Maria Miller has resigned.
The various factions are lining up to exploit it, or downplay it, for their own political ends. The BBC is not above such things.
Humphrys was having a bash at Gove this morning laying out the case against Cameron…..he’s out of touch and his judgment is flawed…it’s ok to be compassionate and to defend your people but you have to take hard decisions in the best interest of the country.
Nick Robinson told us that what the politicians got wrong was that they concentrated on the wrong thing. They should have ignored the conclusions of the Parliamentary committee that cleared Miller and instead taken account of the enormous public anger and sacked her.
So populist mob rule then? The BBC usually decries anyone taking account of the Great Unwashed. And is there ‘enormous public anger’ or is this really something whipped up by the newspapers, as Robinson admits, because of Leveson?
Humphrys said about politicians in regard to this case…‘You sit in judgement on each other and you’re going to protect each other…that’s patently wrong.’
You can judge for yourself what the Parliamentary Committee said:
Mrs Miller and her husband bought their house in London in January 1996. Her parents and two brothers came to live with them at that time as part of a single family unit. By 2005 the family unit comprised Mr and Mrs Miller, their three children and Mrs Miller’s parents.When Mrs Miller was selected as the candidate for Basingstoke in 2003, she rented a property in that area. When she was elected in 2005 she declared her Basingstoke home as her main home and her home in London as her second home against which she claimed Additional Costs Allowances (ACA) for the running costs.
Mrs Miller’s claims were significantly below the total costs of either home, which supports the judgment that parliamentary allowances were not used to cover her parents’ living costs.
We accept Mrs Miller’s contention that her overclaim in 2008–09 was inadvertent and caused by the rapid reduction in interest rates.
We have already recommended that Mrs Miller repay the £5,800 which she has identified as an overclaim. She should also apologise by personal statement on the floor of the House for her attitude to the Commissioner’s inquiries.
The Telegraph selectively reported this exchange as ‘threatening them with Leveson’.….but black out the relevant bits that put that ‘threat’ in context…that Miller’s father had just come out of hospital after an operation when he was dorrstepped by tyhe Telegraph reporter…….
JH: I should just flag up as well, while you’re on it that when she doorstepped him, she got Maria’s father, who’s just had a [removed] and come out of [removed]. And Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about.
HW: I’m not meant to knock on people’s doors?
JH: Knock on the doors of people when they’ve just come out of [removed] and had [removed]. Yeah. I would suggest that was probably a good thing.
They again miss out the relevant bits in their fuller report:
How Culture Secretary tried to bully MP watchdog
In a phone call, Miss Hindley then spoke to a Telegraph reporter and said: “Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about.” She added that the reporter should have “spoken to people a little higher up your organisation”.
The Telegraph has redacted personal details about Mrs Miller’s father from the transcript of the conversation with Miss Hindley.
Puts the BBC in a difficult position..do they support the Telegraph against a Tory….or condemn the Telegraph for doorstepping a sick man?….imagine if it had been the Daily Mail ‘hounding’ an elderly man who had just come out of hopsital. Wasn’t that the reasoning behind ‘Leveson’ as always explained to us by BBC presenters and guests….to protect us from the disgraceful Tabloids harassing vulnerable private citizens?
Perhaps the BBC did have such thoughts (08:14)…Evan Davis sounding like he had sympathies with Miller….‘You can see it from both sides’
He goes on to look at the ‘Press and politicians’…..suggesting MPs have come around to Miller’s side…they don’t like the Press’s approach.
Maybe not.
Labour, the Leveson cheerleader for press regulation, hypocritically claims:
Ms Eagle, the shadow Commons leader, said: “The government seems to want to threaten the press with statutory underpinning to control the news agenda.”
But anyway…today’s conclusions by the BBC……politicians are….
‘out of touch…ignores the public anger…sits on judgement of themselves…fails to take hard and necessary decisons out of a mistaken compassion.’
That’s the BBC isn’t it? That’s just as ‘patently wrong’.
