'Two Homes' MacShane Must Go! part 2

The Legg letter details for the Rt Hon. Dr Denis Macshane MP are out. He received his letter whist away on a jolly to Canada to sell his book, sorry, to brief Canadian politicians on anti semitism.

He is the only Rotherham MP to be required to make a repayment, Kevin Barron is in the clear and John Healey has had to supply further documentary evidence of his claims.

Denis MacShane has been required to repay £1,300 for excess claims for cleaning, can't these MPs do this for themselves? - the rest of us have to!

MacShane also has a great deal of 'form' for trying to water down or delay all proposed changes to this corrupt system of MPs expenses, always making sure that it is never publicised, unlike everything else he gets up to, which you can be sure, will be done in a blaze of publicity.

It has now become a matter of public comment that MacShane has done little for his constituents, apart from angering many of them that is. This man simply has done nothing of note for his electorate if his recent leaflet is anything to go by, no substance but plenty of nice pictures. His most conspicuous success therefore may just be in spending your money and in self aggrandisement.

Labour Party members, aware of a catastrophic loss of confidence in them, are privately very concerned about the challenge posed to them by the rise in support for Peter Thirlwall and the Rotherham Independents, as indeed are the Tories who stand to lose even more votes than Labour in some areas, as even their current numerical strength on the Council has not led them to become an effective or credible opposition or even effective scrutineers of Council Business.

That is the backdrop against which the recent leaflet distributed to his constituents should be seen, as an attempt to shore up support for MacShane and Labour for the General and Local Elections to come (Who paid for it?). The fact that MacShane could actually lose Rotherham in the current circumstances is beginning to embolden MacShane's principal critics and hope still remains that he will not be Labour's Candidate next year. A week is a long time in politics, so anything is still possible!

Attention now focuses on what MacShane really means by

"All I want is that there is a fair, transparent and acceptable system that allows MP's to have a base in their constituency and in London and which allows MP's to see their children grow up" and speaks of "natural justice"*.

Is this simply a thinly veiled attempt to justify some of his previous actions in advance of more close scrutiny of his arrangements which would appear to show that he has financed both his London 'base' and his constituency 'base' from the public purse, something the regulations specifically prohibit! It is also a bit rich coming from him to refer to 'openness and transparency' when he has spent so much of his time and energy trying to prevent this from happening! Already the epithet 'Two Homes' MacShane is reportedly in circulation.

Only full public disclosure of MacShanes claims can now dispel the many questions now being asked and dispel the rumours about this that are currently circulating throughout Rotherham. They are doing so much damage to Labour's prospects for next years elections. The electoral damage will not be confined to MacShane himself but will have an effect on all of Labour's candidates locally and seats will be lost.

*Natural Justice in this context means, that what ever I did in the past I should be forgiven for it 'because it was within the rules at the time'. This threadbare argument would hold water if it were not for the fact that they were so loose that almost anything was within them and neither were they properly policed, it therefore comes down to a judgement whether they stayed within the spirit of them and whether they were greedy or not. Against these measures it is beginning to look as though MacShane has some serious explaining to do!