Note to the author: As an ex-neighbour of Gerald Howarth MP for Aldershot I feel I have to step in to what I see as an unfair attack against a decent man. Having carried out building work on my house at the same time as he did and having shared a drive with him, I can assure you that Gerald is a man of irreproachable integrity.

MPs are allowed expenses, in the same same way that people are in the private sector.

There are 3 distinctive issues here:

1. The fairness of the expenses. If we are going to question this, why do we not question the ethics of the expenses and abuse of powers of the non elected civil servants? It is totally unjustifiable to accuse a man who has claimed expenses within the bounds of the contract of his appointment. The public is, and should be, outraged against the system, but not the individual. Do you not claim yourself for expenses as per your contract pushing the price of my newspaper up?

2. The deliberate abuse of expenses. e.g. claiming for a mortgage that does not exist or claiming for properties for the advantage of families and friends. This amounts to fraud, regardless of the MP reimbursing the money or apologising. In fact, are such apologies or reimbursements not a proof of guilt and criminal charges should be sought. I do not see our MP's expenses coming under that bracket. So why should he apologise?

3. The need to have a good news story. The Telegraph has highlighted a real problem to the nation and obviously the media is naturally following suite. At a local level, I do not think it is good journalism to chase a story that is not really a story, just because there is a national frenzy. As I said in point 1, let's look for instances of the money wasted and the expenses by local councils who recklessly try and prosecute innocent residents and even break the law in doing so in addition to needless money wasting on sky blue schemes.

At the end of the day, like him or dislike him, Gerald, unlike his predecessor, lives in this constituency, supports many local events and businesses and has always been approachable. He was elected to do a job and that is what he does honestly and with dedication. Is it not a bit ridiculous to divert him for the matter of a sofa! Where was your hounding of the Council's chief executive when million's were wasted because they could not get the bus lanes around the borough done correctly the first time round? MP's are easy targets and jumping on this particular band wagon is a cheap shot, also quoting out of context is a bad tabloid habit for the sake of a cheap story.

   Yes Mr. Howarths' position as our local MP is untenable. He has lost the respect of us all, his constituents.

I don't think the Lib Dems are a viable alternative, although little has been said about Lib Dem expenses I believe this to be multi partisan.

All MP's have demonstrated that they are not infact "honourable" enough to police themselves.

Firstly an independant body needs to be formed to oversee MP's conduct.

Secondly ordinary constituents may now be more proactive in ensuring that the candidates put forward by the various parties are there to serve their interests, not grudgingly doing them a favour for a measly 60k per anum, regardless of perks.

Perhaps the time for true local people, with real concern for the area to stand as independants is upon us. I personally know of a number of public spirited local people who do far more for the community on far less than the paltry 60k that Mr. Howarth had to scrape by on. (oh yes...60K plus the odd expense claim)

   Gerald Howarth says he could earn more money than his £64,766 MPs salary if he returned to his previous job as a city banker. Does he think he's doing us a favour by being our MP?

He said people expect him to act as “squire of the manor” by paying for charity raffle gifts and attending events, as though that justified claims he made on the expenses system.

It should be a privilege to represent people in Parliament, not a chore.

But there is a bigger issue here. From 2003/04 to 2007/08 Gerald Howarth has claimed over one hundred thousand pounds in Second Home Allowances. A total of £107,452.

If he represented a distant constituency, it would be understandable because it wouldn’t be possible to travel to and from London on a daily basis.

I don’t know whether Gerald Howarth spends most of his time in his main home in Chiswick, and just comes to his second home in Farnborough when he has local events he’s “expected” to attend, but Aldershot Constituency is an area where thousands travel into London each day for their work.

So if thousands of others can make that journey every day, why does Gerald Howarth have to claim six figure sums of taxpayers’ money for a second home? The good, hard-working tax-payers of Aldershot, Farnborough, Blackwater and Yateley deserve an explanation.

I back the call by Nick Clegg that no MP should profit from capital gains accumulated through a second home paid for by the taxpayer. I’m not suggesting Gerald Howarth has broken any rules here, but he does need to justify to those of us paying the bill why he believes this is acceptable.

