Again,keep up the good work.

ps Anthony,twice isp bitten,thrice shy

Such behaviour should arouse suspicion amongst auditors in any event.

Mine too. Why does that money go through the hands of the
M(E)P? Why not pay (and tax) the individual direct? The employing Member would still effectively have the status of “manager” of the PA, still choosing who works, and even what they are paid, but not handling the cash.

It was leaked -which is why we know it exists-but we are unable to know the detail.
MEP Chris Davies ( LIbDEm)-a member of the MSP’s Budget Control Committee -along with all his fellow members was shown the report in a locked room-sworn to secrecy -& unable to take copies.

He went to the Press & told them ( us) that widespread abuse of expenses had been found totalling £100 million pa-including payments to employees who don’t exist. ( thats fraud in my book)

Davies was castigated by his fellow MEPs-A Spanish MEP said “Passing information to the press is a misuse of information and a misuse of parliamentary obligations.”

Don’t look for whiltleblowers from the Court of Auditors-they get sacked by the likes of former Commissioner Kinnock.Look at the cases of Marta Andreasen, Dougal Watt & Paul Van Buitenen-the latter brought about the resignation of the infamous Santer Commission-he still got sacked.

THe EU Accounts have never been ratified by it’s Auditors-Fraud , Financial incompetence & waste are rife. If it was a listed company it would have been de-listed long ago & be bust by now, with it’s senior management in clink.

There was more accountability & transparency in The Kremlin than exists in the Institutions of The EU. But anyone who dares to suggest they be more “open” is vilified as Anti Europe/Eurosceptic/Disloyal/Right wing/ etc etc.

Stalin would be proud of the lot of them.

The figures are based on a genuine random sample, so they are a polite fiction. In reality Ipsos MORI and YouGov don’t use random sampling, and the phone pollsters don’t achieve a genuine random sample because of non-response and non-contact bias (the majority of people they ring don’t end up being interviewed). They were somewhat misleading anyway, since they always implied that sample error was the only source of error, and otherwise polls were accurate when in reality there were all sorts of other potential sources of error.

I can’t speak for pollsters in general, but personally speaking: no, margins of error cannot be that accurately calculated.

Nor did I quote a right-wing think tank poll as though it were carried out by some-one independent.

I still see no analytical reason for leaving MPs to pay for their own lunch out of their own wages. Most in the private sector don’t get subsidised for travelling to and from work.