What a morning!

You spend a morning in an endless meeting only to find that the sh*t has hit the fan. Following Andrew MacKay's resignation as David Cameron's advisor we have had more injunction rumours, Lords Truscott and Taylor to be suspended, the police discussing Elliot Morley's case and Andrew MacKay calling an emergency constituency meeting for next week - and that's just from Guido's site.


Meanwhile The Taxpayers Alliance "have called the police in to investigate MPs' expenses", apparently:

"Following the latest - and most shocking - revelations in the MPs' expenses saga, regarding Elliot Morley's claims for a mortgage that had already been paid off, the TaxPayers' Alliance have registered a formal complaint with the Metropolitan Police today. We have asked them to investigate whether Mr Morley is in breach of any laws, including the Fraud Act 2006.

After a little bit of confusion on the part of the police, who tried to suggest we should "complain to our MP", they have registered our call with an Incident Number (CAD2149) and apparently police officers will be meeting with Parliamentary Officials today. We should hear more later this afternoon."

Read the rest and follow the story...


Meanwhile Mark Thomas has the bit between his teeth and

"has instructed his lawyers, Leigh Day & Co to write to the Speaker of the House of Commons threatening legal action unless a full transparent review is urgently ordered into the scandal of MPs expenses.

Mr Thomas has been advised that the approach peddled by MPs in the press that their unreasonable expenses are within the rules is not correct. In fact, the current scandal has been largely caused by attempts by many MPs to stretch the rules far beyond their ordinary meaning and an unwillingness by the House of Commons Department of Finance and Administration officials to rein them in.

The letter requires Speaker Martin, as Chair of the House of Commons Commission to take urgent steps to commence a review of the Department’s actions in dealing with MPs’ applications for expenses. The following steps are set down as the bare minimum requirements:

* To obtain and publish independent authoritative legal advice & guidance on the meaning of the MPs’ expenses rules, to be consistent with other guidance applicable to the public where similar words are used
* To appoint independent accountants to audit all claims by MPs in the current parliament against the legal advice and guidance obtained
* To consider auditing all claims by MPs back to May 1997, applying consistent principles which would be applied in cases of false/excessive claims against other public authorities or the HMRC
* To explain publicly what sums have been wrongly paid out to members and to set out proposals for recoupment where overpayments have been made, such recoupment to be no more favourable to MPs than the system for recovery of benefits overpayments or income tax underpayments
* To report possibly fraudulent claims to the Metropolitan Police fraud squad for investigation.

The Speaker has been given 14 days to respond, failing which Judicial Review proceedings may follow."

I have many differences of opinion with Mark Thomas but his campaigning style and effectiveness are well known and may be well suited to this area, I will be watching his campaign with interest.


Finally The Express reports that:

"MPs have voted themselves an extra £16million in expenses this year, despite mounting public anger over their money-grabbing claims.

The increase, worth an average £25,000 to each MP, takes the total expenses bill to £109million, up from last year’s £93m."

What will the afternoon bring?