Below is a letter written by Roger Gladdish of Brighstone Conservatives claiming to analyse the 52-page report that was sent to the Parliamentary Commissioner, that alleged that Andrew Turner incorrectly claimed £100k by claiming that his Newport house was his second home.
It was sent to Alison Child, Chairman for Wroxall and Godshill Branch of the Isle of Wight Conservatives, following an emergency meeting called last Friday (21st November).
It’s been sent to OnTheWight and is reproduced in full below.
Hi Alison
I have just spent a pleasant afternoon reading through Pugh’s report to the Commissioner for Standards (a document Tolstoy would have been proud of) and it is clear why she told him that his report was obviously an attempt to cause trouble in the local organisation and to take his accusations elsewhere. Nobody of any intelligence reading it could come to any conclusion other than its authors were driven by personal hatred of Andrew Turner. It is full of innuendo, inconsistencies, irrelevancies, and deception, and is based on the premise that the authors’ interpretation of the rules is what counts, not the parliamentary rules in place at the time (their arrogance continues unabated). I also doubt whether Katherine Hudson was impressed by them telling her how to do her job. Nor the Members of Parliament that they accuse of failing to change the law to support their case.
In their introduction the authors present a glowing statement of their achievements, but fail to mention that they were thrown out on their ear by the Isle of Wight electorate for the farrago they called an education policy. It was Andrew Turner’s opposition to their failed change to a two-tier system, on the grounds that the Isle of Wight Council had neither the capability, capacity nor funds to effect it successfully, that sowed the seeds of the vicious vendetta they and their associates have been pursuing against Andrew Turner, which has intensified since their spectacular fall from power.
Much of Pugh’s argument is based on his claim that his allegations against Andrew Turner are the same as those that were made against Maria Miller and Jacqui Smith, although his description of events have been twisted out of all recognition to meet his agenda.
Maria Miller was accused of miss-designation of her main residence, but no action was taken over this. What the Commissioner actually did was to ask her to pay back the interest on the additional mortgage she took out following house renovations. The MPs disagreed with the Commissioner on this point and rejected her advice. Maria Miller subsequently resigned as a minister following pressure from the media.
Jacqui Smith did not own a 1-bedroom flat as Pugh claims. She was in fact staying in a bedroom in her sister’s flat and claiming it as her primary residence. It was this cosy arrangement that brought the Commissioner down on her. In fact Pugh makes reference to the arrangement with the sister later in the report, completely negating his claim that she had the same living arrangements as Andrew Turner.
Neither case was similar to Pugh’s accusations against Andrew Turner, a pure distortion of the facts. It is no wonder that the Commissioner would have no truck with such allegations.
At the heart of Pugh’s report is an attempt to redefine the definition of first and second home by claiming that home ‘as based on a normal understanding of the term’ (a phrase he continuously uses to persuade the reader that his is the correct interpretation), and not the number of nights residence (as used by the Fees Office) that must be used. Despite the fact that he acknowledges that this was the rule at the time. He tries to confuse the terms residence and home in the mind of the reader. For those who’s work takes them away for long periods their primary residence will be the place of work where they spend the most time (as set out in the expenses rules in force at the time), but home in the emotional sense will always be the family home. A person’s primary residence for tax and expenses purposes is not necessarily their home in the emotional sense as Pugh would try to claim. Any child at boarding school could tell you that.
Pugh’s allegations on residency claims are based purely on suggestion and innuendo rather than any hard evidence, and conveniently ignore the fact that Andrew Turner’s original nomination of his London flat as his primary residence in 2004 was made on the guidance of the Fees Office.
Pugh also includes a whole section attacking Andrew Turner’s second home expenses in general. These expenses were all audited by the Legg enquiry and there was only one expense he had to pay back, a claim for mortgage insurance made by others on his behalf when he was ill. A point that was made clear in the LEGG Report. Other MPs were asked to pay back a wide range of claims. Why does Pugh drag these up again other than to smear by innuendo. He obviously wants the reader to add the Sir Thomas Legg to the ever-growing list of individuals and organisations whose views are wrong and should be ignored because they don’t support Pugh’s twisted arguments.
Some of Pugh’s claims are pathetic. At least twice he drags up that old canard about Carole Dennett saying she was going to buy booze when Andrew Turner’s expenses were repaid. Pugh tries to claim that she was going to spend expenses money on booze, when in fact it was Andrew Turner’s own money she was planning to spend. When you claim expenses, you are claiming back the money that you have spent on the company’s behalf. It’s actually your own money that you are being reimbursed, not the company’s.
Pugh destroys any chance of being taken seriously by the sheer vitriol and volume of his attack. He tries to throw everything except the kitchen sink at Andrew Turner. Sorry I take that back, I think the kitchen sink is included in accusation 117(d)kitchen alterations. In fact his diatribe could be aimed at any MP during that period. The rules were open to all sorts of interpretations and it’s a never-ending argument. Which is precisely why they have been changed.
Many of Pugh’s claims are pure innuendo ‘we have no data but we think this is the case’. In his claim on mortgage charges he cites the purchase price and mortgage claims on Andrew Turner’s London flat and Island house. It is important to note that the value of the two properties are very similar, which destroys Pugh’s claim, that Andrew Turner would benefit significantly from nominating his London property as his primary residence . He asserts that, because the Island house was (slightly) more expensive, Andrew Turner would have been able to claim more mortgage expenses on it. However, it only takes a moment to realise that the mortgage claims equate to about a £150,000 mortgage at the interest-only rates prevailing at the time. Less than 75% of the value of either property, making a nonsense of Pugh’s unsupported allegation that Andrew Turner was able to claim more on his Island property.
Pugh’s attack on Carole for living in the Island house would apply to every wife of every MP. He tries to argue that even though the rules allowed MP to claim for joint mortgages, this would be in conflict with the rule that MPs may only claim for their own expenses. In fact a large part of Pugh’s allegations should be aimed at the discredited expenses system that MP had to follow and not any individual MP. The personal attack on Carole Dennett only emphasises the spiteful nature of the report.
Trying to respond to a document like this is like re-fighting the battle of the Somme. One can only come away from reading it with the realisation that Pugh’s sole objective is to destroy Andrew Turner’s career because he blames him for his own failings, and is prepared to sacrifice the dreams of thousands of true Conservative voters on the Island in order to achieve his twisted aims.
Regards
Roger
Image: fabolous under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license
