I saw this. What is the mechanism behind this. I didn’t read up on it to be honest. Are the titles given by the Queen?
Yeah given she takes them away I also presume she gives them, but if Andrew has them taken away then I just wondered if his kids lose titles too?
Had to laugh at a DM headline describing him as a “war hero”… I bet I did more playing COD than that pervert
1 Like
Removing PA’s titles won’t affect his children.
1 Like
It’s OK. The real world more than compensates for this community
1 Like
“PA” stands for Peado Andy right?
It’s Paedo Andy 
ALLEGEDLY
Yup the timing of selling his ski chalet for millions whilst looking to allegedly pay off his victim is another story…
Also didn’t hanger on Fergie and kids have a holiday the other week at said chalet?
Should have gone with purple bricks
FIFY
One of the unpleasant criticisms (read Bot attacks) you see in every Keir Starmer YouTube and Facebook post is that he refused to prosecute Jimmy Savile. Another relates to various paedophile rings that have evaded justice. People don’t really understand how criminal justice works, so those attacks are effective.
It’s helpful for other people’s children though.
ALLEDGEDLY.
Again, whether there was a quid pro quo involved.
Aren’t these donations to their political campaigns rather than actual cash gifts to the person themselves?
Was that in the actual article? If so, I must have missed it. That’s not good at all, he has some explaining to be doing…
I think it goes without saying that anyone giving 500k to a politician is expecting something in return.
2 Likes
Otherwise what’s the point? There’s the argument for paying politicians a lot more to put them beyond corruption but in practice it just doesn’t work. If the PM were on £10m a year, they’d be Caesar’d every month.
Considering how politicians in general are often accused of making promises they don’t deliver on, I would not be surprised to have that logic apply. Just keep stringing the donors on and then never actually give them anything in return.
All that aside though, I realised that I have no understanding of what these donations constitute. Are they donations to the persons themselves or are these donations to their political campaigns/offices? How does the system work?
the taxpayer pays for most of their expenses Anyway, and even then they fiddled it, so all they did is blame the system, say their needs to be change and basically kept the status quo in place.
Pay them more ?
They should have a monthly audit, and any wrong doing found, they should be sacked and lose all other privileges…like most working people tend to if found guilty of any wrong doing .
Edit bad idea because Boris would want us to wait on the newly knighted Baroness Lady Rothmere of twatsville to complete her independent enquiry
1 Like
About halfway down the article.
Ms Lee’s son was also understood to have volunteered for the Labour MP and was later employed as his diary manager. In a statement, Mr Gardiner, who was a member of the shadow cabinet when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, confirmed he had received the donations and that Ms Lee’s son had worked for him.
1 Like
1 Like
I’d agree on the audit, and the idea that paying them more is laughable.
But I’m not sure what kind of corruption there is here, necessarily, since in the case of Gardiner, it was specifically to his parliamentary office, which means he doesn’t personally benefit, and the expenses were used primarily to pay for researchers.
According to Donations and loans to Members of the UK Parliament (PDF) | Electoral Commission, donations are categorised as “a gift of money, goods, property, or services that: is given with the intention that it is used or benefits you in connection with your political activities as an MP, or is given without charge or on non-commercial terms”. Presumably the former is what applies here, rather than the latter. I presume the latter is more of a blanket cover-all to ensure that nothing untoward is going on, e.g. outright bribery, but also for transparency, and therefore something like a gift of a property from one’s parents would show up on there.
So far, nothing very fishy going on here to me. In https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps/, it is stated that “MPs also receive expenses to cover the costs of running an office, employing staff, having somewhere to live in London or their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency”, linking to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority here: MPs’ staffing and business costs | IPSA, which lays out the rules on what is covered in: The Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs | IPSA. According to the latest rules in https://assets.ctfassets.net/nc7h1cs4q6ic/6FjW4RDyApa0L6l1M3ZRnT/0a3e2e21057677af588c084bfbcef0cb/The_Scheme_of_MPs____Staffing_and_Business_Costs_2021-22.pdf, under section 7.12, 7.13, and 7.14, the staffing budget is a maximum of around £220k per annum. This covers all staff supporting the parliamentary office, so office staff and researchers both fall under that.
What’s the way around this then, to increase the office staffing budget? I don’t like the idea that they can accept donations either, but that calls for overhaul of the parliamentary budget, doesn’t it?
While I still maintain that donations don’t necessarily mean anything in terms of a stain unless a quid pro quo is involved, I do acknowledge that there would be a psychological impact of subconsciously wanting to please the donors.
Thanks, I realised I had not fully read the article last night when I first saw it. To me, the employment part is the more worrying concern since it means that he may have had access to (although I may be wrong) potentially sensitive material since Gardiner was part of the shadow cabinet during this time.
It is sort of surprising to me that the UK doesn’t (appear to?) have a political contributions limit. I sort of assumed that it must do, but the complete absence of that vector of attack on the MP implies otherwise.
I don’t think he has been de-Duked. Stripped of military ranks and the HRH bit, but still a Duke.
Back in the day I suppose he would have retreated to the North and gathered an army to march on London or something. Just not as much fun trying to find a better lawyer to negotiate a settlement.
1 Like