The Taxpayer: An MP's No Win, No Fee Safety Net

Fido at The Lone Voice has unearthed an interesting claim from Paul Flynn, Labour shitarse for Newport West.

Just been having a look through Paul Flynn MP's expenses, Paul who was sued for libel and had to pay Endowment Justice damages of 36K, did he use his own funds for this or public funds? Also if he used his own money did he claim that back off of the taxpayer?

Now he claimed £10k for professional fees in Nov 2005 - was this for the solicitor in the libel action? Yes it looks like it was!

Flynn claimed expenses on the solicitor fees!

It doesn't just look like it was. It ... err ... was.

Flynn

Flynn was sued for defamatory comments, despite meetings with the company concerned, and many requests for a retraction, prior to legal proceedings.

Endowment Justice launched legal proceedings against Mr Flynn this year after he criticised the growing number of complaints handling firms that work with endowment mis-selling victims. The company had previously held talks with Mr Flynn over its concerns about bad practices at several complaints handling firms. But the MP subsequently named Endowment Justice in accusations he made about the whole sector.

Marianne Fitzjohn, a director of Endowment Justice, said the company had been angry about being criticised for sharp practices because it believed it had played a leading role in campaigning against such behaviour. "We repeatedly asked Paul Flynn to apologise and withdraw his comments"

The ignorant, stubborn pillock refused to give in and was made to shell out just under £36,000.

You may remember that Flynn was the MP who complained on his blog about having to actually work while Obama was being invested.

'It would not happen if it was a football match' an irritated fellow Labour MP told me in the Lobby.

Two minutes into Obama's speech, the division bell rang and we were all dragged from the mesmerising television pictures to vote in the Commons Chamber. The whips decided these things and their timing stank today.

The difference being, of course, that if England were playing a football match (or even Wales) it would at least be something to do with the country which Flynn is employed to govern. A rubber-stamping across the Atlantic was apparently more important to him at the time than doing the job for which he is handsomely (and then some) paid.

He could have Sky+'d it of course, like those of us who have to miss big occasions through work have to do, and claimed Murdoch's subscription from the Fees Office.

Anyway, I digress.

I suppose we should be thankful that Flynn didn't claim the full £36k penalty from us in his 'Incidental Expenses'. His charging the cost of his defence is very ironic though.

Flynn repeatedly mouths off about a no-win no-fee solicitor and gets in trouble. Then employs a solicitor to argue his case without the need to worry about having to pay legal fees should he lose.

Why should he? He just reclaims the fee from us, the taxpayer.

Ingenious.

They're Learning

The happy-clappy environ-mentalists have found a way around the need to delete opposing views. Perhaps they learned from the pullovers at Earth Hour.

They simply stop you from making up your own pledge and ask you to pick from an approved list instead.


I pledged anyway but thus far haven't received my confirmation e-mail. I haven't seen my pledge appear on the site either. Perhaps I did something wrong, I dunno.

H/T Al Jahom

Keep Up The Good Work, Señor

I'm concerned that Alcohol Concern aren't concerned with telling us about studies such as this.

It's Better To Drink Beer After Exercise Than Water

Professor Manuel Garzon, a member of Granada's medical faculty, made the finding after tests on 25 students over several months. Researchers believe that it is the sugars, salts, and bubbles in a beer that may help people absorb fluids more quickly.

The subjects in the study were asked to run on a treadmill at temperatures of 104F (40C) until they were close to exhaustion. Once they had reached the point of giving up, researchers measured their hydration levels, motor skills, and concentration ability.

Half of the subjects were given two half pints of Spanish lager to drink, and the other half were given just water.

Garzon said that the rehydration effection in those who were given beer was "slightly better" than those who were given only water.

Based on the results of the study, researchers recommend moderate consumption of beer as a part of athletes' diets.

I feel very athletic all of a sudden. Pass me my running shoes and crack open the San Miguel.

Why Simply Report Hate, When The BBC Can Create It?

They had been so quiet for so long, hadn't they? Then a triumverate of righteous all turned up at once like speaker-equipped buses announcing shit-babble.

The Manc twat clubbed his keyboard to smithereens again, laughably insisting he was previously employing some obscure kind of hate-satire which missed its target (he must be more of a piss poor writer than we thought, then, as well as a missing link with learning difficulties which we already knew).

Complainants against the hate-filled nurse who wants all smokers dead have received a reference number for the upcoming whitewash investigation. If you don't know what that was about? Listen again below and e-mail your friends.

Now Comrade Beeb have decided to join in the smoker bashing too.

And get this. They self-report their own invited opinion piece as a bona fide news item, whilst simultaneously bumping dissenting voices.

I received a call from Five Live late last night telling me that my interview at 7.40 this morning had been cancelled because of "three breaking news stories". It slipped out however that Five Live Breakfast was still going to interview Professor Terence Stephenson, the new head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, whose blog on the BBC website calls for a ban on smoking in cars when children are present.

Three news stories which only resulted in the dropping of one small rebuttal? Can't have been that big really, can they, seeing as a BBC commissioned columnist was allowed his one-sided view in its entirety? And on Radio 4, and on the lunchtime TV news (complete with congenital liars ASH quoted as a truthful source), and on ... etc etc.

