Prospects - Thursday, 21 February, 2008
- 21 Feb 08, 10:17 AM
Liz Gibbons is the programme producer today - here is her early email to the team.
Hello
Lots of room for your ideas on the prog tonightβ¦
Some early thoughtsβ¦.
- we've done well on this story in the past. Can we move it on still further tonight?
- what's the best angle for us ? Competition or fuel poverty ?
today because of hiving off of we should watch.
There's a later this afternoon.
And we might have a film from . Or we might not.
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MEP's expenses, MP's expenses, the farce that is the Speaker being in charge of looking into it- The Union of Turkey's Christmas Committee. Plenty of mileage here.
With regards to the MEP there are very strong words from Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies - "Let's be quite honest. I think the allegations within this report from our own auditors should lead to the imprisonment of a number of MEPs. I think it's embezzlement and fraud on a massive, massive scale." Do the examples of what could kindly (and perhaps wrongly) be called 'poor administration' have any bearing on our own MP's administrative failings.
It seems the dispatchoftheday skunk, which wanders the halls of the House leaving the stench of expenses misuse, has a European cousin with his own rank odour. MPs are busy pretending they donβt smell the skunk, especially at PMQs, but I donβt think the Europeans have nose plugs strong enough to ignore theirs.
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Considering "everyone knows" about the EU gravy-train for MEPs, it's astonishing that it comes up for explicit censure in the media so rarely.
Many tens of thousands of people know about these crooked practices in some detail - as must the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's political journalists and freelancers. You trip over them the moment you arrive in Brussels and start receiving copious hospitality from an MEP.
Here is just one example: An MEP I know told me about one game that is played by many MEPs. This consists of MEPs inviting each other to visit them so as to put their European holiday-breaks on expenses. So, say, a Spanish MEP fancying a shopping-trip to London or Paris would ask for an invitation. In due course, this would be reciprocated.
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On Chad I got this e-mail on the 18th from an African friend in an UN agency working in Chad and who is a bit of a veteran of other conflicts in Liberia, Niger, Northern Kenya and
Haiti ... but even he sounded scared:
" Hell broke loose here in N'Djamena,
Chad - armed men invaded and besieged the presidential palace but could not decide amongst themselves which of their leaders could replace the current president. My neighbourhood became a war theatre. The UN contingency rescue team could not get me out ... it was too dangerous! I waited endlessly in desperation for help as the bombardment went on for eight hours. It was extremely scary when armed men entered my homw on three different occasions attempting to loot my belongings and even demanded money from me. Finally on the 2nd, the French military airlifted me and others to Libreville in Gabon and then Yaounde, Cameroon. I returned to N'Djamena yesterday [17th] to an empty house that has been looted while I was away. The best of all,
I am well alive! G. "
So take care getting that film from the war-zone to keep us arm-chair
peace-keepers updated; and thanks
to France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for rescuing UN personnel.
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dEAR BLOGMEster
diD My laST BLOg arrive?
blog
sorry BOb
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TESTING TESTING
Following on from Bob Goodall - right now at No4 but who can say . . . I am wondering what the official view of a broken blog is?
New York only got named twice. I hope the Martians aren't monitoring this forum - they will think some of us are post-genius level! In my case, being old and both space-waster and waste-of-spacetime, I can pepper cyberspace with spurious opinion for just so long as I can stay awake, with hardly an insole added to my footprint. But, oh mighty ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, flagship of the British rem(nant)-pyre, stamping ground of Jeremy "Pants" Paxman; to have a busted blog might seem unfortunate but to carry on as if it isn't, needs an altogether other description. An official comment would be nice.
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MEP EXPENSES
Currently, light is shining brightly into the European and the UK Parliaments, highlighting the common factor of fiddled money. I suggest that the (primarily) self-selected bunch who are drawn to positions of power/status/authority are βof a kindβ and those who distil to the top e.g. Tony Blair β QUINTESSENTIALLY of that βkindβ. I know little of the European Parliament, but can assert that the UK one is a club of like-minded people who find its peculiar function appealing. If these people had a PRIMARY motive of managing this country effectively and efficiently they would not be able to stomach the Westminster madness and waste; they would reform or leave. While we simple voters continue to return βfiddlers to the roofβ of government, we must dance to their wristy tunes and accept the spatter.
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