£172 On A Journey Of Less Than A Mile.

[tonyav]

Having a commons speaker is expensive isn't it.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/john-bercow-spent-%C2%A3172-on-a-journey-of-less-than-a-mile-receipts-reveal-costly-travel-arrangements-of-commons-speaker/ar-AAdqelv

[Zacs-Master]

No one is abusing the system. The system is wrong in having chauffeurs on constant stand by being paid.

[Ellipsis]

Zacs-Master> Ellipsis: ... what more do you need to know?

For all of the other journeys in the article we were told where the journey started, where it finished, or both - but not the journey in the headline.

• Mr Bercow took an official car to travel to Canterbury to see Archbishop Justin Welby enthroned in 2013 at a cost to the taxpayer of £524.
• A journey of 1.8 miles to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral set the taxpayer back by £158.
• travel to the University of Bedfordshire to give a lecture on reforming Parliament following the “adapt or die” moment for MPs following the expenses scandal was £367.
• In April his transport bill to a dinner organised by charity Stonewall at the Dorchester Hotel - 1.5 miles (2.4km) from Parliament - was £144.
• A one-way drive from King's Cross station to Speaker's House after a day trip to Leeds in July 2013 cost £168.
• He kept a chauffeur driven car waiting while he attended a memorial service for former minister Malcolm Wicks in Croydon, south London in October 2012 - costing £289 for five hours.
• The Speaker had a Foreign Office car pick him up at Manchester Piccadilly station after travelling up to attend the funeral of Labour MP Paul Goggins in January last year. It ferried Mr Bercow and a staff member around “as directed” at a cost of £298, before they stayed at the Park Inn Radisson hotel in the centre of the city.
• The following day, it took Mr Bercow and two staff members to the service in Salford, waiting and dropping them back to Manchester Piccadilly at a further cost of £276. In total, the Speaker and his staff ran up expenses of nearly £1,300 attending the service.

[Zacs-Master]

I don't see what relevance it has. Isn't it about 0.7 of a mile to Downing St?

[Retrochic]

The point I was making was that fraud happens on every level and there is no difference between someone claiming benefits because they don't want to work, and a Mp putting in an exaggerated expenses claim -at least the latter is doing a days work and paying tax! And its off topic but believe me - Mr & Mrs Slob who have never worked,and their snotty kids ,stood waiting for a taxi outside Aldi is easy to spot -a working family would be shopping after work or weekends and would not be able to afford a taxi home!

[Retrochic]

I wonder how much Tax Mr. Bercow pays a year? Bet its more than most of those 'outraged' at his expenses bill do!

[fiction-factory]

Okay, thanks, Retrochic

[agchristie]

You usually have a headline on a particular point and you expect elaboration on that. I think this is what Ellipsis was not unreasonably expecting, especially when there is no shortage of info on other examples.

[Ellipsis]

> I don't see what relevance it has

This is in relation to me finding the article "strange".

The relevance to that is that the journey in question was used as the headline of the story. The article provides almost no extra detail on that headline, save that the "less than a mile" was in fact 0.7 miles. Any of the other journeys could have been picked as an example of the waste and put in the headline, but instead they picked the only one for which they did not describe the context at all. Who knows why - maybe because if they told you the context you might find it justifiable? - but this was the reason that I found the article strange. I expected to discover more about that journey than was given in the headline but, despite the length of the article and the number of other journeys described in detail, I didn't.

[Ellipsis]

Thanks agchristie, much more succinctly put ... :)

[EDDIE51]

The government car service has a fleet of 90 cars and over 200 drivers on standby 24/7 365 days a year. It costs a lot, each time a car is used the minister gets a bill which they put down as expenses. The cost is not just for the one car one journey it is a % of the total cost of the service. That is just the way the system works. As said the ministers have no option but to use the service for security reasons. The drivers are mainly ex service personnel who are trained as bodyguards as well as advanced driving.

[Zacs-Master]

The headline is the most attention grabbing of the statistics provided.

[vulcan42]

1.8 miles to Margaret thatcher's funeral, cost £158
0.7 miles, unspecified journey, cost £172
A valid reason is relevant but wasn't given.

[bazwillrun]

"at least the latter is doing a days work"...referring to an MP...you reckon do you, just because they turn up that gets classed as a days work...*Titterfarkle*

[Zacs-Master]

It may be a case that the journey was a regular one who's details may have ciased a security issue and have been redacted.

[Zacs-Master]

caused

[ummmm]

//a working family would be shopping after work or weekends and would not be able to afford a taxi home!//

Really? I can afford a taxi home everyday of the week if I chose not to walk/drive

[EDDIE51]

The point we seem to be missing is that the government car service is there 24/7/365 if it used or not. This is not a 'bill' in the way a taxi fare is, it is the % of the cost of the government car service that was due to a specific journey. They could of course just have the car service as an item of government spending where we could not see who used it and when. This system was designed to be more 'transparent'

[Svejk]

Shame the Labour Party put him where he is, then, bonker. Out of spite.