Funnily enough, mine and many others' comments didn't appear on the BBC web-site today either, so Mr Clark wasn't alone by any means.

The Telegraph picked up the story and ... err ... didn't add anything to it at all. It's a straight lift from the Beeb.

It must have caught the fake charities as cold as it caught Forest though, as they were all wibbling at cross purposes.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), said the charity was in favour of a ban on smoking in cars.

The risks were not just to children but to adults suffering from conditions like heart disease, she said.

That's the problem with being caught off-guard, Debs wasn't able to tailor her junk science quickly enough to the nonsense in hand so had to just grab what she was working on at the time - the total ban on smoking in cars, with or without children present. An interesting view into the future, I thought.

Then there was the very odd contribution from BRAKE. They didn't seem to know what they were supposed to be agreeing with. Less did they know what 'evidence' to use ... so they didn't bother with any.

She said: "There is no specific offence at the moment which says you can be charged with smoking at the wheel."

That'll be because it's not illegal, dear.

"But you can be prosecuted for not having proper control of your vehicle."

Whether smoking or not, one must presume?

"Having one hand off the wheel and dropping ash over yourself, or obstructing your view with smoking, means you are not concentrating on your driving."

Having one hand off the wheel? Like when changing gear, you mean? Obstructing your view with smoking? How fucking big are the cigarettes she has seen?

And then the very, very, very best bit.

"I think we would be in favour of a ban because there's some confusion at the moment whether it's dangerous."

Was this dozy mare on the lash last night or something? Was she hopping around this morning, phone stuck one-handedly to her ear, desperately trying to get her keks on when being asked for her 'expert' opinion?

She 'thinks' they would be in favour of a ban, probably because they haven't yet discussed it, but seeing as it has been brought up, her natural response is to say yes, even though she doesn't know if it dangerous or not.

Well, if that doesn't sum up righteous logic to a tee, I don't know what does.

One thing that is certain is that it's more wasted taxpayers' cash. No-one is asking for this, as usual, except fake charities and the BBC, and guess who pays for them? It will be brought in, there's no doubt, but will be as unenforceable as the ban on mobile phone use, the law on kids using booster seats that the police can't be arsed to bother with, and going back to 1983, the seat belt laws.

Just another spiteful, illiberal, doctrine proposed by ignorant, hate-mongers with skewed agendas. Fortunately, it might wake those who have thus far been in a stupor as to the Stalinist nature of Labour and their trot friends at Comrade Beeb, and drain the leftist vote away a little more, so I'm all for it.

UPDATE: The Beeb left no stone unturned with their propaganda this time. They even threw it onto the kids' news too, complete with quotes from children who had been, in no way, fed leading questions. Oh no.

Not Fit For Purpose? Simply Throw More Cash At It

A huge variety of businesses have experienced the, at times, almost insurmountable obstacle of the lumbering Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) placed in front of them since the Soham murders, not to mention employees who may be accepted at interview, only to be prevented from actually earning money until a pretty worthless document finally passes umpteen degrees of lethargy and inefficiency. Why worthless? Well, perhaps one might ask why the database doesn't cover Plymouth, for example.

Lord knows my business has been hampered significantly by the CRB and no amount of letters or phone calls will ever speed them up. Perhaps that's why I felt sympathy with this woman, who was, last week, prevented from helping on a school trip despite already holding three other CRB clearances.

“This has caused great inconvenience to the school, and inconvenience to myself and my little boy.

"I cannot believe why it has taken so long to process someone who has no criminal convictions and who has been CRB-checked for Cub Scouts, my work and another school.”

“It means the months of ‘investigating’ by police have been for absolutely nothing - what a waste of resources and time.

Indeed. Strangely enough, the idea of CRB's being 'portable' from one job to the next, or from one organisation to another was raised by us with our local MP. He was in agreement but didn't envisage much success in advocating the measure, though he said he'd try, bless his little cotton socks.

Perhaps the brick wall he was anticipating can be adequately explained by this.

The Home Office expressed regret that some enhanced disclosure checks were being delayed after a surge in applications to the CRB.

"As a result of the increase in demand the CRB has taken on additional resources.”

Kerching! All aboard the gravy train.

Viennese Pearl

Sacha Baron Cohen's campaign to piss off every nation on earth continues apace.

"Ve're all proud of our country und are raised to try and achieve ze Austrian dream - find a job, get a dungeon und raise a family in it."

Ouch!

Public Or Private? Make Your Minds Up

Remember that smoking ban, where privately owned premises were deemed to be public?

Well, the rules have just changed (because it suited the NHS).

Now, publicly-owned NHS premises are deemed to be private property. And they will take you to court or withhold treatment if you disagree.

Blackpool NHS

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Law & Government Business & Law NHS authoritarianism

Wouldn't it be nice, in a supposedly free country, if a business owner were to be able to ignore the law and dictate his own rules as to what he allows on premises he has paid for, like the NHS are apparently able to do with premises which WE have paid for?

Their contempt for you is stunning.