Taxi Driver Online

I was particularly surprised that's his constitutes voted 2 _1 against him, as you say it was a bit of suck it and see situation and he and the yes camp where unable to give any costing whatsoever on any matter, he,was driven by ambition and I think in a fashion hatred

I think your right it would soon be another Westminster

Think about it, you can tell people they live in a democracy but that depends largely on your interpretation. If it means politicians, Police, lawyers,bankers, accountants and their executive being unaccountable for their actions what kind of "democracy" are you living in?

It's a boy's club orchestrated by a wealthy elite and a political class which is ultimately an elected dictatorship.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

but a 'no' vote guarantees you'll never know

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

In very simplistic terms, if you take a clock, and you tamper with the mechanism, it will tell a different time from the one you were expecting but if you have nothing to compare it to, it will chime democracy on the hour every day.

And this is your political system, there is no transparency or direct accountability of government. They give you a time to vote and tell you what it might mean but nothing really changes. They are fuc*ing you over with the process.

_________________
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

Oh some of us know but we are in a minority that is so insignificant. We are like hobby horse's shi*e.

_________________
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

government is accountable through parliament, your representative is accountable through surgeries or the ballot box

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Bollocks! Do you see anyone losing their jobs, pensions or being put in prison because the electorate is holding them to account? Oh yeah, you can vote them out to see them replaced by more of the same with a nice comfy seat in the opposition but is this real accountability? If you fu*k up CC, you lose your licence never to return to being a taxi driver.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

10 Former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice in 1999. The former Tory MP received an 18-month prison sentence. The sentencing judge told him he had spun a ‘web of deceit’.

9 Jeffrey Archer was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice during a 1987 libel case. The novelist and former Tory MP was jailed for four years in 2001.

8 Tory peer Lord Hanningfield was jailed for nine months in 2011 after being convicted of falsely claiming nearly £14,000 in parliamentary expenses. The former Essex County Council leader spent just nine weeks in prison.

7 David Chaytor, ex-Labour MP for Bury North, was jailed for 18 months in 2011 after pleading guilty to fraudulently claiming more than £20,000 in expenses.

6 Former Conservative politician Lord Taylor of Warwick was jailed for 12 months in 2011 after falsely claiming £11,277 in travel costs.

5 Elliot Morley, former Labour MP for Scunthorpe, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment in 2011 after claiming more than £30,000 in false mortgage payments.

4 Ex-Labour MP for Livingston Jim Devine was sentenced to 16 months in 2011 after submitting false invoices totalling £8,385.

3 Eric Illsley, former Labour MP for Barnsley Central, was jailed for a year in 2011 after pleading guilty to £14,000 of fraudulent expenses.

2 Labour minister John Stonehouse faced 18 charges of theft, forgery and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud in 1976. He served three years of his seven-year sentence.

1 Horatio Bottomley, an independent MP for Hackney South in 1918, was convicted of fraud in 1922 and sentenced to seven years in prison.

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Yeah and have you any idea how long it took to bring the above to justice and how they went about trying to block the evidence of their wrong doing seeing the light of day?

The above was the tip of the iceberg. I believe it took something like three years for the reporter making the FOI request for MP's expenses to get the information. And by that time everyone was in damage limitation's mode.

CC, if it were you, they would have thrown away the key...

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

Out of order: politicians who ended up behind bars


Chris Huhne is not the first serving politician to end up in trouble with the law, statistically MPs are more likely to have a criminal conviction than the average member of the public.

Chris Huhne is not the first serving politician to end up in trouble with the law

As far back as 1906 UK politicians have faced jail time for scandals while they are supposed to be acting as public representatives. Liberal party MP Jabez Balfour was locked up for property fraud at the turn of the last century.

More recently, the MPs expenses scandal saw a large number of politicians jailed; in the aftermath of the scandal four MPs and two peers were sent to prison for fiddling expenses, leading to the startling statistic that in 2011, while 0.13 per cent of the general population was in jail, a shocking 0.61 per cent of House of Commons members were in prison.

Ex-Labour MP David Chaytor was jailed for 18 months for fraudulently claiming more than £20,000 in expenses. Jim Devine was jailed for 16 months for claiming more than £8,000.

Ex-environment minister Elliot Morley was sent to Ford open prison for fiddling to the tune of £30,000. Eric Illsley was released after just four months of a year-long sentence and claimed he was a "scapegoat".

MP Margaret Moran was spared prison and given a supervision order instead. None of the imprisoned MPs has returned to politics

Lord Taylor of Warwick was sent down for 12 months after claiming more than £11,000 from the taxpayer. He was joined by peer Lord Hanningfield who said he went through "hell" before he was jailed over his expenses. Both men repaid expenses they claimed illegally.

Losing your seat

The scandal meant that an MP elected to parliament in 2010 was four times more likely to be jailed than the average member of the public. However, the House of Commons still does not hold records of criminal convictions related to MPs.

Under the Representation of the People Act any MP detained in the UK for more than a year is disqualified from membership of the House of Commons and their seat will be vacated.

The rule was brought in after hunger striker Bobby Sands was elected as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone while imprisoned.

Chris Huhne is now facing the prospect of a jail sentence; if imprisoned he could have lost his seat – earlier today he resigned stating "the only proper course of action is now for me to resign my Eastleigh seat in parliament, which I will now do very shortly".

As you cannot technically step down under parliamentary rules, Huhne will be assigned two "offices of profit" to fulfil legal requirements.

A number of abstentionist Sinn Fein MPs have spent time in prison for IRA activity before being elected, including Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. Similarly a number of Unionist MPs have spent time in prison.

Perjury convictions

In 2001, Conservative peer and millionaire novelist Lord Archer was jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice, for lying during a libel case against the Daily Star, ending his political career. He served half of his sentence before being released on licence.

Tory MP and former cabinet minister, Jonathan Aitken, was convicted of perjury and served a seven month sentence in 1999. On release he became an outspoken advocate of prison reform and contributes to prison newspaper Inside Time.

Huhne could now face being stripped of his Privy Council membership, which allows him to use the title "Right Honourable." Jonathan Aitken voluntarily gave up his membership.

Also rans

One of few MPs to be imprisoned for taking a moral stand was Terry Fields, a supporter of the Militant Tendency, who refused to pay his £373 poll tax bill.

The most bizarre Westminster jailing involved Labour junior minister John Stonehouse, who faked his own death in 1974. He was arrested by police in Copenhagen who suspected he was Lord Lucan.

On his return he endured a 68-day trial for 21 charges of fraud, theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud, causing a false police investigation and wasting police time. More than 20 years after his death, it was claimed he had been a communist agent.

http://www.channel4.com/news/out-of-ord ... ehind-bars

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Yeah but in fairness, my crimes would probably include farmyard animals

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Probably

But think about the trams in Edinburgh and the Parliament building in Hollyrood, millions of pounds in overrun and no one held to account.

How the fuc* can you make a complete balls of something and walk away with your pockets bulging with cash and your pension intact?

And what about Fred Goodwin (Fred the Shred) he walked away with millions in bonuses and pensions for bringing down the Royal Bank of Scotland?

These things were all covered up and then Ooops a wee mistake...

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

point taken

its the same south of Scotland - we tend to promote the f*ckwits because they do less damage

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

If the public vote them in, then "public scrutiny" should be their watchword. There should be no government-appointed organisations supposedly holding politicians, bankers, lawyers, etc. to account. Only public accountability by way of an independent arbiter and no fuc*ing around with information being made available to all parties.

Oh and none of this, drawing things out for years so some of the witnesses die off and the evidence is lost.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"