The latest score...
- 4 Feb 08, 10:09 PM
Here's Newsnight's latest list of MPs who employ members of their families, or have done so recently. Our named total is now 96, though we know the overall figure is probably around 200, maybe more.
David Cameron said on Friday that more than 70 Conservative MPs employ relatives. Nick Clegg has said there are around 12 Lib Dems. Labour has yet to give us an official number but "sources" say today their "best guess is between 90 and 100".
So to add to our initial list of 79 - already supplemented by Martin Caton and the Speaker Michael Martin - we can now add the following 15:
Peter Atkinson
Julian Brazier
Janet Dean
Nadine Dorries
Sharon Hodgson
Phil Hope
Lindsay Hoyle
Chris McCafferty
Denis Murphy
Bill Olner
John Pugh
Laurence Robertson
Geraldine Smith
Bob Spink
Hugo Swire
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this is begining to sound like a name and shame by media
dont think its a waste of tax payers money if these people they employ
pay their taxes and NIS cause it is finding work for people
however if this is not so then they are guilty of "whatever"
Hope there will be a full investigation into this and the results made public with anyone who is found guilty brought to justice like any other citizen would.
cannot have one rule for them and another for us.
seek them out, expose them, publicly
prosecute them but let justice be done.
clean up your act is my call
or face the consequences
corruption in politics should not be tolerated if they wish us to obey the laws they make on our behalf
de castro
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In many cases it's entirely reasonable - to give your teenager some work experience filing at the same rate he or she would get elsewhere. When you're defrauding the taxpayer of over a million pounds for work which isn't even being done, that's a scandal. This is just a distraction.
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SELF-INTEREST
That any of us can persuade ourselves that nepotism can ever be 'entirely reasonable' is a sad sign of our times I suggest, and that is not just a dig at John in #2, as many/most of us today will all too readily slip into this apologetic way of thinking.
Equal opportunities means just that. For MPs etc to make so much of Equalities and Human Rights etc whilst clearly practicing 'who you know' rather than 'what you know' is not just hypocritical, it actually shapes, and reinforces corruption by a) inflating the family income at others' expense, and b) removing some of the natural checks which might otherwise prevail when one employs non-family members, MORE likely to behave by what they perceive to be truly independent 'house rules' designed to ensure that MPs serve their electorate and not themselves.
This 'me-first' culture is sadly endemic, it's the rule rather than the exception, and it's been so for decades. Anything else is sneered at, which is inevitable given the prevailing economic 'philosophy'.
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The score....
The numbers of MPs employing family members has gone from a football score, to a rugby score, to a cricket score
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The score....
The numbers of MPs employing family members has gone from a football score, to a rugby score, to a cricket score
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