MP Expense Claims
June 21, 2009 by Ken
Filed under Westminster
I thought it might a good idea to look into the expense claims of my own local MP Phillip Dunn Ludlow Conservative.
The last time I met him he was doing a run around his constituency and stopped to say he could not possible go by my house without giving me a chance to shout at him, reference to the few letters on EU matters we had exchanged no doubt. He was driving an old van and complained that he had to be careful where he went because he could not select reverse and was worried about getting stuck somewhere.
He does give the clear impression of running everything on a very tight budget; no doubt due to the fact that before he stood for election he ran a business in Ludlow.
On the expense front there is nothing untoward to report, in fact just the opposite, although he lives in Ludlow he does not claim for a second home he has a flat in London but does not charge the taxpayer for it. His main expenditure covers staffing and research. Mr Dunne claimed £26,712.29 for staffing (secretarial and research). Stationery bills came to £5,832.72 (considering the number of times he has contacted me with questionnaire and polls, I am surprised that this figure is al low as it is) Computing, communications equipment printers, advertising web design and management, travel and photography another £11,517.81.
As my local paper, the Shropshire Star, says Ludlow’s MP lived up to his previous claims that he is the lowest-cost MP in the county.
On top of that from an EUsceptic point of view Mr Dunn voted the right way on all the Lisbon Treaty votes in parliament, so here we have an honest MP who runs an efficient offices and does not make unwarranted claims to boost his income at the expense of the tax payer.
My only hope is that at the next election I can show my appreciation by actually voting for him.
But in reality it looks as though that will depend very much on when the next election is called, if it called before the Lisbon Treaty ratified then there is a clear unequivocal commitment from the Conservative leadership to allow us little people a referendum.
If however Mandelson keeps Brown in place until after the Irish vote in the autumn, as many suspect he will, then gets rid of him and the new Labour leader holds of calling an election until next spring, this very likely will give them enough time to get Lisbon in place. Which is the name of the game for Mandelson and his federalist chums in Europe, and everything must me sacrificed to this end including the labour party.
The Conservative position then becomes much less clear, the previous unqualified commitment on a referendum has now been downgraded to unless the treaty has been ratified and if it has “we will not let matter rest there”! And Ken Clarke has just unilaterally downgraded the “we will not let matter rest there” we will negotiate to return some powers on employment. The Conservative leadership is thus fudging the issue and asking us to take them on trust, however do to past experiences they should understand that they have used up the whole supply of trust.
Talking of trust does anyone else not think is strange that Ken Clarke remained silent and out of the way until after the local elections and the EU elections were out of the way, but since then he has suddenly repapered to re-interpret and downgrade the whole Conservative EU policy and no one from the leadership, not Hague, not Cameron have contradicted him?
So to Mr Dunn congratulations you are obviously a man to watch, an honest hard working, listening representative for the people of Ludlow. Please pass on the message to the leaders of your party, we the voters want a clear commitment on Conservative policy with regard to the Lisbon Treaty.
Update:
Apparently Cameron has told MPs in private not to listen to Clarke, that he as not changed policy on the treaty, perhaps he would also like to tell the public and officially clarify what the party policy will be if, as looks very likely, the treaty is ratified before he gets into No 10? This would be extremely helpful and might if he were to say there would a referendum in any event -ratified or not – hasten the end of this administration, when Mandelson realises that no matter how long they hold on it will make no difference in the end.
Unless he does make such a promise it is increasingly looking as if the Conservative leadership is very much in cahoots with the EU federalists and are just making EUsceptic noises but have no intention of actually doing anything serious. On a similar subject – ID cards- the party is quite clear that they will scrap the scheme when they take over the reigns of government they are not saying if it is already in place we will not let matter rest there.
