Thanks to Kate Whannel Political Reporter, BBC Online News for the Headline
I hate to promote “Brand Farage” any further than is necessary, but this headline caught my eye Apparently it’s alright for him to have breached MP’s rules 17 times by failing to register financial interests totalling £384,000 within the 28-day limit . He won’t even get detention or have to write out 500 lines of I will not do it again.
Apparently the parliamentary commissioner for standards said that the breaches were “inadvertent”.
Oh well, I don’t get a chance to even take my pension without HMRC assuming I am taking a second income and taking money off me without checking that in fact it was my only source of income and that their actions would cause me financial distress despite my appeal. I suppose that was inadvertent too and really not worth bothering about. No parliamentary investigation about that eh? Or for the 6,000,000 other UK dwellers affected.
However, back to the “head in the clouds” Parliament. I checked the biography of this said parliamentary commissioner and yes ,he may be an expert in Law, but accepting apologies which he did from Mr Farage and acknowledging Mr Farage’s inability with computers and Mr Farage’s ability to blame anyone but himself strikes me as naïve and yes perhaps in his world it was’ ‘inadvertent.’ I suspect the parliamentary commissioner is not very good with computers either.
In my World, we have an MP who is paid a good salary and has entitlement to a pension normal people would sell their soul for. He also has significant financial interests in the outside World which do often conflict with his role as an MP. Why would he want to spend time in his constituency when he’s got bigger fish to fry? Not to mention what he is being paid for by the likes of Google and other Social Media Outlets for his self-promotion of his own ideas. I’m afraid Parliament to Mr Farage is just a vehicle to promote his bigger plans, just like his role as an MEP was.
He cannot take responsibility for his errors and plays his “I’m a good fellow, know nothing about computers” card and guffaw in the private members bar after that he got away with it . Many of his supporters would be guffawing in the bar with him , if they were allowed to.
Actually this is such a bad example of behavior to everyone that “standards” , parliamentary or not result in a deterioration in the understanding of what is right. Perhaps the Parliamentary Commissioner is over qualified and they should get a good cost accountant in to do a work study on Mr Farage and see if his efforts are appropriate to his role.
Also let’s move Parliament to Milton Keynes with serviced office and serviced accomodation while we’re at it.
thenotsomightyom 