The BBC compassionately refuses to publish the truth about immigration or Islam or Europe because to do so, it feels, would be damaging to the overall cohesion of the country…to raise difficult questions would undermine the myth the BBC has woven about the benefits such things bring us….and worst of all would lead to a swing to the right of voters.
The BBC censors and shapes the news to downplay the downsides of certain policies and emphasises, or exaggerates, or invents, the benefits.
Isn’t it time the BBC’s self-regulation was put an end to and the BBC Trust consigned to the dustbin?
I wonder if the BBC notes the hypocrisy of Labour’s position?……..not so far…….
Labour is grandstanding and demanding ‘reform of the system’…MPs shouldn’t regulate each other…….Bit late I might suggest:
Peter Oborne in the Mail in 2009 claims:
Despite that cover-up by establishment stooges, Ms Smith is guilty of thievery (and I dare her to sue me)
Yet how on earth does she get away with her thievery?
The first answer is the collusion of the Parliamentary authorities. Sadly, the Commons Department of Finance and Administration, to which Ms Smith submitted her claim, is notorious for allowing MPs to fiddle their expenses.
It is worth remembering that this watchdog never once queried the submissions from Tory MPs Derek Conway and Michael Trend, who stole tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money through blatantly corrupt claims. It was thanks only to whistleblowers that both men were eventually exposed.
The second reason for Ms Smith’s survival is the wholehearted complicity of the Conservative Party and the LibDems. Not a single MP raised Ms Smith’s cheating when she answered Home Office Questions.
So…… just a reminder….because no one at the BBC, or in the Labour Party, mentions this almost exact parrallel for some reason……Jacqui Smith was cleared and merely ordered to apologise after pocketing £116,000…she was never sacked….taking 6 months to ‘step down’ in a reshuffle…….
Jacqui Smith expenses claims total £157,631
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed £22,948 in 2007/08 in taxpayer-funded allowances for her second home, official figures have shown.
Gordon Brown: ‘Let Jacqui Smith get on with her job as Home Secretary’
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has appealed for Jacqui Smith to be allowed to get on with her work as Home Secretary, after she apologised for claiming the cost of pornographic movies on her parliamentary expenses.
The irony is that Miller was the cabinet minister who was pursuing the BBC over the decriminalisation of licence tax non payments. So the BBC got its revenge in early. And more worrying, if the press hounding of Miller and her subsequent resignation has a negative effect on the Conservative vote in 2015 that lets Miliband into power. The man who brokered the Leveson regulation deal in his office at midnight with Hacked Off & Co.
So, BBC and the press, be very careful what you wish for here.
Was she ‘pursuing’?
Handling maybe.
I have found the DCMS to have had the lightest of touches with the most massive media monopoly in the land, especially given what it has managed to pull of late. Almost ‘hands off’. It and OFCOM seem to delight in pointing away from themselves on anything BBC-related, and mostly at The Trust. The consequences of that to trust and transparency and BBC performance & service is clear to all.
On this matter Miller was and should have been toast from the off. Along with any other MP/Minister doing what the average Joe would get locked up for.
Dave’s leadership in managing it turned a drama into a crisis into a farce.
It all deserved/s headline treatment, got it and the result was inevitable and warranted.
However, as has been noted, the abuses and party implosions reported upon and/or provoked (often in an upward spiral) by the media, has been noticeably selective in comparison to matters as egregious or worse. Especially by the BBC.
I believe that whilst an ethical void of some vast proportion in ordinary person world, she was in Westminster terms still as pure as the driven snow, semantically and legally.
The BBC were and are tippy-toeing to an extent, as their market rate adventures and those of the party they feel should be in power have been every bit as exciting, but even they can’t resist a bit of getting the boot in now she’s down and Dave (deservedly) is looking an utter plonker. Again.
Seems a bit too early from the elections to be a real scalp of significance and far enough away for the woeful handling to be top of mind.
I was just surprised the BBC wasn’t a bit keener to have her in place as fellow FoL (Friend of Leveson – You are right to highlight just whose lobby that late-night stitch-up happened in) and when it comes to Charter chats it may have been useful to have a totally compromised Minister in place to ‘flag up’ certian matters of coverage (or not) with if they were looking too closely at Aunty’s soiled bloomers.
