How to Maximize Your Expenses: Advice to new Members of the European Parliament
Fraud does not come into it. You show them your
boarding pass and they give you the money. You do not have to tell any fibs or say
that you actually spent it. You just claim your allowance. Air fares are a very nice little earner – worth maybe
£600 a week. Naturally it is tax free. And that is just one of the totally legal
moves. Of course it is only tax payers' money so nobody cares.
Then there is the attendance allowance [ note the word allowance ] of €262 (£180) – widely known as the ‘sign-on and sod-off’ fee – is just as remarkable. In order to claim this it is merely necessary to sign on before 10 am on any or all of the 155 days on which the European Parliament sits; there is no need to speak in a debate or even to stay.
The attendance allowance is paid to cover accommodation and meals. In reality, most MEPs have wisely bought flats in Brussels, many of which are sub-let to research assistants who hand back part of the income they receive from the Member’s staff allowance (see below) as rent. As for meals there is no reason to spend a penny of your allowance or your £56,000 salary - salaries are presently set at the same levels as those received by members of their national parliaments. To eat well simply flag down a passing lobbyist who will be delighted to take you to breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Truly we are well governed or just expensively governed. Cuisine in Brussels is world class.
MEPs who ride the Brussels
gravy train [ 31 October 2008 ]
QUOTE
MEPs who ride the Brussels gravy train
Huge expense accounts, vague
responsibilities � work in the European parliament asks
questions of politicians� integrity. Here are some
who've succumbed to the perks of a faulty system
[ It was set up to allow corruption. Capitalist swine don't rock boats -
Editor ]
GILES CHICHESTER
Giles Chichester, who only three months ago was
appointed by David Cameron to stamp down on any such
misdemeanours, has been forced to stand down as the
leader of the Tories in Brussels after it emerged he had
transferred almost half a million pounds in expenses
from his MEP's allowances to his family map-making
company. He has not, as yet, resigned from his seat
representing the south-west and Gibraltar.
This is not the first time that Chichester has used the system to his advantage. Inspired no doubt by his famous mariner father Sir Francis Chichester, the first man to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe, he has a weakness for international exploration. The leader of a delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand, his most recent jolly Down Under featured tickets to La Traviata at the Sydney Opera House, a catamaran cruise around the harbour, tasty meals, limestone caves, forests, vineyards and a trip to Ayers Rock. The nine-day trip included just 18 hours of official work.
DEN DOVER
Den Dover had to stand down as Chief Whip of the Tories
in Europe after he was found to have spent £760,000 on
staff and office expenses since 1999, including over
£75,000 on postage and stationary. His family-owned
company, M P Holdings Ltd, charges over
£160,000 a year
for secretarial and parliamentary assistant work, and
employs Dover's wife and daughter Amanda, who earned
over
£20,000 from her father despite working a four-day
week at a travel agent.
DAVID SUMBERG
To the disgust of his colleagues, David Sumberg, a Tory
MEP who plans to step down next year, was found to be
paying his wife over
£95,000 in 2002 for her
help as a secretary, even though his website announced that she
was also a mature student and a freelance translator. Sumberg
takes a relaxed approach to his job - he has made a mere two
speeches in the European Parliament since 2004.
TOM WISE
"I have a simple philosophy. You and your parents are paying for
me. Sorry, tough!" The voice of Tom Wise, a UKIP MEP who wasn't
aware he was talking to an undercover News of the World
reporter. Wise also unwittingly revealed he didn't really know
what his job entailed ("I've no idea what an MEP should or
shouldn't do. So you make it up as you go along") and was caught
doing whatever he could to take advantage of the various expense
account ruses that Brussels permits. One such trick was to buy a
Ryanair economy ticket for just over �30 and claim the full
business class price. This wasn't the first time that Wise has
scammed the system. In 2005, he had to repay
£25,530, after he
was found to have siphoned tens of thousands meant for a
researcher into his own account.
ASHLEY MOTE
The biography on Ashley Mote's website boasts that "he now sits
as the UK's only independent member of the European Parliament,
free to fight... the restoration of government of the British by
the British for the British." What it doesn't reveal is how he
came to be an Independent. Back in 2004, Mote, a cricket
historian, was flung out of the UK Independence Party after he
was accused of housing benefits fraud. Mote went to jail for
nine months for falsely claiming
£73,000, but the EU's
regulations allowed him to hold onto his seat.
UNQUOTE
This bunch of chancers on the make are mainly Tories.
NB Tory is the Irish word for thief. If you think the Labour mob any less
corrupt you need to have a word with a good psychiatrist.
Tory Thief Ordered To Repay £345 Thousand In Expenses [ 24 March
2011 ]
QUOTE
Former Tory MEP ordered to repay £345,000 he claimed in 'unjustified expenses'
A total of
£959,446 went to a company which named his wife
and daughter as directors A former high-ranking Tory MEP has been ordered by the
European Court of Justice to repay £345,289 he claimed in 'unjustified'
expenses.
Den Dover, 72, has always denied any wrongdoing over expenses
he claimed between 1999 and 2008, when a total of £959,446 went to a company
called MP Holdings Ltd, which names his wife and daughter as directors. Dover, who was MEP for the North West England region from 1999
to 2009 and chief whip of the Tories in the European Parliament, was suspended
and then expelled from the Conservative party in November 2008 for 'gross
misconduct'.
UNQUOTE
To be fair he got away with the rest while the rest
get away with everything. The EU was set up to encourage thieving - see
Euro MPs and Their
Expenses. It keeps apparatchiks on side with their snouts firmly in the
trough.
EU Official Guilty Of Financial Shenanigans
[ 22 September 2016 ]
Neelie Kroes, a
lawyer, politician &
European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society was secretly an
offshore company director. She alleges that it was just one of those things,
an accident. Heigh ho. She is too important to obey the law.
