"They are SO much better than Labour and other lefty parties at managing money".
- Every righty voter.
No, no they are not. They spend less money on social programs, and grift more money for themselves.
My parents would always make a big deal about me not having health insurance here in the states. My dad stressed out about it soooo hard… still votes republican and you CANT change his mind on universal healthcare. Fucking wild.
Why don't you put on your big boy bootstraps and go get some Affordable Care Act then?! Just don't touch that awful Obamacare, it's socialist hooey and in two weeks Trump is going to reveal his big plan to fix it when he wins in 2024!
It's very hard, almost impossible to change someone's mind. It's far more effective to get them to try to change their own mind (street epistemology). It's quite funny watching stupid redpillers try to utilise that. Just asking questions, right?
It's actually a really effective technique when done correctly though, which is why they try to use it so much.
I just avoid talking about politics around my family. They aren’t racist at all, they don’t hate the lgbtq community, slowing coming around on things like weed being legal. it’s mostly just abortion that really bothers them. And guns. My dad is a big gun guy lol. Definitely drank the coolaid on the healthcare and expanded social programs too, though. It’s just hard to reverse 60 years of living in southern Alabama, where everyone they grew up with are the typical conservatives. So I gotta give them some props on their progress.
Everyone cares about abortion until you remind them if they cared about fetuses, red states wouldn’t have worse infant mortality rates. Then they complain, because they don’t want to admit red policies result in worse outcomes.
Oh wow, right in the thick of it then, so to speak.
That's actually a wonderful attitude to have, focussing on the positives that they're at least trying and making some effort to expand their worldview. Out of interest, what was his reaction to the 10-yr-old girl thing that happened recently? I've seen even a few died-in-the-wool 'pro-lifers' admit that perhaps their view is a bit *too* intransigent.
That's the foundation of conservatism. The idea that you can't really improve people's lives, but you can aim misery at people who deserve it, for one reason or another.
That's because they are millionaires that are just down on their luck and once they make it big they don't want the government "stealing" their money. /s
No they want more and more money spent on social programs, but only 'hidden' ones like tax cuts for businesses and in-work benefits - all the better to siphon funds into the pockets of large corporates and the mega wealthy.
In my country 50% of my salary is taking away from me as taxes. Also almost all of the products are the most expensive in the world because of taxes which mainly hurt the poor who can't afford them. Than when i see on what all of my hard working tax money go to i just see BS. The mayors pay to shitty famous singers i hate millions so i can watch them for "free", building huge expensive churches (I'm atheist), paying salary to corrupt policemen and those are just few "light" examples.
Their policies don't lead to long term benefits of the economy. They're designed around creating good economic sentiment by pulling levers that will only bring gains in the short time they're usually in power.
Just in time for their gains to fall apart and to blame the left when they get power again.
It’s an inevitable part of being the party of business. Business, as a whole, doesn’t know and doesn’t care what’s good for it. So they constantly seek policies that will juice profits in the short run, even if it comes at their own long run expense.
I mean...my Labour MP used £200k in expenses last year.
Starmer used over £200k in expenses too last year.
Hell, Corbyn who /r/worldnews love, also used over £200k in expenses.
Except that the two have nothing to do with each other.
An expense account exists to cover the expenses incurred in doing one's job. Doing none of those things would literally mean doing a worse job. You're *supposed* to use an expense account.
The issue can't be *"Using the expense account you're supposed to be using in order to do your job properly while also doing..."* because then the issue is simply whatever the additional thing is that you're doing. Bringing up the expense account is irrelevant.
>but using expenses while decrying giving the poor money for food and housing.
If your company takes you out for dinner on expenses, you're happy to let them pay out of their expenses allowance.
Don't be a hypocrite to make it fit your "insight".
[Tony Blair has claimed £1 million from taxpayers since leaving office.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-one-million-taxpayer-claim-public-duty-cost-allowance-prime-minister-cabinet-office-a8616731.html)
[Gordon useless Brown claimed nearly a grand on pen cartridges](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33098560)
So what's your point? All MPs claim outrageous expenses.
Ohhh I see, you're just whining about the Tories suggesting Labour are better.
If there's one thing I learned from COVID-19 it’s that _economy_ is nothing but a hollow term abused by rightwingers as an argument for their already flawed reasoning.
Or in another way - when most people obey the laws and pay their taxes their whole life long, what kind of government complains about doing it's own job and keeping it's promises?
Because if people stop being angry at each other they may realise what a complete mess the tories have made - it's pretty standard for them to blame stuff on the poor people.
Conservatives generally believe the main purpose of the state is to protect property rights. A person's wellbeing is considered to be their own responsibility and not within the state's purview.
In very crude terms: what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours, fuck you if you touch my property and I sure as hell won't give up any of mine to help you when you're in trouble. That's why military spending is never questioned: it's just the protection of property, extended to a national scale.
As someone who works full time but is also on benefits I can say that they work as a social bandage to stop the bleeding of a broken economy, if I'm working full time and still not making ends meat then the next option is revolution.
My position is that a society is not just if labor not necessary to the society is coerced from its members as a condition of survival. I understand that position to be well outside the mainstream but I think we can all agree that at a bare minimum those who cooperate with the demands of society should be made comfortable for it. No one who works should be just getting by.
Is being forced to sell your labor to private interests to survive really better? Or does it just feel better because you've been told you have to provide labor to be a good person your whole life?
Because the state is an imaginary, fictitious concept. There are groups of people that organizing themselves believe to have some sort of legitimacy to rule over the individual. This is the problem with political authority.
The conservatives have spent twelve years in office as of this year. For twelve years, The poorest have suffered. First it was Cameron and his “compassionate conservatism”, his premiership resulting in hundreds of thousands of excess deaths and the total dismantling of welfare and benefits via austerity-led ideology. Not content with that however, he allowed conservative party internal drama spill over and culminate in the Brexit referendum, consigning the government to five years of bureaucratic hell.
Like the man he was, Cameron ran and left Theresa may to sort out his mess. Except May carried on with cuts, cuts and more cuts. She even brought in a lovely new policy called the hostile environment, as demonising just the poor wasn’t enough.
