It’s not enough. No-one else that had defrauded the public this way would get away with simply paying the money back.

Pay money back and work for free

suspended sentence and paying money back

community order and work for free

suspended sentences of up to 3 months for avoiding paying up to £3k in council tax.

Seriously, Hazel Blears and those that have done the same as her are criminals. Arrest them, trial them, give them the criminal record they deserve. Put them on their DNA database and whatever other offenders registers there are. This is what they deserve because this is what they do to everyone else that has done LESS than what they have done.

(edit: Early morning spelling)

Spot on, Lee. When Hazel Blears first came to national prominence (2001? 2002?) I felt it was the first trumpet signaling the apocalypse for the Labour government. She’s a dreadful, dreadful woman whose utterances generally could have come from the mouth of a Thatcherite c.1988. Her tone is shrill and hectoring (Mrs T again), her instincts are tyrannical and she’s symptomatic of everything that’s bad about modern British politics. How utterly unsurprising that she’s been fiddling the allowance system.

I do admire her constant perkiness and good humour – but then I would be perky if I was getting her perks, as it were.

I also liked her campaign slogan – nuts about hazel.

However, I would just like to check that the money she is paying to HMRC will NOT count in their system as advance payment of some future tax bill….suspicious mind I know…

She should also pay the interest, which HMRC would charge anyone else. All the MPs that have claims paid for items that are deemed not incurred as a necessary expense to do their job, should receive a tax demand from HMRC, as thesse payments are ‘benefits in kind’.

Anyone able to confirm that she’s calculated the tax owed based on current rates (30%?) rather than the CGT rate in 2004 of 40%?

Is this the moment to offer a Truth and Reconciliation process?
Let the MPs have all their receipts back from the last four years and resubmit the expenses they wish to claim to a cross-party panel of their own constituents. Then publish them all online with a note explaining how much each MP is due to repay.

Local parties would then have the opportunity to stand behind their MP (and face the wrath of electors with different values) or condemn them as benefit scroungers unfit for public office.

Only an idea…

I saw a bit of the video last night – my carpet still has vomit stains from the ‘money shot’ of her actually producing the cheque for the camera. Clearly, now that the ‘party line’ has changed, Blears has been reprogrammed to behave accordingly – not that it makes the slightest bit of difference.

Hazel Blears, isn’t she out of control?

Whoah! Is that for real? I can’t see a link to it from the Telegraph page on expenses, and I would’ve thought it would be HUGE news!

The same day that Mr Brown went on YouTube Miss Blears was pictured walking out of Number 10 with details of the announcement visible on a file she was carrying.

Bit late for the April Fools mate!