Thursday, June 18, 2009

Would-be Chancellor and 'value-for-money': you couldn't make it up...

The resignation of a Treasury Minister after revelations about tax and parliamentary expenses surely piles more pressure on would-be Chancellor Georgie Osborne to do the decent thing.

He stands accused of avoiding paying £55,000 in capital gains tax.

This afternoon, Tory Leader David Cameron agreed to pay back almost £1,000 he has admitted wrongly claiming - that's on top of the hundreds of pounds he had to pay back a couple of weeks ago.

(UPDATE: Thanks to Matt for pointing out that the total the two re-payments Cameron is making add up to almost £1,000. sorry, my mishtake).

Wee Georgie is refusing to budge despite growing pressure. He claims, as the departed Minister did, that he has done nothing wrong.

But the overall prize for the most ironic of parliamentary claim of all surely goes to the aforementioned Mr Osborne...

It emerged this afternoon that the MP for Tatton actually claimed £40 from the public purse for two DVDs of himself talking about, er, 'value for taxpayers money'.

You couldn't make it up.

2 comments:

Matt said...

"This afternoon, Tory Leader David Cameron agreed to pay back almost £1,000 he has admitted wrongly claiming - that's on top of the hundreds of pounds he had to pay back a couple of weeks ago."

It's not. He is only repaying an extra £267. The £947 includes the £680 maintenance bill he has already agreed to pay back.

fairdealphil said...

Thanls Matt. Corrected immediately!