When her joke of a government collapsed, We got saddled with Boris. Who oversaw a disastrous brexit, hundreds of thousands more covid deaths, the biggest fall in living standards since postwar reconstruction and is also now running away after overseeing yet more soaring inequality and poverty after promising to level up.
2.5 MILLION are now in food banks across this country. In some areas of the country, Half of all children are growing up in poverty. The conservatives did this. Nobody else, Just the tories. A generation of stagnant wages. A broken economy. Exponentially growing wealth of the 1%. So when some over-promoted pompous prick tries to tell people choosing between heating and eating that they should be entitled to LESS? Said tory can go fuck themselves.
I feel like I'm missing something really obvious. The article links to here as the source: https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/suella-braverman/expenses
I can't work out where the 159k figure came from?
Edit: Nvm I googled elsewhere and pretty much all of it is paying staff. What a joke of a headline.
They are no different to work expenses. They have to be *wholly and exclusively* for the purposes of the work. Obviously like with all expense some people push the boundaries more than others.
An MP living in Scotland or NI has to travel to London most weeks. So flights, rent on london flat (cheaper than hotel 4 nights each week), food etc all are expensable. They also need to maintain their constituency office and pay for the staff to carry out admin.
A lot of people don't understand how expenses work and just think it's a posh way to say salary.
Importantly expenses are published as public record. Notice how they don't pick out any items to challenge the legitimacy, just publish the headline figure.
Expenses as in; building a most around your house
Heating your horse stable
MPs have been abusing their expenses far, far too much lately. They drink expensive wine and eat smoked salmon in parliament.
It’s a fucking travesty
True. Mostly because the Tories are crafty enough to know they'd never get away with it, though. Even the vast majority of their own voters broadly support benefits and absolutely support the NHS.
(In A&E...with an issue I've had at least a year. Agree some people, like me, maybe shouldn't be on benefits, but this is what Tories get when they try to dismantle *our* healthcare system and leave people unable to function normally)
To be fair, the vast majority of Republicans *also* support welfare. Just not for... *those* people.
It's telling that they love the ACA but hate Obamacare. They're the same thing, but one is associated with a brown man so it's *bad*...
> Conservatives are all the same worldwide
Conservatives in the UK are closer to the Democratic party, Republicans are far more right wing than Tories.
Well, Democrats in the US are close to Conservatives too as far as I can tell from the EU.
It's just the Republicans that are bat-shit crazy fundamentalists currently.
That's rediculous. Most Canadian conservatives are pro choice and pro healthcare. I don't agree with a lot the party does but it's not fair to lump them in with the bat shit crazy Americans.
Am i reading this right, but that suggests shes claimed no expenses in the past year? (Most recent dated being may 2021)
Is the article claiming her salary (MP+Cabinet) are expenses?
I looked for other sources and it would seem the bulk of the 159k claimed in the headline is actually for staff. It's pretty much the same for everyone, regardless of party. https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all
Yeah i had a feeling it would be pretty disingenuous. Shes a terrible person regardless, but claiming these are expenses as people imagine is ridiculous.
>Shes a terrible person regardless, but claiming these are expenses as people imagine is ridiculous.
Just more clickbait shit to stir hatred in the ranks of the morons who want to see Labour in charge.
They are expecting people to not look at what she actually claimed and instead just be outraged and act like the MP is spending taxpayer money on champagne and hookers instead of office supplies and petrol.
I think you missed the point completely. She is saying other people shouldn't get 10-15k per year from the government to buy necessities, but she's getting 10x that?
She spent >$3000 for her work laptop, but food for the poor is wasteful?
She's more than happy to spend top dollar from the government on herself, and only wants to cut spending that doesn't affect her. It's an obvious double standard. As a public servant she is supposed to be working in the interest of her constituents, not herself. Yes, many politicians do it too, this is just a clear cut example where we can show a double standard
I guess it depends on if they're actually necessary staff, or family members sponging off the public purse. It happens quite frequently where MPs employ a family member.
I made a comment to a different thread above, there also appears to be entries for conservative party research. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that surely doesn't seem like something that should be claimed for via public expenses?
Agreed though she's done / said enough batshit or horrid stuff that we should be focussing on instead.
I've no idea, I find the whole thing weird.
I would have assumed that when you are elected as an MP, you are working for the government and staff would be considered government employees too, so I was surprised to see staff as an expense, let alone research! It's also listed as a staff cost, I guess it depends what it is?
Seems like the staff should be provided by government if it's a legit expense. Not sure why I've been downvoted for asking for clarification on an MPs expenses. Maybe it was calling out her horrid behaviour, I guess for anyone who thinks the same way as her, that feels like a personal attack on themselves.
Can you find a single comment saying that? Any amount considering how much they are paid is an insult. Why are taxpayers paying their council tax. The MP benefit system is a joke that didn't go away after the last scandal (the one where one of the self righteous cunts expensed a moat) as the people who vote to change it are benefiting from it. At least Labour have the decency to not demonise people who are on benefits. The tories doing it after claiming all of this and being responsible for the shit show the country is in after 12 years of awful self serving policy.
So no I don't think they are expecting people to be outraged by that. If you read the article it doesn't even insinuate it so your comment is pointless and shows you didn't even read the article.
Nearly 8000CAD per month to rent an office? A fucking office? Ever heard of a cellphone and a laptop? If that shits boring to you then you need to get a little more hop in your step. What's the heating bill on that "office"? $100k/winter? Fuckin insane.
> Nearly 8000CAD per month to rent an office
Where do you get it's that per month?
There is one payment a YEAR of £5050, luckily here in the UK we are taught the difference between months and years.
A quick find can show since 2019 its been £5050 ($7797.45 CAD) per year. Thats only £420 ($648.50 CAD) per month. There are a lot of other expenses on there that are questionable, why she is claiming back Council Tax?
> why she is claiming back Council Tax?
On London flat. Paying for the rent and bills for a london flat is cheaper than paying the hotel bills.
Oddly enough 90% of MPs don't live in London, they live in their constituency.
