"Innocent until proven guilty", but will the public see it that way?

One of the MPs set to face charges over his expenses has said he was “naive”, but did not gain any personal financial benefit from his claims.

Jim Devine, Labour MP for Livingston, is accused of dishonestly claiming £3,240 for cleaning services and £5,505 for stationery using false invoices.

But he told Channel 4 News he “made a mistake” when moving money around after advice from an unnamed Labour whip.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Lord Hanningfield will also face charges.

On Friday, the director of public prosecutions said the three Labour MPs and one Tory peer would be charged under the Theft Act with false accounting. If found guilty they face a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

All four deny the allegations and say they will defend themselves “robustly”.

‘Acceptable’

Mr Devine told Channel 4 News the allegations against him had come “totally out of the blue”.

He said the money claimed for cleaning was to cover a regular bill of £180 a month, but that he was told by the Commons Fees Office to make a single claim, in advance, for £3,240 for the full year ahead, even though the work had not yet been done.

Addressing the second allegation against him, Mr Devine explained this by saying he had moved £5,505 from his stationery budget to his staffing budget to pay someone for work and had then provided a receipt which “came from a printer’s”.

“I was advised by a whip that I could do this… who said that you could move money about like this. I was told that was acceptable,” he said.

Asked if he had “invented” a receipt for stationery when the actual expense was for staffing, Mr Devine said: “It was not invented.

“I would argue it was not a lie. I would argue that this was allowed at the time.

“If I have done anything wrong it is that I have been naive and I have listened to the wrong people.

“Have I benefitted one pound financially? No I haven’t and that I think is the difference between saying I’m a criminal and saying I’ve made a mistake.”

Mr Devine said he had been given no training before taking office and “no advice on how to deal with accounts”.

The four politicians will not be arrested but will be sent a summons to turn up on 11 March at City of Westminster magistrates court.

They insist the issue should have been resolved by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and there had been “a complete inconsistency of approach to different individual cases”.

Overnight stays

Former minister Mr Morley, MP for Scunthorpe, faces charges relating to a total of £30,000 of mortgage claims which, it is alleged, were “in excess of that to which he was entitled” and covered a period when there was no mortgage on the property.

Mr Chaytor, MP for Bury North, is accused of dishonestly claiming £1,950 for IT services and further sums of £12, 925 and £5,425 relating to rent on properties which he and his mother allegedly owned.

Paul White – the Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield and leader of Essex County Council – is accused of dishonestly submitting claims “for expenses to which he knew he was not entitled” – including overnight stays in London.

He stepped down as council leader on Friday and as a Tory frontbench spokesman.

The Conservatives said Mr Cameron had also asked the party’s leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, to suspend the Conservative whip from Lord Hanningfield.

Mr Chaytor and Mr Morley were suspended from the parliamentary Labour party last May.

The expenses saga continues to rock Westminster – on Thursday 372 MPs were ordered to repay money totalling £1.1m, claimed in second homes expenses over four years.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “very angry about what has happened” and called the criminal charges “very serious”.

My Thoughts:

Yes they may be considered bastards for claiming money they weren’t entitled to but lets face it, could you say you wouldn’t do the same in their position? and if you can say that, are you sure you’re not just bullshitting yourself and everyone else?

In this day and age atleast 90% of people are all about money, and in todays society who can blame them. We live in a society where you are looked down upon if you don’t have the best of the best, children are belittled by other children at school if they’re not wearing designer clothes, if you went to a school that had it’s own uniform then you were belittled if you didn’t have a designer school bag, if you rode a bike to school then you were belittled if you didn’t have a designer bike, and so on. Growing up in such a way creates the attitude that “in order to fit in you must have the best of everything”, and it may be the wrong attitude to have but if it’s the attitude that everyone around you has then you don’t have much choice in the matter.

It creates people that think that money is the “be all and end all” of life, and because of this way of thinking, if your ever in a position to benefit financially from something you shouldn’t really be benefitting from, you would probably choose to do it. Who wouldn’t want to better their own life? and if money is the main thing that can better your life, wouldn’t you do anything you could to obtain it? and that’s the point isn’t it.

The amount of people committing benefit fraud is tremendous, and these are probably the same people that are complaining about MPs doing basically the same thing. So go ahead and moan all you want about it, but considering you are a human being who’s grown up in a world that’s all about money, i bet you would do the same if you could.

Every now and then it's nice, but i'd much prefer a strawberry cheesecake!

Hmm, what can i say about healthy eating and health foods apart from, what a load of shit! Life is WAY too short to count calories.

Yeah there’s a limit when it comes to eating crap, but for the most part peope find their own limit, and the ones who don’t get fat, but lets face it, they are just pigs!

