It looks like Janice Atkinson, the Ukip MEP, is the latest member of Farage’s chaotic political party to be suspended, this time regarding allegations of a “serious financial nature.” She’s not the only Ukip figure to run into trouble regarding financial matters, but there are currently something like 20 of their number who are suspended. Reasons include sexual harassment, sexist, racist and homophobic comments, drink driving, electoral fraud and opposition gay marriage.
Atkinson’s case is particularly interesting because she is alleged to have run up a bill in a Margate restaurant of £950 which she intended to claim back from the EU. Now I blinked when I saw the figure of £950 for a meal, but it is alleged that her chief of staff asked for a much higher invoice from the hotel in order to claim extra money. The conversation at the hotel went like this:
“The idea is we overcharge them slightly, because that’s the way we repatriate it,” says Atkinson, them being the EU.
A member of the hotel staff replies: “£3,150, is that all right? Yeah, if you’re all right with that? Is that enough for you?”
Ms Hewitt responds: “Oh God yeah, that’s more than enough.”
If this is true, and Farage has already condemned this latest misdemeanour and suspended the parties concerned, then this is, purely and simply, theft. It is theft from the EU and because we are in the EU, it is theft from the British public.
But wait: £950 for a meal? If you work for the government, as I did, there is next to nothing by way of expenses you can claim for meals. I cannot remember the exact amounts, but if you worked away from your office for over five hours and you needed to purchase a meal, you could either claim actuals if it was under a fiver (it was probably less) or a maximum of a fiver and you would need to provide receipts. If you normally took your own meal to work, by way of sandwiches, you could claim a big fat zilch. So why are MEP’s allowed to claim so much?
I cannot ever imagine eating a meal that cost £950, let alone £3150. I can’t imagine spending £95, either. These people are on a different planet to the rest of us.
Farage has always claimed that his was the party that stood up to the establishment on behalf of the ordinary working man and woman. For one thing, we know that’s not true because you could not be closer to the establishment that a man who was a privately educated merchant banker and ordinary people do not spend these sort of sums on going out for a meal – and then trying to claim over three times more back in expenses.
I normally hold The Sun newspaper in absolute contempt for all sorts of reasons, not least its politics, and of course only an innocent wouldn’t rule out the possibility that this story has come out now in order to damage Ukip who cause such a threat to their beloved Tory Party. But I praise them for this.
Atkinson has previously supported BNP policies, sworn at anti-racist protesters and called for anyone who marched against Ukip supporters to be arrested. What a nice woman she isn’t and if these allegations are true she might find herself getting arrested too.