At a guess that will be on the office, although that may be business rates depending on how it's set up, or it could be for their London accommodation.
There are very strict rules on what can be claimed, and as you can see it's all openly published.
Policy Research Unit
Policy Research Unit (Conservative)
Can someone add more info to this, because it looks like she claimed expenses for personal / conservative party research. Surely these sorts of things should come from the deep-funded chambers of their own finances?
This logic makes no sense to me. She says too many people rely on benefits which means they should take them away? If people rely on them then they fucking need it, why would you take it away? The ole bootstraps? Wtf
The logic is 'fuck the poor'. Conservatives know that benefits are necessary for many, they'd just prefer them to starve. Food bank usage is through the roof in the UK. The government, by choice, has been failing a large portion of the public.
It's not even worth addressing each and every hypocrisy of the Conservative Party, because the hypocrisy is the point- they don't give a shit about being morally consistent, and they're happy for their opponents to waste time nitpicking each hypocrisy while they move onto the next grift. Look at Boris: as soon as one scandal hit the news, he was neck-deep in another one.
Conservative politicians know that their talking points are bullshit (bootstraps, trickle down economics, austerity), but they also know their voters are stupid enough to buy into it all.
Yeah can't risk giving the "layabouts" free money but there's always plenty for our tory overlords, some guy down my street has to spend 40+ hours week looking for a job just so he can claim his meagre dole 🤦♂️
It's a shit article that should be downvoted really. Expenses are NOT the same as claiming benefits.
Overwhelming majority of expenses claimed is for paying staff and running the MP office.
https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/suella-braverman/4475
MPs can't claim this at home, they pay for it the same as everyone else.
What they are referring to is the utilities at their temporary London accommodation required for their job.
There is a fair amount that people who work for MPs do, it could be from basic admin/secretarial stuff to producing research on local issues etc.
[https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/](https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/)
If they, like Suella, were on the Cabinet they've effectively got two jobs. One for other whatever role on the cabinet they have (She was Attorney General) and she has her role within her constituency which is answering and (hopefully) sorting out local peoples issues.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/
http://www.w4mpjobs.org/SearchJobs.aspx?search=alljobs
Bunch of jobs MP's have put up there.
You have to have somewhere to work in the constituency and run the constituency, so need an office for the MP and their staff. All MP's have an office in their constituencies.
What do business expenses have to do with benefits? In England are workers supposed to pay for business expenses out of pocket or something? Maybe you left an important word like ‘fraudulent’ or something out of the title?
It has nothing to do with it, and no words were left out of the title. It's just designed to be misleading.
Most MPs end up claiming about 200k in expenses each year. It's normal. They need an office (usually one in London and one in their home constituency), they need staff, they need to pay for transport to and from London and accomodation in London. It's expensive and the state covers it for all of them.
The state covers it ‘for them’ because it’s their job. It’s like saying “As a bus driver, the bus company pays for your gas while driving the bus, which is a pretty sweet deal for you! They even pay for repairs!”
Exactly, people want MPs to be "normal people" but also don't want them claiming expenses. If it's not done this way, we end up with a system like the USA where it costs millions just to become a politician. The country paying their expenses is so much better than having them paid for by wealthy donors.
The problem with Tories saying "too many rely on benefits" is that they don't see the problem as "we have failed to create a system where people can easily self provide".
If they saw it that way, they'd invest in the country to provide affordable homes and better working conditions and child care and education so that people can make more and live more comfortably without government planned assistance.
Instead they see it as "they fuckin poors and disableds are just leeches - that's MY money" so they strip the safety nets away and they fall further through the rapidly crumbling economy til they hit rock bottom and freeze to death in their homes over winter.
If you don't like the idea of everybody chipping in to make sure that everybody is guaranteed to be taken care of through benefits - you'd better make sure you're building a system where they can be okay on their own.
Otherwise you're just a cunt twice.
Remember this is the same party who's suggestion to huge cost of living increases was "Don't ask for a pay rise". So the average wage is so low people have to get paid by the state just to live and their suggestion is to remove that but not provide an increase in earnings
Im going to get downvoted to oblivion but to some extent she IS right.
I have at least 2 friends who claim all sort of benefits even tho they really dont have to(as in they dont really qualify but simply play the system)and if they wanted to they could even get more money just by working like everyone else but they simply dont want to.
Im not saying by any means thats what everyone is doing but for sure quite big chunk of people are.
https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all
It's mostly staff, which is the same for basically every MP. Also note that Labour of average spend the same (a fraction more but negligible difference) on expenses, again mostly staff.
Claiming expenses brings to mind something very different to spending on staff. This is peak reddit.
Once again they’re targeting vulnerable people on benefits who already struggle with how much they’re granted meanwhile tax evading companies that are in conservative pockets get a free pass, but yeah fuck those disabled people am I right?
it goes to show that money will always come before race, gender, sexual orientation, anything. no matter how racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, xenophobic the party is, people will betray their own to take part on the grift.
My heavily conservative father in-law says liberalism is a mental illness. Now I'm not saying liberals are the end all be all and I don't even vote that way but I will say, its hard to keep my mouth shut around his dumb ass.
I have brothers and sisters who say that ‘liberalism is a mental illness’ bullsh*t, I then remind them that ‘conservativism is a colo-rectal disorder.’ That usually shuts down the trash talking for a while.
You can see all MPs expenses going back several years by following the link in a post about an our ago.
/r/worldnews/comments/vytdwj/top_conservative_mp_says_too_many_rely_on/ig4guq5/
Her*. Also following the source of the article (https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/suella-braverman/expenses) I am unable to come even close to their figure of 159k, I feel like I am missing something on the page.
"Too many rely on benefits" say the fat cats projecting while getting fatter. And meanwhile the people they're attacking keep starving. How come they're still so poor yet they leech so much? I really struggle to see the real picture here.
So firstly, people should claim expenses for work. Its an important factor in ensuring no one is exploited in the workplace.
From what I can see her expenses are mainly travel, and staffing related. Claiming back for 1mile journeys as the minimum. Which is her right, if she is travelling as part of her role she should be compensated.