I spent most of my youth eating shit and drinking coke, not caring about the stuff i was putting into my body and i did put some weight on because of it, but when i realised i was putting weight on i did something about it, because it is that simple when it comes down to it.

I can’t stand all the fat people who say that they have tried all the different diets and then to continue to say that they are happy with their weight! Talk about contradicting yourself.

Unless you have some medical condition that causes you to gain weight you have no excuse for being overweight, there is a very simple formula for losing weight that everyone knows, eat and drink less shit, and exercise regularly. There you have it, follow that and you will lose weight over time.

There is no quick fix for anything, and unfortunately that’s what most people are looking for these days, a quick fix. It all comes down to laziness, and from what i have seen of the human race these days, we are all very lazy! For the vast majority of our race, given the opportunity, we would just sit down in front of the advertising box in our front rooms and vegetate for the rest of our natural born lives, hardly the best way of getting some exercise is it.

More like 5 a week!

Anyway i kind of went off-topic there. I can’t stand all this 5 a day shit, i haven’t eaten 5 different kinds of fruit or vegetable a day for my entire life and i turned out fine. All the emphasis that’s put on this nowadays you would think that if you didn’t eat 5 a day you would be dead by thirty.

I remember a long running TV ad a while ago that stated the recommended daily amount of water was 7 pints. Ask any of your friends if they drink 7 pints of water a day and i bet most, if not all, of them will say no, it forces you to ask the question, is it really necessary? and the answer is no, it isn’t necessary, it’s just a way to advertise things.

so like i stated earlier, if your in the market for losing a bit of weight or just living a healthier lifestyle in general, don’t completely give up the things you like and lead a life of vegetable crunching boredom, just be a bit more careful of how much you indulge in the things you like, and for gods sake go out for walk every now and then!

Purple and Pink, Seriously?

A British DJ has come underfire from mental health groups after playing Van Halen’s “Jump” moments before a suicidal woman leapt from a bridge.

Steve Penk was broadcasting on 96.2FM The Revolution recently when four lanes of the M60 had to be closed because of the drama.

As police attempted to talk the woman down, a listener phoned in to request the rock classic, which was then aired.

Penk played it after expressing his sympathy for road users, but the unidentified individual then jumped from the 30ft bridge.

She only suffered minor injuries but the DJ has been slammed for his actions and accused of acting in “very poor taste” by Mind.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for The Samaritans commented: “It shows a lack of compassion and understanding”.

Some listeners were also outraged by Penk’s behaviour, with Lorna Guinn calling it “pathetic and nasty”.

“It’s irresponsible – this woman could have overheard it on someone’s car stereo”, she said.

However, Penk has insisted he would do the same thing again. “The entire area had been thrown into total chaos by a single troubled woman.

“I was very sorry to hear that the lady had subsequently jumped from the bridge but relieved that her injuries were minor.

“If, as has been suggested, the woman jumped because she heard it from a passing car radio that’s unfortunate. But I don’t regret playing it for a minute”, he said.

My Thoughts:

I don’t know whether to love this guy or hate him to be honest. Yeah it may have been a bit cruel and unsympathetic to express his sympathy for the road users only, but on the other hand she was selfishly endangering the lives of road users, on a motorway of all places.

I say good on him for his comments, he strikes me as the type to not fall in line with the typical “save my own ass and my job” attitude that most so-called “stars” and “celebrities” have. As the great Bill Hicks once said “i don’t mean to sound cold and callous, but i am so that’s how it comes across”.

Till’ next time

Seriously?

While this particular tattoo may look pretty awesome, i seriously wonder if this guy actually stopped to consider what it will look like when he’s 60 (picture that if you will), or if he gets really fat?.

I have always wondered what drives people to do such things to themselves, yeah i have heard all the “self expression” crap before, and to be honest, i don’t buy it. There are plenty of ways to express oneself without having to resort to making yourself look like the local park wall.

Don’t get me wrong, i am all for self expression, the problem with it is that small groups in society always manage to take it to the extreme, many people say that if you get one tattoo then at some point you are bound to get another, but there are the few that choose to get entire “sleeves” (upper and lower arms) completely covered with some ridiculous tribal pattern, and then there’s the extremists that have opted to cover their entire bodies with an animal pattern. These are the ones i really can’t understand, is it really all in the name of self expression (talk about overstating your point), or is it merely some misguided attempt at attention seeking?

Weird?

As you can probably tell by now, i have never had the issue of “should i, shouldn’t i?”, it has always been a firm no for me, i couldn’t live with the idea of having some scribble on my arm, or wherever, for the rest of my life, and with how often i change my mind it’s just too much of a commitment.

<– But oh well, you gotta let the retards have their fun aint ya!