back to article Welsh Tories ask taxpayers to pick up iPod tab

Taxpayers will be baying for blood today after the Welsh assembly published a list of its members' expenses which included two claims for iPods. According to the Beeb, Tory leader Nick Bourne, who represents Mid and West Wales, and fellow Conservative Alun Cairns submitted the MP3 players, worth a combined £398, as 'office …

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  1. Martin Lyne

    You. Fucking. What?!

    Nice to see taxpayer's money being squandered by the oh-so-sensible conservatives (conserving their own lavish lifestyle in an economic battleground)

    £1000 for a "missing" TV? Someone should be fucking lynched, IMMEDIATELY.

    Porkbarrel shit is bad enough but having to subsidise personal TVs, disgraceful. Some plasma for presentations would be an understandable (at least marginally) expense. But "whoops, it dropped off the radar" is like saying "fuck you constituents, and thanks for the nice digs/gear/gold teeth/platinum-plated car!"

    I don't even know why you'd cover a car in platinum, it'd react with other people's exhausts like a giant catalytic converter, wouldn't it?

    Fah!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Why would an MP need an iPod?

    Should be obvious - so few of them spend much time either at Westminster or listening to their constituents "at home" that they must be doing *something* somewhere - and since most of them bill for travel expenses, they obviously need something to listen to while they travel...

    Besides, it probably allows an MP (of any Party, not just the Tories) to listen to the important parts of all the briefings etc without the added BS - sort of like recording ITV and watching the ad breaks without wasting time on the crap programmes between them...

    Still, at least the Tories admit to the dodgy stuff they claim they need - all NuLabour do is divert attention by arranging for the arrest of the odd Tory or Conference heckler...

  3. Richard
    Thumb Down

    Huh!

    Why do they get to be corrupt, money grabbing bastards, and we don't even get to claim on milk for the office tea? I guess it's a good job if you can get it!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why?

    I don't get why MPs (etc.) can't be subject to the same expenses rules as the Civil Service. Buying a vacuum cleaner for your office is just plain daft: getting paid for it from public funds is criminal. Surely such things should, at the very least, be public property, and re-allocated to the next MP when this one retires/resigns/goes to prison.

  5. Ben Cross
    Go

    @ Richard (Huh)

    lol!

    I concur 100%! indeed, i'd rather claim for an ipod personally, but i mean c'mon!

    2 TV's for Monmouth Conservative AM Nick Ramsay....and insurance as well, surely he should've got that first time..what a joke!

  6. tony72
    Flame

    Give them a break

    I'd want to listen to something other than people speaking Welsh too, like turn up the Foo Fighters 'till my ears bleed. Still, the b*tch with the misplaced £1000 telly should be done for fraud - by all means buy some toys for the office, but they should actually *be* in the office, at least the big ticket items.

  7. lucky13
    Flame

    Boyo

    What gets me is that they haven't gone for little 4/8 gig ipods that could be excused as they may need to listen to political podcasts for example.

    They've paid £199 for each iPod. They went and got the 160gb models. What MP is going to have 160Gb of content related to work to put on that? ok we'll let tham have a few 'leagal' songs as well. They sure as hell will have no idea how to get the 11 o'clock news on to the thing!

    I'd like to bet these went straight to little Timmy who uses his dad's government funded broadband connection to fill the thing with movies, music and porn

  8. Andrew B
    Unhappy

    @ Anonymous Coward

    Yes, they could be used for listening to briefings. But an iPod? Call me a penny-pinching Scot, but there are much cheaper alternatives to those glossy wastes of money.

    With that said, I'd be interested in seeing other parties' claims. Whilst I harbour nothing but the most acerbic hatred for the Conservatives, I can't imagine they're the only party with members splashing out.

  9. Chris Simmons

    Are Tory AM's...

    ...all BOFH's?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    hmm difficult choice

    Hmm this election will be tricky when it turns up....who is the LEAST WORST?

    Tories - sleaze ridden buggers, ready to sell anything which isnt nailed down strongly,

    Labour - Intent on creating a Stalinist totalitarian state presided over by delusional types like wacky

    Lib Dems - Enviro nutters who change their tune every 5 minutes and their leader just as quick

    Scottish nationalists- reasonable policies, but christian fanaticists opposed to abortion and further seperation of church and state...oh and obsessed with the concept that guns have no legitimate use...even for the cops / forces...