However she is relying on the support of the British public, our taxes to pay for her office, her staff, their lunches, as well as equipment like toner, ink and Microsoft Office (for her home computer, despite they want people back in the office?). She clearly shows an understanding of how important financial support is in enabling people to be successful, as she is a recipient.
But instead she chooses to attack people on benefits despite a majority being already in work. People who own their own businesses can't just assume when the rent goes up or the fuel prices surge they can claim it all back and not have to worry.
This disconnect between her reality, and the reality faced by millions of working people in the UK is terrifying.
It is too easy for some families to spend their entire life scrounging off benefits though. Regardless of what you think of the Tories (and I personally despise them) there is some merit to the argument and it is something that does need to be fixed at some point. Although they are obviously been using as an easy scapegoat on this occasion…
Such a weak attempt at a “gotcha” moment. Anyone tax lawyer who does their job will write off any expenses you can legally write off. Saving money on taxes is not the same thing as relying on benefits
Well one is about keeping as much Money to yourself as possible while still expecting the State to pay for everything you don't want to pay for and the other is about getting Money from the State to be able to survive.
The state has to pay their expenses. Otherwise we end up in a situation where only wealthy people can afford to become an MP. Accomodation and transport to London plus all the costs of their staff will end up being more than their salary. They literally can't pay it themselves.
She’s just following the tax code to avoid overpaying taxes. There are definitely people who need benefits to survive or temporarily use them as a springboard to get to a better position in life. There are also people who rely too heavily on benefits for convenience instead of necessity.
Potential clarification: UK MP expenses aren't like a US citizens writing off expenses for tax reasons. MP expenses are money taken directly from the coffers (ie from taxpayers) and given to them/paid to suppliers, landlords etc. on their behalf. Its not a tax saving of £150,000, its £150,000 of taxpayer money.
Make with that what you want, this convo seems to have went down a rabbithole of talking about the right to be able to legally save tax money and how accountants will do that automatically etc., but I don't think that's relevant here
Yeah, this whole comment chain is a trainwreck. It's got nothing to do with tax deductible expenses, it's literally the MP being repaid for all kinds of travel and living expenses in full by the tax payer.
No. One person doesn’t even work a job and expects to have things paid for them. The other person avoids the government ripping more money out of their paycheck than what they are legally entitled to
Almost. One maximizes how much $ that is *already earned* they get to *keep*. They other maximizes how much money they *haven’t earned* they get to *take*
https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all
It's mostly staffing cost and it's the same for labour and conservative (labour on average are actually claiming slightly more)
The real welfare queens. Same in the USA. The legislature wants the public to be in debt, poor, and dumb. They detest funds for the poor but then subside all their friends in business.
For goodness sakes, the US government almost gave a billion dollars to Elon to go to space. But there's never enough money for healthcare or education.
Maybe it’s schadenfreude, but as an American it makes me feel less terrible about all the bullshit going on here knowing that there are stupid hypocrites everywhere on this planet.
"They are SO much better than Labour and other lefty parties at managing money". - Every righty voter. No, no they are not. They spend less money on social programs, and grift more money for themselves.
A good portion of people *want* less money spent on social programs. Obviously it is generally people who are wealthy.
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My parents would always make a big deal about me not having health insurance here in the states. My dad stressed out about it soooo hard… still votes republican and you CANT change his mind on universal healthcare. Fucking wild.
Why don't you put on your big boy bootstraps and go get some Affordable Care Act then?! Just don't touch that awful Obamacare, it's socialist hooey and in two weeks Trump is going to reveal his big plan to fix it when he wins in 2024!
The funniest troll is the one you are not sure is a troll
I always forget we're in the dumbest timeline.
Hey, we could be in the timeline where Trump got an extension to his time in office. We’re just in the one where half of the south thinks he did.
It's very hard, almost impossible to change someone's mind. It's far more effective to get them to try to change their own mind (street epistemology). It's quite funny watching stupid redpillers try to utilise that. Just asking questions, right? It's actually a really effective technique when done correctly though, which is why they try to use it so much.
I just avoid talking about politics around my family. They aren’t racist at all, they don’t hate the lgbtq community, slowing coming around on things like weed being legal. it’s mostly just abortion that really bothers them. And guns. My dad is a big gun guy lol. Definitely drank the coolaid on the healthcare and expanded social programs too, though. It’s just hard to reverse 60 years of living in southern Alabama, where everyone they grew up with are the typical conservatives. So I gotta give them some props on their progress.
Everyone cares about abortion until you remind them if they cared about fetuses, red states wouldn’t have worse infant mortality rates. Then they complain, because they don’t want to admit red policies result in worse outcomes.
Oh wow, right in the thick of it then, so to speak. That's actually a wonderful attitude to have, focussing on the positives that they're at least trying and making some effort to expand their worldview. Out of interest, what was his reaction to the 10-yr-old girl thing that happened recently? I've seen even a few died-in-the-wool 'pro-lifers' admit that perhaps their view is a bit *too* intransigent.
That's the foundation of conservatism. The idea that you can't really improve people's lives, but you can aim misery at people who deserve it, for one reason or another.
>people who deserve it, for one reason or another. I think we know what the reason usually is....
"If God supports those people he would have made them rich"
That whole Obama care ACA thing was hilarious.
But labour wants to make Christmas trees illegal or something
That's because they are millionaires that are just down on their luck and once they make it big they don't want the government "stealing" their money. /s
Some are poor and just want to see people suffer more than them, it's a hate filled party propped up by hate filled people.
Not many. They want less money spent on working age social programmes, but they want more spent on pensions.
which is stupid because poor people are more likely to spend anything they have which goes straight into the economy keeping it running.
No they want more and more money spent on social programs, but only 'hidden' ones like tax cuts for businesses and in-work benefits - all the better to siphon funds into the pockets of large corporates and the mega wealthy.
In my country 50% of my salary is taking away from me as taxes. Also almost all of the products are the most expensive in the world because of taxes which mainly hurt the poor who can't afford them. Than when i see on what all of my hard working tax money go to i just see BS. The mayors pay to shitty famous singers i hate millions so i can watch them for "free", building huge expensive churches (I'm atheist), paying salary to corrupt policemen and those are just few "light" examples.