The Jury is out on how her replacement will fare. I wish him well, hope he delivers and will await deeds to match words that add up.
One is sure the first thing will be for Ed to line up as many (mainly white) women on his bench and for Dave to play silly top trump games with his political palate of hues and isms.
With the BBC pulling a Danny Cohen and squawking on irrelevant box-ticking trivia to wind up the heat with zero light on competencies.
They all frankly deserve each other.
The public does not.
I can to an extent register my disgust at the polls on matters governing. Sadly, for now, still, the BBC remains immune.
‘I have found the DCMS to have had the lightest of touches …Almost ‘hands off’. It and OFCOM seem to delight in pointing away from themselves on anything BBC-related…’
AKA, they’ve don’t take me seriously either. They’re all wrong, and I’m right. Mmmmnnn.
I was wondering when you’d get to me.
A Germanic nickname with a rather sick connotation from the Borg box, accompanied by zero relevance to the topic and a hefty dollop of irony-free personal opinion avoiding the issue and all on the person.
Now, who could that be AKA?
Mmmmmmmmm?
Too true.
Jacqui Smith and Margaret Moran are only two of the scumbags of Labours cesspool that got off with ripping us off.
No wonder that Harman etc have not been demanding Millers sacking-for they all know where it leads.
Heard the appalling Andrew Lansley last night on Newsnight-that the likes of him and Angela Eagle are seen as some kind of authority in the Commons really scrapes the barrle.
One year to the day when Mrs Thatcher died…and we get Miller and Lansley by way of her successors.
Maybe Miliband will be the catalyst for the needed revolution, and the barns will get mucked out quicker if he gets in.
Oh-and when Humphrys talks about unaccountable hypocrites on the take over there in the Commons…he seems not to see any parallel with his paymasters at the BBC.
Hutton broke them, with Campbell-ever since they`ve been giving us Savilon by way of a remedy, when they need dismembering.
I am afraid that it is clear that Maria Miller flipped her homes. The house in London which she bought in 1996, and lived in with her husband, her parents and her children was clearly her first home, and the home she bought in her constituency was her second home. The practice of MPs flipping homes to avoid Capital Gains Tax is unacceptable, as was Maria Miller’s arrogant non-apology. She will not be missed, she was a mediocrity promoted because of her gender, not her ability.
I have no interest in Mrs Miller. Just another incompetent liberal elitest. No interest in the BBC’s rantings either .Rats in a bucket the media /BBC and the governing class we are saddled with.
Roll on the counter revolution. Ignore all this charade and concentrate your mind on how to restore old England.
So in short, you think there’s nothing to see here, move along, while the BBC has covered it impartially. I’m sure you’d feel the same if she was from any other party…except maybe UKIP…or the BNP.
Keep spinnin, only your minions are buying it.
Minions? what you mean like little idiots who defend a multi billion corporation and are even so stupid as to pay said corporation ?
Just poitnint out what an idiot Alan is. I do it often. It’s easy done.
‘Just pointing out… I do it often. It’s easily done’
Ad homs are often more effective if not so rushed they suggest English as a second language.
And you do it often? Where? Or.. in what incarnation before?
If this is what the budget is running to now, the off books ops are really suffering.
As always, the BBC must be thrilled with the calibre of DOTI association.
When?
How many times have you posted on this site?
The entire current political and media class is not worth a light.
Why should we care what happens to one of them.?
They have betrayed my country and for that there can be no forgiveness.
Time for them to clear off and make way for new people . The era of the 68ers and their vile self indulgent fantasies is ending.
Time to choose sides. Mrs Miller is irrelevant.
Compare and contrast
The BBC coverage of the expense claims of Jacqui Smith and Maria Miler.
The BBCs refusal to report the claims made against Harriet Harmboy for three days and the instant coverage of the smear against Maria Miller, the public trial by mob and her resignation.
