April 17, 2008 - By Simon Bennett

We’ve known for years that the corrupt Lib-Lab-Con parties have been ripping-off the taxpayer using the “rented office” scam – the national media have known too! Yet it is only now that the latter, perhaps emboldened by revelations concerning a whole raft of perceived Westminster frauds, have decided to “go public” on the issue. Whatever their reason for doing so, such public disclosure is to be welcomed.

So how does this odious little Parliamentary/Brussels scam work?

Well – we’ll tell you: A MP or MEP rents an office in his/her local party’s constituency building. In actual fact the “office” need not be more than a desk in one corner of a room – but tends to be a room that also doubles as the MP’s/MEP’s surgery, to which the public is allowed access at certain specified times, to consult their elected representative. Nothing wrong with that, of course – but here comes the “nice little earner”, as Arthur Dailey would have put it:-

The provision of this “service” can come with a hefty price tag. The facility is often rented out at a very steep rent – substantially higher than other comparable office accommodation in the immediate area. The reason, you see, is that our MP or MEP doesn’t pick up the tab for the rent – YOU, the taxpayer, do – as it is paid by The House/Brussels as an “expense” from public funds!

It is understood that this rental income, more often than not, goes to fund the local party but there are rumours of “kick backs” – where some of the taxpayer money received is “refunded” by the local party to the “enterprising” claimant MP’s/MEP’s themselves!

There are other variations on this, totally legal, but morally reprehensible, scam.

One media report on this deception begins:

“MPS have been accused of funding their political parties “via the backdoor” after it emerged that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash have been paid to parties in rent”

“More than a quarter of members hire party-owned offices out of their expenses – at a significantly higher cost than colleagues renting from independent landlords. This means that the parties are able to swell their coffers through legitimate use of the expenses system.”

Read more: here .

So what is the significance of this story – a significance that could explain media reluctance to report on it earlier? Well, it is this:-

Up, until now, the media have restricted themselves to exposing the questionable activities of individual MPs or groups of MPs. However, these latest revelations prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lib-Lab-Con parties are institutionally corrupt from top to bottom. The Westminster malaise is NOT restricted to a handful of “bad apples” but is representative of the Establishment three party cartel that itself is utterly corrup – a fact confirmed by the apparent reluctance of the three party leaders concerned to either appologise for this scandal or to refute it!