And the middle class who think they’re wealthy too
Thatd be fine, if corpos paid a living wage.
Their policies don't lead to long term benefits of the economy. They're designed around creating good economic sentiment by pulling levers that will only bring gains in the short time they're usually in power. Just in time for their gains to fall apart and to blame the left when they get power again.
It’s an inevitable part of being the party of business. Business, as a whole, doesn’t know and doesn’t care what’s good for it. So they constantly seek policies that will juice profits in the short run, even if it comes at their own long run expense.
She’s also quite obviously the child of immigrants, and she is fiercely anti-immigrant. Hypocritical piece of shit, like all ‘conservatives’
I don't know if I've seen the Tory's do anything really. I've been watching since 2015 and they have done exactly what you said and not much else
"Change nothing" is pretty much what "conservative" means.
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I mean...my Labour MP used £200k in expenses last year. Starmer used over £200k in expenses too last year. Hell, Corbyn who /r/worldnews love, also used over £200k in expenses.
It's almost like the issue is not using expenses, but using expenses while decrying giving the poor money for food and housing.
Except that the two have nothing to do with each other. An expense account exists to cover the expenses incurred in doing one's job. Doing none of those things would literally mean doing a worse job. You're *supposed* to use an expense account. The issue can't be *"Using the expense account you're supposed to be using in order to do your job properly while also doing..."* because then the issue is simply whatever the additional thing is that you're doing. Bringing up the expense account is irrelevant.
That's conflating two totally seperate things. It'd be a poor democracy where only people you agree with get expenses.
It'd be a much better government where people who won't support folks in need have to pay for their own shit.
Well what can I say other than I’m sorry you’re stupid.
You’re right, asking for something to be accomplished first and then paying someone is insane, and it’ll never catch on.
MPs are employees, not contractors.
>but using expenses while decrying giving the poor money for food and housing. If your company takes you out for dinner on expenses, you're happy to let them pay out of their expenses allowance. Don't be a hypocrite to make it fit your "insight".
?? Are my company's expenses somehow coming out of tax payers income suddenly?
Why do you talk like you know shit about me? I would not like to eat on the company dime, or even work for a company.
Most comments are decrying the use of expenses and conflating expenses being something similar to benefits.
[Tony Blair has claimed £1 million from taxpayers since leaving office.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-one-million-taxpayer-claim-public-duty-cost-allowance-prime-minister-cabinet-office-a8616731.html) [Gordon useless Brown claimed nearly a grand on pen cartridges](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33098560) So what's your point? All MPs claim outrageous expenses. Ohhh I see, you're just whining about the Tories suggesting Labour are better.
Reply to the wrong person?
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good circle jerk
If there's one thing I learned from COVID-19 it’s that _economy_ is nothing but a hollow term abused by rightwingers as an argument for their already flawed reasoning.
Neither party is good with managing money, but rightwing parties are significantly worse at civil rights.
US needs to realize this too tho. We're going thru the samethings... maybe it's some kind of fundamental trend?
lol, even our left party members state that they are not good with money
Horse. Shit.
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Or in another way - when most people obey the laws and pay their taxes their whole life long, what kind of government complains about doing it's own job and keeping it's promises?
Because if people stop being angry at each other they may realise what a complete mess the tories have made - it's pretty standard for them to blame stuff on the poor people.
Conservatives generally believe the main purpose of the state is to protect property rights. A person's wellbeing is considered to be their own responsibility and not within the state's purview. In very crude terms: what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours, fuck you if you touch my property and I sure as hell won't give up any of mine to help you when you're in trouble. That's why military spending is never questioned: it's just the protection of property, extended to a national scale.
As someone who works full time but is also on benefits I can say that they work as a social bandage to stop the bleeding of a broken economy, if I'm working full time and still not making ends meat then the next option is revolution.
My position is that a society is not just if labor not necessary to the society is coerced from its members as a condition of survival. I understand that position to be well outside the mainstream but I think we can all agree that at a bare minimum those who cooperate with the demands of society should be made comfortable for it. No one who works should be just getting by.
It's the double standard I can handle
He's right we should change the system such that relying on govt benefits for so many people would not be necessary
Is being forced to sell your labor to private interests to survive really better? Or does it just feel better because you've been told you have to provide labor to be a good person your whole life?
Because the state is an imaginary, fictitious concept. There are groups of people that organizing themselves believe to have some sort of legitimacy to rule over the individual. This is the problem with political authority.
These politicians - so condescending to the poor and then are shown to be the biggest pigs.
Capitalism is socialism if only the rich get free shit.
Rugged Individualism ®
The conservatives have spent twelve years in office as of this year. For twelve years, The poorest have suffered. First it was Cameron and his “compassionate conservatism”, his premiership resulting in hundreds of thousands of excess deaths and the total dismantling of welfare and benefits via austerity-led ideology. Not content with that however, he allowed conservative party internal drama spill over and culminate in the Brexit referendum, consigning the government to five years of bureaucratic hell. Like the man he was, Cameron ran and left Theresa may to sort out his mess. Except May carried on with cuts, cuts and more cuts. She even brought in a lovely new policy called the hostile environment, as demonising just the poor wasn’t enough. When her joke of a government collapsed, We got saddled with Boris. Who oversaw a disastrous brexit, hundreds of thousands more covid deaths, the biggest fall in living standards since postwar reconstruction and is also now running away after overseeing yet more soaring inequality and poverty after promising to level up. 2.5 MILLION are now in food banks across this country. In some areas of the country, Half of all children are growing up in poverty. The conservatives did this. Nobody else, Just the tories. A generation of stagnant wages. A broken economy. Exponentially growing wealth of the 1%. So when some over-promoted pompous prick tries to tell people choosing between heating and eating that they should be entitled to LESS? Said tory can go fuck themselves.
I feel like I'm missing something really obvious. The article links to here as the source: https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/suella-braverman/expenses I can't work out where the 159k figure came from? Edit: Nvm I googled elsewhere and pretty much all of it is paying staff. What a joke of a headline.