Number of times BBC covers Harman links to Paedophile Information Exchange in one week – zero (then finally, reluctantly, but only to give us the Dromey version of events).
Number of times BBC covers Miller expenses story in 40 minutes on Today (6.30 – 7.10) – six, including twice as the news headline item, then again in ‘what’s in today’s papers, then again in ‘Yesterday in Parliament’, then again as an item in its own right (twice).
The BBC – no wonder Harriet loves it to bits
The BBC lost any credibility on objective reporting of party politics about 40 years ago.
During 2008 and 2009 (Remember it was a LABOUR government with that gobshite crook, Gorbals Mick as speaker) there were a number of legal challenges to obtain details of MPs expenses which Parliament fought all the way. After a High Court ruling in April 2009 Parliament agreed to release the expenses only after heavily redacting them to the point where no one could discern what had actually been claimed.
It was then that someone handed full records of all expenses to the Daily Telegraph who proceeded to publish them in May of 2009.
The first tranche of exposures focused on the cabinet and government of the day, Labour.
At this point the BBC went into near meltdown. Despite the history of legal challenges, the eventual exposure by a whistleblower and the explosive nature of the frauds that were uncovered, because the initial focus was on Labour ministers, for the first 48 hours the BBC was silent.
The dialectic writhing that must have taken place in this rotten organisation must have been a site to behold, oh to have been a fly on the wall.
Eventually a consensus was reached and the BBC immediately began attacking the Daily Telegraph for “poisoning and undermining democracy” and attacking the whistleblower and calling for criminal charges (much like they did with the whistleblower at the UEA who exposed the ‘global warming’ scam).
All changed when the Telegraph released the second tranche of expenses criminality which focused on the Conservatives. In an instant the BBC were flooding the story. Now they could show that it wasn’t just the criminals in the Labour party.
But it didn’t stop there. Every far loony left clowns who poses as a ‘comedians’ on the BBC were given free rein to go on about duck houses and moat cleaning whilst studiously ignoring the worst excesses, which were predominantly perpetrated by socialists (well they do love helping themselves to other people’s money).
Yes, you can always rely on the BBC to doctor and manipulate the news to fit its far left agenda.
That said Maria Miller was caught with her fingers in the till and should be facing criminal charges.
Excellent summary. Especially:
‘The first tranche of exposures focused on the cabinet and government of the day, Labour.
At this point the BBC went into near meltdown…because the initial focus was on Labour ministers, for the first 48 hours the BBC was silent.
All changed when the Telegraph released the second tranche of expenses criminality which focused on the Conservatives. In an instant the BBC were flooding the story.
And there’s the rub.
Ms. Miller got off light.
From the sound of it, Mr. Cameron even lighter (the BBC’s finest must be wincing at how Ed handled PMQs… this is the puppet they have primed to lead the country?).
However, vanishing all else that has, does and will not suit the BBC narrative in complement is a propaganda and censorship step too far.
She’s been replaced in the Cabine by what BBC-NUJ describes as an ‘Asian: Mr JAVID. -No mention of him being a Muslim by BBC- NUJ, so he can’t be one…
“Sajid Javid named culture secretary after Miller exit”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26956184
‘But Labour said it had reduced the number of women in the cabinet to three.’
Maybe I should do the lottery?
From above:
‘One is sure the first thing will be for Ed to line up as many (mainly white) women on his bench and for Dave to play silly top trump games with his political palate of hues and isms.
With the BBC pulling a Danny Cohen and squawking on irrelevant box-ticking trivia to wind up the heat with zero light on competencies.’
Nah, it was simply inevitable.
Soooo……what about David Laws then?…….why is he back in government?…..is it because……he’s gay?…………
Last evening we saw a young MP Charlotte Leslie, apologising to the House over some £17000 given to her constituency party (not her personally) which she had declared to the Authorities at the time, but hadn’t declared when she spoke in the House. Now there was a genuine heartfelt apology what a contrast to Ms Miller! Oh, Miss Leslie is NOT my MP and I’ve never met her.