Lord Rennard reported to the Privileges Committee
June 26th, 2009 Posted in UK Politics by Mark Littlewood
I hear that Lord Rennard has been referred to the Privileges Committee over his expenses claims - particularly, but not uniquely, his claim that his primary residence is in Eastbourne. He has been reported by the Sunlight Centre for Open Politics.
Those with long memories will remember the resolution of the Federal Executive Committee meeting, over a month ago, on 20th May 2009. This promised, amongst other things, a code of conduct to be published by mid-June. If it has been published, I can’t find any sign of it on the official party website (although as I can’t find a way of actually searching the party website, it’s hard to be sure).
Click here for the letter calling for an investigation
More to follow.
Tags: expenses, Lord Rennard
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June 27th, 2009 at 12:20 am
[...] Rennard reported to the Privileges Committee June 26, 2009 — Agent Orange Liberal Vision has the story. And still no comment from the shop steward. Posted in Uncategorized. Leave a [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
Sunlight Centre for Open Politics - front for Guido? Are you surprised?
June 27th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
@nonconformistradical. Good Lord, no. Not in the least bit surprised. But it still leaves two questions: 1. what is the party doing about this? (Chris hasn’t had an opportunity to clear his name and its now weeks since some of these allegations were made public) 2. Are the decisions made by the FE on May 20th - published on May 25th - actually being enacted?
P.S. I understand the signatory of the letter is the famous Home Office mole (the one worthy of police investigation alongside the seditious radical MP, Damian Green).
June 27th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Yeah what is going on with the LibDem website at the moment?? Its bluddy awful!!
June 27th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Sunlight COPS? Aren’t those guys still operating out of Guido’s office?
June 27th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
And is this well-known Tory blogger still involved?
June 28th, 2009 at 12:35 am
@burkesworks. You may be right. I don’t know. I don’t really care. I assume the very serious allegations in this letter can be easily rebutted.
The party - including the leader and chief whip in the Lords - have been investigating this since 25th May (at the very latest). No doubt, we will hear their conclusions very soon. They have had five full weeks so far, so this will obviously end up being a very detailed and technical report. After such a long period of investigation, I’m quite sure it will be considerably more extensive in its content than any titbits Liberal Vision can muster.
It would be useful if they could indicate a publication date, but it’s more important that they just get on with doing the job thoroughly and leave no stone unturned.
For it to have taken this long already suggests enormous amounts of midnight oil have been burnt. Good.
This is a matter that they should be treating very seriosuly indeed. And I’m quite sure they are. A quick and dirty two sides of A4 knocked out in a couple of hours would have looked like a whitewash.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that the Lords McNally and Shutt have a very onerous work programme in the House of Lords. I therefore doubt they have been able to find much time for anything other than this investigation in the last few weeks.
June 28th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
We need to act and as importantly be seen to act to sort out the outstanding issues on expenses and allowances. It does not matter who reported Lord Rennard - he was always going to be investigated sooner or later. Better sooner for the Party almost certainly. It is taking too long (again) in my view for the party to act.