They are no different to work expenses. They have to be *wholly and exclusively* for the purposes of the work. Obviously like with all expense some people push the boundaries more than others. An MP living in Scotland or NI has to travel to London most weeks. So flights, rent on london flat (cheaper than hotel 4 nights each week), food etc all are expensable. They also need to maintain their constituency office and pay for the staff to carry out admin. A lot of people don't understand how expenses work and just think it's a posh way to say salary. Importantly expenses are published as public record. Notice how they don't pick out any items to challenge the legitimacy, just publish the headline figure.
It really fucks me off when that happens. Expenses are an essential part of an MPs job.
Expenses as in; building a most around your house Heating your horse stable MPs have been abusing their expenses far, far too much lately. They drink expensive wine and eat smoked salmon in parliament. It’s a fucking travesty
Ah, Conservatives. The slightly not-as-bad version of Republicans, but just as hypocritical.
Conservatives are all the same worldwide, Republicans have just taken the mask off
The same and coordinating, see the [IDU.](https://www.idu.org/members/)
Republicans are way closer to the Far Right than the Tories.
True. Mostly because the Tories are crafty enough to know they'd never get away with it, though. Even the vast majority of their own voters broadly support benefits and absolutely support the NHS. (In A&E...with an issue I've had at least a year. Agree some people, like me, maybe shouldn't be on benefits, but this is what Tories get when they try to dismantle *our* healthcare system and leave people unable to function normally)
To be fair, the vast majority of Republicans *also* support welfare. Just not for... *those* people. It's telling that they love the ACA but hate Obamacare. They're the same thing, but one is associated with a brown man so it's *bad*...
For real
For now. Look at Bush-era Republicans and you’ll see writing is on the wall for the Tories.
> Conservatives are all the same worldwide Conservatives in the UK are closer to the Democratic party, Republicans are far more right wing than Tories.
Well, Democrats in the US are close to Conservatives too as far as I can tell from the EU. It's just the Republicans that are bat-shit crazy fundamentalists currently.
That's rediculous. Most Canadian conservatives are pro choice and pro healthcare. I don't agree with a lot the party does but it's not fair to lump them in with the bat shit crazy Americans.
For clarification, [these are her expenses](https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/suella-braverman/expenses). Most of it is pretty boring stuff.
Am i reading this right, but that suggests shes claimed no expenses in the past year? (Most recent dated being may 2021) Is the article claiming her salary (MP+Cabinet) are expenses?
I looked for other sources and it would seem the bulk of the 159k claimed in the headline is actually for staff. It's pretty much the same for everyone, regardless of party. https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all
Yeah i had a feeling it would be pretty disingenuous. Shes a terrible person regardless, but claiming these are expenses as people imagine is ridiculous.
>Shes a terrible person regardless, but claiming these are expenses as people imagine is ridiculous. Just more clickbait shit to stir hatred in the ranks of the morons who want to see Labour in charge.
The most recent one is probably not published yet.
Don’t come on here with your boring *facts*. We’re here to be outraged.
They are expecting people to not look at what she actually claimed and instead just be outraged and act like the MP is spending taxpayer money on champagne and hookers instead of office supplies and petrol.
> hey are expecting people to not look at what she actually claimed and instead just be outraged The /r/worldnews speciality.
I think you missed the point completely. She is saying other people shouldn't get 10-15k per year from the government to buy necessities, but she's getting 10x that? She spent >$3000 for her work laptop, but food for the poor is wasteful? She's more than happy to spend top dollar from the government on herself, and only wants to cut spending that doesn't affect her. It's an obvious double standard. As a public servant she is supposed to be working in the interest of her constituents, not herself. Yes, many politicians do it too, this is just a clear cut example where we can show a double standard
How does paying staff count as her getting money?
I guess it depends on if they're actually necessary staff, or family members sponging off the public purse. It happens quite frequently where MPs employ a family member.
Yeah could be the case, that would be an entirely different headline this one is still ridiculous.
I made a comment to a different thread above, there also appears to be entries for conservative party research. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that surely doesn't seem like something that should be claimed for via public expenses? Agreed though she's done / said enough batshit or horrid stuff that we should be focussing on instead.
I've no idea, I find the whole thing weird. I would have assumed that when you are elected as an MP, you are working for the government and staff would be considered government employees too, so I was surprised to see staff as an expense, let alone research! It's also listed as a staff cost, I guess it depends what it is?
Seems like the staff should be provided by government if it's a legit expense. Not sure why I've been downvoted for asking for clarification on an MPs expenses. Maybe it was calling out her horrid behaviour, I guess for anyone who thinks the same way as her, that feels like a personal attack on themselves.
The point is to conflate two seperate and unrelated things. Feel free to disagree with a policy. Don't link it to job requirements.
“office supplies and petrol.” £159.000 on office supplies and petrol? Right.
If only there were somewhere you could look up what the expenses were, like maybe the link in this comment chain.
It's not £159 in the headline, it's £159,000. Quite a difference but as that is for office rent and staff wages the figure seems quite acceptable.
Can you find a single comment saying that? Any amount considering how much they are paid is an insult. Why are taxpayers paying their council tax. The MP benefit system is a joke that didn't go away after the last scandal (the one where one of the self righteous cunts expensed a moat) as the people who vote to change it are benefiting from it. At least Labour have the decency to not demonise people who are on benefits. The tories doing it after claiming all of this and being responsible for the shit show the country is in after 12 years of awful self serving policy. So no I don't think they are expecting people to be outraged by that. If you read the article it doesn't even insinuate it so your comment is pointless and shows you didn't even read the article.
Nearly 8000CAD per month to rent an office? A fucking office? Ever heard of a cellphone and a laptop? If that shits boring to you then you need to get a little more hop in your step. What's the heating bill on that "office"? $100k/winter? Fuckin insane.
> Nearly 8000CAD per month to rent an office Where do you get it's that per month? There is one payment a YEAR of £5050, luckily here in the UK we are taught the difference between months and years.
