Jackie Smith awarded blue plaque

To highlight the grotesque nature of MP's expenses claims, at a time when most taxpayers are finding it hard to get by, we unveiled a blue plaque on Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s South London residence to honour her services to the people.

Last July MPs (surprisingly) voted to keep their second home allowances (along with a 2.25 percent pay rise). The rules enabled the Home Secretary to claim £116,000 to furnish her ‘second’ constituency home in Redditch, which she shares with her husband (paid as his wife’s Parliamentary adviser at £40,000-a-year) and children, with barbeques and porn films. She could only do this by claiming her sister’s house in South London, where she occupies a second room, to be her first home.

Other MPs who deserve blue plaques are:

Alistair Darling who has a choice of four homes; he is provided with two grace and favour homes at the public’s expense, rents out his former private home (originally taxpayer funded) for his private profit and then he claims for his other home.

Houseing minister Margaret Beckett who was given a grace-and-favour home in 18th-century Admiralty House in late 1997 and claimed £106,000 in expenses for a second home in the six years from 2001/02 to 2006/07.

Tony McNulty, the Employment Minister, who claimed £60,000 as a second home allowance for the house in which his parents live.