White Racism” Blamed for Ethnic Peers’ Expense Cheat Prosecution
It was inevitable: white people have been blamed for the exposure of the expenses hearing committed by three ethnic members of the House of Lords, “Baroness” Uddin, “Lord” Bhatia and “Lord” Paul.
An inquiry this past week found that all three had wrongly claimed a total of nearly £200,000 by deliberately registering properties they rarely or never stayed in as their “main home” which allowed them to claim parliamentary overnight allowances.The Lords Conduct and Privileges Committee recommended that Ms Uddin, who has failed to apologise or repay £125,000 in illegitimately claimed expenses, be barred from Parliament until April 2012.
“Lord” Bhatia, who has repaid £27,000, was suspended for eight months, and “Lord” Paul, who returned £42,000, for four months.
The Committee ruled that both Ms Uddin and Mr Bhatia had not acted in good faith, but that while Mr Paul was described as “grossly irresponsible and negligent.”
During the House of Lords debate to formally implement the bans on the three, another ethnic “Lord”, Waheed Alli said the investigation had been based on racism — and he, of course, meant white racism.
“It cannot have escaped your attention that the only three members of the House who were referred to the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and subsequently investigated under these procedures were all Asian,” Mr Alli said.
He went on to argue that the suspensions should not be imposed because the peers “were the victim of racial bias.
"In the rush to apologise for the expense system for which we should all be embarrassed, it should not be at the cost of justice or fairness for all regardless of race,” he said.
Bangladeshi-born “Baroness” Uddin was investigated over claims she had never stayed at her designated main home, a flat in Kent. She was able to claim £30,000 a year in tax-free expenses by designating her family home, which is four miles from Westminster, as her second home. She has now agreed to pay back £125,000 in wrongly claimed expenses.
Indian-born “Lord” Paul, a major Labour party donor, has agreed to pay back £40,000 after he admitted that he never spent a single night at an Oxfordshire flat that he registered as his main home while claiming money in overnight expenses for a London property.
Tanzanian-born “Lord” Bhatia has a £1.5 million home in south-west London but in 2007 he “flipped” the designation of his main home to a two-bedroom flat in Reigate, Surrey, which used to be lived in by his brother. Reigate is just beyond the M25, the boundary used to define qualification for expenses.
On one occasion he was said to have been unable to remember the address of the property he designated as his main home. He claims that he acted within the rules as he believed the flat had been his main home. He has now agreed to pay back £27,000 in expenses.
Mr Alli is of course simply lying in this blatant attempt to save his fellow ethnics’ heads. In fact, a number of rotten members of the House of Lords have already been investigated and censured, including Tory peer Lord Hanningfield (real name Paul White) was charged in February with six counts of making dishonest claims for travelling and is due to appear in a criminal court within the next few weeks.
Furthermore, the Crown Prosecution Service also investigated Lord Clarke of Hampstead, who only escaped prosecution by the skin of his teeth.
Last year, two Labour peers – Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott – were also suspended from the House of Lords for six months for misconduct after being found guilty by a Lords committee for willingness to change laws in exchange for cash.
A number of other members of the House of Lords were also forced to pay back wrongly claimed expenses, and the only reason that the three ethnic “Lords” have been so dramatically censured was the amount and blatancy of their wrongdoing.
The British National Party rejects the notion that white people are to blame for everything that goes wrong with the ethnic community, and dismisses Mr Allia’s allegations with the contempt they deserve.