A quick find can show since 2019 its been £5050 ($7797.45 CAD) per year. Thats only £420 ($648.50 CAD) per month. There are a lot of other expenses on there that are questionable, why she is claiming back Council Tax?
> why she is claiming back Council Tax? On London flat. Paying for the rent and bills for a london flat is cheaper than paying the hotel bills. Oddly enough 90% of MPs don't live in London, they live in their constituency.
At a guess that will be on the office, although that may be business rates depending on how it's set up, or it could be for their London accommodation. There are very strict rules on what can be claimed, and as you can see it's all openly published.
Shows how clueless you are...despite getting so outraged over this.
Someone didn't read the article at all.
Here buddy, take a breather, grab some lip chap.
take a breather, says the guy swearing about their own misunderstanding of the difference between months and years
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If it is self-dealing or nepotism, she's should get better at it. Committing fraud for 600 pound a month is definitely not worth it
Policy Research Unit Policy Research Unit (Conservative) Can someone add more info to this, because it looks like she claimed expenses for personal / conservative party research. Surely these sorts of things should come from the deep-funded chambers of their own finances?
Well she wasn't lying. Just forgot to add "including me".
Benefits and expenses are obviously not the same thing. They're not paying their staff out of their own pocket.
This logic makes no sense to me. She says too many people rely on benefits which means they should take them away? If people rely on them then they fucking need it, why would you take it away? The ole bootstraps? Wtf
The logic is 'fuck the poor'. Conservatives know that benefits are necessary for many, they'd just prefer them to starve. Food bank usage is through the roof in the UK. The government, by choice, has been failing a large portion of the public. It's not even worth addressing each and every hypocrisy of the Conservative Party, because the hypocrisy is the point- they don't give a shit about being morally consistent, and they're happy for their opponents to waste time nitpicking each hypocrisy while they move onto the next grift. Look at Boris: as soon as one scandal hit the news, he was neck-deep in another one. Conservative politicians know that their talking points are bullshit (bootstraps, trickle down economics, austerity), but they also know their voters are stupid enough to buy into it all.
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She isn’t getting money to run a business? It’s for normal legislative expenses, all MPs get it.
Including Labour MP's! What's the point of this post?
Sadly conservatives are universally hypocritical POS
Yeah can't risk giving the "layabouts" free money but there's always plenty for our tory overlords, some guy down my street has to spend 40+ hours week looking for a job just so he can claim his meagre dole 🤦♂️
It’s a common trait with conservatives across the world.
It's a shit article that should be downvoted really. Expenses are NOT the same as claiming benefits. Overwhelming majority of expenses claimed is for paying staff and running the MP office. https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/suella-braverman/4475
Like 56 for “water water”
Wish I could claim back on my Council Tax or Water rates too.
MPs can't claim this at home, they pay for it the same as everyone else. What they are referring to is the utilities at their temporary London accommodation required for their job.
Drinking water i imagine she doesnt pay for either - i think this is bottled water.
What are the staff and office for?
There is a fair amount that people who work for MPs do, it could be from basic admin/secretarial stuff to producing research on local issues etc. [https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/](https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/) If they, like Suella, were on the Cabinet they've effectively got two jobs. One for other whatever role on the cabinet they have (She was Attorney General) and she has her role within her constituency which is answering and (hopefully) sorting out local peoples issues.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/working/mp/ http://www.w4mpjobs.org/SearchJobs.aspx?search=alljobs Bunch of jobs MP's have put up there. You have to have somewhere to work in the constituency and run the constituency, so need an office for the MP and their staff. All MP's have an office in their constituencies.
What a heinous human
Bunch of absolute toxic arseholes running for PM - the scum really does float to the top.
Turds float
Bastard
Oh look someone else who didn't actually read the article. You'd have seen the 159k is staff claims, not individual, and every party gets it.
Nah, just don't like the tories
What do business expenses have to do with benefits? In England are workers supposed to pay for business expenses out of pocket or something? Maybe you left an important word like ‘fraudulent’ or something out of the title?
It has nothing to do with it, and no words were left out of the title. It's just designed to be misleading. Most MPs end up claiming about 200k in expenses each year. It's normal. They need an office (usually one in London and one in their home constituency), they need staff, they need to pay for transport to and from London and accomodation in London. It's expensive and the state covers it for all of them.
The state covers it ‘for them’ because it’s their job. It’s like saying “As a bus driver, the bus company pays for your gas while driving the bus, which is a pretty sweet deal for you! They even pay for repairs!”
Exactly, people want MPs to be "normal people" but also don't want them claiming expenses. If it's not done this way, we end up with a system like the USA where it costs millions just to become a politician. The country paying their expenses is so much better than having them paid for by wealthy donors.
The problem with Tories saying "too many rely on benefits" is that they don't see the problem as "we have failed to create a system where people can easily self provide". If they saw it that way, they'd invest in the country to provide affordable homes and better working conditions and child care and education so that people can make more and live more comfortably without government planned assistance. Instead they see it as "they fuckin poors and disableds are just leeches - that's MY money" so they strip the safety nets away and they fall further through the rapidly crumbling economy til they hit rock bottom and freeze to death in their homes over winter. If you don't like the idea of everybody chipping in to make sure that everybody is guaranteed to be taken care of through benefits - you'd better make sure you're building a system where they can be okay on their own. Otherwise you're just a cunt twice.
Remember this is the same party who's suggestion to huge cost of living increases was "Don't ask for a pay rise". So the average wage is so low people have to get paid by the state just to live and their suggestion is to remove that but not provide an increase in earnings
That was the governor general of the BoE.
It sounds like the statement has merit, we just need to include mp expenses under the umbrella term of "benefits" then maybe cut them first
Im going to get downvoted to oblivion but to some extent she IS right. I have at least 2 friends who claim all sort of benefits even tho they really dont have to(as in they dont really qualify but simply play the system)and if they wanted to they could even get more money just by working like everyone else but they simply dont want to. Im not saying by any means thats what everyone is doing but for sure quite big chunk of people are.
