents the local and regional press and administers the Royal rota, to ask to cover Prince William's visit to London's East End.

But the society smelt a rat when reporter Shalina Hussain claimed in an email that 'East End Life,' owned and run by Tower Hamlets council, was part of Trinity Mirror.

Council media bosses trying to downplay the fiasco called it "a cock up rather than a conspiracy" and insisted it was "a mistake" by a "junior" member of staff.

MISLEAD

But George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green & Bow which is in Tower Hamlets, would have none of it.

He slammed 'East End Life' which he said tried to "mislead the Royal authorities."

Galloway added: "It beggars belief that this was just an 'honest mistake' by a naive young reporter.

"This is scandalous and all the more reason this freesheet should be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading and by the Audit Commission."

The Newspaper Society gave the 'royal rota' pass instead to the long-established East London Advertiser for Prince William's visit to the Whitechapel Gallery on May 11.

FIASCO

The fiasco has rumbled on this week with Opposition councillors at the Town Hall drawing blood.

Liberal Democrat group leader Stephanie Eaton says the deception took 'East End Life' to a new low level.

She added: "The council should apologise to the East London Advertiser and its journalists for trying to cover local news by blagging their way into the visit of Prince William."

And Deputy Tory group leader Tim Archer is raising a formal complaint with the council.

The Newspaper Society campaigns against council-run freesheets paid for by the taxpayer which divert revenue from established newspapers and threaten local democracy in the process.






"

EAST LONDON PRESS is launching a community forum about the "Baroness of Bethnal Green" in the 'news'.

EAST LONDON PRESS report
1255 Hrs London Saturday 16 May 2009

EAST LONDON PRESS is doing this to draw attention to the fact that the various allegations against the "Baroness" have been linked in the media to the "Baroness" being allegedly a representative of the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets.

We have noticed that the Tower Hamlets Council and the East London Advertiser have not published anything about the "Baroness", except reluctantly repeating in the sketchiest way possible, parts only of what had appeared in the Sunday Times and subsequently in some other parts of the media.

EAST LONDON PRESS is of the view that the 'news' events surrounding the alleged Baroness are far too important for the whole community, Bangladeshi and other, in the East End to be allowed to 'fade away’.

The strange and loudly telling silence of the sleazed ethnic post-holders - Keith Vaz, "Baroness of Bethnal Green" Pola Uddin and Shahid Malik - 1

The strange and loudly telling silence of the sleazed ethnic post-holders - Keith Vaz, "Baroness of Bethnal Green" Pola Uddin and Shahid Malik - Part

EAST LONDON PRESS
0910 Hrs
London Saturday 16 May 2009

Baroness of Bethnal Green is very silent this weekend. Not even agreeing a prepared script to be put on the BBC in her name! Unlike 8 years ago when she did exactly that.

To aid Keith Vaz.

She said he was a victim of racist press coverage.

Why?

Because the press was reporting on Keith Vaz and his very own sleaze.

And how did ‘Baroness of Bethnal Green’ get involved with Keith Vaz?

What was he to her?

How had they met?

They could not have met by natural circumstances.

Those must have been arranged for them.

Both belong to the same British party. Both owed their presence in the British Parliament to their claims that they were approved ethnics.

And the rest as they say, is sleaze.

But how many ethnic people have any real say on what their alleged representatives in Britain get up to?

Clearly the ‘baroness’ - or Keith Vaz for that matter - and other tokens of ethnic ‘fulfillment and achievement ‘keeping themselves very quiet this weekend.

Not even the very remarkable departure from office of Shahid Malik yesterday [Friday 15 May 2009] produced a single byte of sound from either ‘Baroness Uddin’ of Keith Vaz.

But then would they ever have done?

Would any of them have really solidarised with Shahid Malik at the hour of his personal need?

And would Shahidf Malik himself have solidarised with any other allegedly fellow ethnic feeling the pressure of racist prejudice?