    Heck why dont we just have a reality TV election...every week the ruling party face a public vote, so any stupid policies like ID cards and road pricing would mean bye bye, perhaps then they wouldnt be as keen to come up with daft schemes so often...of course that would mean rigging the system to stop those who read the heil, granuaid, any member of limabeanpeace / fruits of the earth and the red tops from voting (none of the aforementioned possess any form of brains or sense).

  11. Piro Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    RAAAGE

    This really riles me, there's no way any of these expenses should be legitimate; if they are, the rules need to be changed.

  12. Neil Stansbury
    Thumb Up

    Hmmm

    So if my sales man calls me and says "My laptop is broken and I need a new one urgently".

    I say "Ok, put it on your expenses and put it through at the end of month"

    I own that laptop?

    That laptop is a business asset - it has one of those little asset stickers on it ?

    If my employee took it with him when he left, then that would be considered theft ?

    If my employee lied and told me he had lost it & to claim, that would be insurance fraud ?

    You can go to prison for both of those - right?

    I sentence them to 42 days without charge, in small room with excessive simulated porn.

    Then I'd just sack the thieving fuckers.

  13. Player_16
    Coat

    How to claim a loophole.

    iPod - Computer Storage Device for work

    Trouser press - Large press needed for gowns and 'Business (parliament) wear'

    Marble-floor - Part of wear-and tear at the coal face that is needed

    Dyson vacuum cleaner - Up-keep for carpeted floor (see Marble floor above)

    Combination: TV, stand and television insurance for £814.98 'to accompany' the Sony LCD telly and surround-sound system for work and transport: cannot function on its own. Needed for group-presentations on location

    £1,000 television - out on assignment (see 'Combination' above)

    I'm going to claim a % of my iPhone as a work expense for engineering purposes: calculator, maps, needed inbuilt programs (App Store).

    .

    Aww! There's a wrinkle. I better claim that iron as a uniform-up-keep tool expense to get that out and take it to the dry cleaners- and save the receipts as a work-uniform expense.

  14. Richard
    Black Helicopters

    If you can't beat 'em

    Some new rules might be in order:

    All members must have a designated animal within 15ft of them at all times. Designated animals: WIldebeest, Hippopotamus, Rhinocerous. Said animals must be fed by the member at own expense.

    There should be a special "If it appears to anyone with an IQ over 60 that a given expense looks like a member may be milking the expenses like a giant udder then that expense is not allowed except if the member successfully defends it in mortal combat" rule.

    Just because you get to make the rules doesn't preclude you from being able to see that they're wrong. Black helicopter because apparently Apache gunships aren't forbidden on expenses either.

  15. Sooty

    simple solution

    anything bought on expenses belongs to the government, not the MP, and should have to be handed over when they step down. If a £1000 tv can't be accounted for, then what a shame, they'll just have to pay for it.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Politcial Con Game

    It is protection money not tax, if you look at how the mob operates and how government operates there is not much of a real difference. In fact governments are probably far more brutal.

    I have no idea why we all put up with it, we are all really just cattle getting milked to feed their extravagant lifestyles. It is crazy they do nothing for us, apart from thieve, and we all just put up with it and go moo. No backbone that is the problem, we only have ourselves to blame for our spineless inaction.

    Just imagine if you could view it all from the outside, with the eye of Dickens or Swift, oh the tales are always the same.

  17. Rolf Howarth
    Jobs Halo

    Bah humbug!

    This is a complete non-story. All it proves it that Assembly Members have some taste, which is surely a good thing. Just because an iPod is actually a desirable item that people might want it means people jump at the story. If they'd bought some cruddy third rate MP3 player people would just be feeling sorry for them and think it was a waste of money buying them.

    I'd far rather we payed our politicians a decent salary so we get the best people in there doing a decent job but instead we have all these stupid rules about expenses.

    As for me, I claim all my nice shiny iPods and camcorders and laptops on expenses too (but then I do make my living from writing media management and video editing software, so I guess I have an excuse).

  18. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Alert

    New data loss shock!

    NEWS JUST IN: Today, an iPod containing as much as 160G of top secret government data was left on a train....authorities stress that this is not a terror related incident and that no one has yet been shot.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Good tmiing

    I just re-watched "V" over the weekend....reminds me of something.....hmmmm

  20. Matt
    Paris Hilton

    an Ipod?

    why the feck do they need that? a telly I can sort of understand but an ipod?

    expense's are for things that they don't have at their second home right? they can buy an ipod themselves and then take it with them!

    Money grabbing bastards!

    Paris because even she doesn't get screwed as much as the electorate in the country.

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