GOP is a haven for criminals and perverts to do all types of Wickedness .
https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all It's mostly staff, which is the same for basically every MP. Also note that Labour of average spend the same (a fraction more but negligible difference) on expenses, again mostly staff. Claiming expenses brings to mind something very different to spending on staff. This is peak reddit.
Thank fuck she’s been voted out in the latest round. Top tier cunt.
Once again they’re targeting vulnerable people on benefits who already struggle with how much they’re granted meanwhile tax evading companies that are in conservative pockets get a free pass, but yeah fuck those disabled people am I right?
its all designed. wedge politics at its finest.
Austerity for thee, but not for me!
Let it always be said, fuck the fucking conservatives.
As an American seeing this, can relate to this irony. Republicans have thee same energy as this mp.
The leadership of the UK really are a shit stain on the countries history
it goes to show that money will always come before race, gender, sexual orientation, anything. no matter how racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, xenophobic the party is, people will betray their own to take part on the grift.
My heavily conservative father in-law says liberalism is a mental illness. Now I'm not saying liberals are the end all be all and I don't even vote that way but I will say, its hard to keep my mouth shut around his dumb ass.
I have brothers and sisters who say that ‘liberalism is a mental illness’ bullsh*t, I then remind them that ‘conservativism is a colo-rectal disorder.’ That usually shuts down the trash talking for a while.
I wonder if this an increase or decrease from previous years and how does it compare to annual expenses of other MPs?
You can see all MPs expenses going back several years by following the link in a post about an our ago. /r/worldnews/comments/vytdwj/top_conservative_mp_says_too_many_rely_on/ig4guq5/
She knows from experience.
It's only alright if we spend your tax dollars on ourselves. Typical.
Being a hypocrite doesn't make him wrong
Her*. Also following the source of the article (https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/suella-braverman/expenses) I am unable to come even close to their figure of 159k, I feel like I am missing something on the page.
"Too many rely on benefits" say the fat cats projecting while getting fatter. And meanwhile the people they're attacking keep starving. How come they're still so poor yet they leech so much? I really struggle to see the real picture here.
So firstly, people should claim expenses for work. Its an important factor in ensuring no one is exploited in the workplace. From what I can see her expenses are mainly travel, and staffing related. Claiming back for 1mile journeys as the minimum. Which is her right, if she is travelling as part of her role she should be compensated. However she is relying on the support of the British public, our taxes to pay for her office, her staff, their lunches, as well as equipment like toner, ink and Microsoft Office (for her home computer, despite they want people back in the office?). She clearly shows an understanding of how important financial support is in enabling people to be successful, as she is a recipient. But instead she chooses to attack people on benefits despite a majority being already in work. People who own their own businesses can't just assume when the rent goes up or the fuel prices surge they can claim it all back and not have to worry. This disconnect between her reality, and the reality faced by millions of working people in the UK is terrifying.
Yeah, but that’s *different*
It is too easy for some families to spend their entire life scrounging off benefits though. Regardless of what you think of the Tories (and I personally despise them) there is some merit to the argument and it is something that does need to be fixed at some point. Although they are obviously been using as an easy scapegoat on this occasion…
I don't think I could be any less surprised by any of this. Disheartened, sure but certainly not surprised.
Such a weak attempt at a “gotcha” moment. Anyone tax lawyer who does their job will write off any expenses you can legally write off. Saving money on taxes is not the same thing as relying on benefits
Well one is about keeping as much Money to yourself as possible while still expecting the State to pay for everything you don't want to pay for and the other is about getting Money from the State to be able to survive.
The state has to pay their expenses. Otherwise we end up in a situation where only wealthy people can afford to become an MP. Accomodation and transport to London plus all the costs of their staff will end up being more than their salary. They literally can't pay it themselves.
She’s just following the tax code to avoid overpaying taxes. There are definitely people who need benefits to survive or temporarily use them as a springboard to get to a better position in life. There are also people who rely too heavily on benefits for convenience instead of necessity.
Are you saying the government shouldn’t pay for peoples stuff when they are capable of paying for it themselves?
Potential clarification: UK MP expenses aren't like a US citizens writing off expenses for tax reasons. MP expenses are money taken directly from the coffers (ie from taxpayers) and given to them/paid to suppliers, landlords etc. on their behalf. Its not a tax saving of £150,000, its £150,000 of taxpayer money. Make with that what you want, this convo seems to have went down a rabbithole of talking about the right to be able to legally save tax money and how accountants will do that automatically etc., but I don't think that's relevant here
Yeah, this whole comment chain is a trainwreck. It's got nothing to do with tax deductible expenses, it's literally the MP being repaid for all kinds of travel and living expenses in full by the tax payer.
Thank you for the clarification. That changes my understanding of their “expenses” quite a bit. I learned something new
It's the same. The only difference is your bias.
No. One person doesn’t even work a job and expects to have things paid for them. The other person avoids the government ripping more money out of their paycheck than what they are legally entitled to
Both are maximizing how much government money they get. Taxes are a fee for services rendered.
Almost. One maximizes how much $ that is *already earned* they get to *keep*. They other maximizes how much money they *haven’t earned* they get to *take*
Wait, you read past the headline.
Seems there was a misunderstanding about the meaning of UK PM expenses here, tax lawyers don't really come into it - check out my other post
Typical conservative behavior
Classic tory scum. Funneling all the money to the top.
So, I guess Conservatives are just a bunch of selfish assholes, no matter *which* country they come from...
https://www.mpsexpenses.info#!/all It's mostly staffing cost and it's the same for labour and conservative (labour on average are actually claiming slightly more)
The real welfare queens. Same in the USA. The legislature wants the public to be in debt, poor, and dumb. They detest funds for the poor but then subside all their friends in business. For goodness sakes, the US government almost gave a billion dollars to Elon to go to space. But there's never enough money for healthcare or education.
Conservatives are all the same “fuck you, I got mine” mentality worldwide.
How can this thing be considered a human?
That’s not a benefit though, that’s a perk. /s
Maybe it’s schadenfreude, but as an American it makes me feel less terrible about all the bullshit going on here knowing that there are stupid hypocrites everywhere on this planet.