Who would have answered Shahid Malik’s double-edged question - ‘why are the media outside my house?’ he put to Carrie Gracie of BBC News where he was treated to the full interview not long before he was forced to ‘stand aside’?




http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5332099/Shahid-Maliks-fate-sealed-by-growing-dismay-in-Downing-St-MPs-expenses.html

Shahid Malik’s fate sealed by growing dismay in Downing St : MPs' expenses
The fate of Shahid Malik was sealed just after 10pm on Thursday night. That was when officials in Downing Street started digesting, via the Telegraph website, the full allegations levelled at the Justice Minister.

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor
Last Updated: 9:36PM BST 15 May 2009
In the words of one of those present: “The alarm bells started ringing immediately.”
Television screens in Downing Street were showing the late evening news bulletins, which were detailing the demise of two senior politicians.

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MPs? expenses: Shahid Malik stands down as Justice Minister over rental arrangements
The expenses investigation had claimed its first scalps in former Labour minister Elliot Morley and Andrew Mackay, a close aide to David Cameron.
But the latest revelations were to eclipse them both. Mr Malik, the MP for Dewsbury, was about to become the first ministerial casualty of The Daily Telegraph’s exhaustive investigation into MPs’ expenses.
The problem lay with the three-bedroom house in Dewsbury which Mr Malik, who is Jack Straw’s deputy at the Ministry of Justice, had designated as his main home.
By claiming that his main home was in his constituency he was able to nominate his London home as his second home, allowing him to use expenses – the maximum of £66,827 over the three years he has been an MP – to furnish and keep it. Among the items that he had claimed for was a £2,600 home cinema system, including a 40-inch flat screen television. The Commons fees office agreed to pay half. He also claimed for a £730 massage chair.
Meanwhile, he was renting the Dewsbury house from Tahir Zaman, a businessman who lived next door, and who had in 2005 been convicted of renting out a building to a family of five which was “uninhabitable.” He was fined £450 and ordered to pay costs.
There was another problem obvious to most people in Number 10, but clearly not Mr Malik. The landlord had told The Telegraph that Mr Malik paid a discounted rent, understood to be under £100 a week.
It meant that while the taxpayer was funding his London existence with payments of £443 a week, the minister was paying a minimal amount for his rent, risking a breach of the ministerial code, which states that no minister should accept “gifts or hospitality” which could place them under an “obligation” to someone else. Before Gordon Brown went to bed he was alerted to the latest problem. One person who was not going to bed was Mr Malik. He had been contacted by Sky News and was asked for a reaction to the revelations. This was to be the start of an astonishing round of television appearances in which he would defend vigorously his expenses claims. Mr Malik told Sky News that he had acted within the rules and denied that his job was on the line.
He added: “I think this is a bit of a non-story to be honest.”
Labour Party sources had also – prematurely and seemingly without reference to Downing Street – let it be known that they did not think there was a problem. This must have emboldened Mr Malik as he went to bed. He had agreed to allow the Sky cameras into his home first thing in the morning to further defend his position. In the Cabinet Office at 7am Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, and the most powerful civil servant in the land, was starting to immerse himself in the Malik case.
By 8am he had spoken to the Prime Minister and given his initial thoughts on Mr Malik’s position. It was not positive. Meanwhile, Mr Straw had also spoken to Mr Malik, as had the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. The ministerial code was the issue.
Some in Number 10  were aghast when they saw Mr Malik popping up on the morning’s various television news channels. He told Sky, the BBC and GMTV that he was innocent. He said: “I’m going one million per cent by the book. It’s a non-story in the sense that I could have been one of 500 MPs. I don’t know why the Telegraph focused on me. Of course I feel that my reputation is tarnished, but my integrity is intact. I’m not in it to make money, I’m here to make a difference.”
And what of the “£800 massage chair?” How did that fit in, he was politely asked by an interviewer. He replied: “You see, I’d have more respect for you if you were honest about the figures. You know full well it is £730.”
But his career prospects were getting bleaker by the minute.
Sir Gus told the Prime Minister that it was serious enough to ask Sir Philip Mawer, the independent adviser on the ministerial code, to rule on a possible breach.
Mr Malik was told that he would have to stand down until the inquiry reached its conclusions. Last night no one in Number 10 expected him to return as a Justice Minister.