I travel a similar distance to Winchester for County Council and Police Authority meetings. I would never dream of expecting the taxpayer to buy me a second home there. I live here, not in Winchester, and on the one occasion I knew I would not get home at a reasonable hour I stayed in a hotel and paid the cost myself.

I believe everyone should be entitled to know what those who have the honour of serving the public as MPs or councillors are paid and what expenses they claim. My total salary for my County Council and Police Authority responsibilities in 2008/09 was £44,236. The figures are published in the News & Mail every year when the accounts are complete, as they should be.

The only expenses I claimed on top of my salary were the reimbursement of travel costs. These totalled £3,273.

As Mr Howarth’s main challenger at the next General Election I make it clear here and now that I will not be buying a second home in London if elected. I will continue to live and breathe the life of a local resident full-time, as I believe a local MP should."

County Cllr Adrian Collett Vice Chair of Hampshire Police Authority and Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Aldershot Constituency

   It might be interesting for the citizens of Farnborough to learn that their resident MP, has, according to GetHampshire in April,received expenses for the financial year ending 2008 of £150,017. If this is indeed true, it will be interesting to see how this rather generous sum is to be accounted for. If a campaign is started to oust our "Local Squire" it will receive the wholehearted support of myself and pretty much everyone I have spoken to on this subject.

   I would like to thank those who have expressed their support for my comments. Below I have posted a copy of the email that I sent to Mr Howarth and I urge everyone of you to do the same. I have seen campaigns started in other communities to oust thei MP and am considering whether to undertake similar acion myself.

Dear Mr Howarth

I felt it incumbent to write to you, in order to register my disgust at your towering level of arrogance with regards to showing no regret whatsoever in making claims against the public purse for work carried out on your second home and items of furniture. Whilst I concede that your claim lacks the stupendous audacity (some might say stupidity) of those made by Sir Anthony Steen, I still nonetheless feel that you have failed to recognise the anger that voters like myself feel about MP's expenses claims.

I expect that the first words that will come automatically from your mouth would be "I have acted within the rules set out by the house." Frankly this is of little concequence, because those rules were made and voted on by the house of commons and this does not make your claims legitimate.

I find it particularly abhorrent that you stated you could be earning more if you had stayed in the banking sector. Perhaps it is a profession that would have suited you better bearing in mind that this sector is largely responsinble for the current economic climate, also due to large swathes of corruption and downright stupidity. I will remind you Sir, that you are a servant of the local community and that your political career depends entirely on the good will of that community who's trust you have abused. I will concede that being an MP is a difficult and demanding job, but the fact remains that this is the profession that you chose, no one forced you into it. How many people in your community do you think earn over £60.000 per annum and have to pay for all their expenses from the meagre wages that they earn. Never mind the members of your constituency who have lost their jobs and are scraping along on benefits, whilst desperately searching for any job that will pay the bills.

And then we come to the disgraceful way in which you and many of your colleagues repeatedly attempted to block the publishing of MP's expenses through the freedom of information act. This merely demonstrates that even before they were published, you were perfectly aware (as were others) that the scandalous abuse of the expenses system by so many MP's would be shameful and disgraceful.

I realise that you would be only too happy to sit there and blame other parties for your own shortcomings, but the fact remains, you made your spurious claims and that to my mind is unforgivable. I would urge you to stand down at the next general election and let someone unsullied stand in your stead. The British political system has been admired by the world as one of the most incorruptible until this generation of politicians decided line their own pockets before serving their electorate.

Resign!!!

Yours

James Christian Beuford-Willis

   If my employer sends me away on a long term assignment then after a couple of years any expenses for travel and accommodation become taxable.

I understand that in 2003 MPs voted themselves a special exemption from tax liabilities relating to their allowances. Why should MPs be any different.... our jobs can demand that we too have to work long periods away from home and family.

Some MPs had previously called for a large increase in their pensions because a 'career' in Parliament can be shorter than it used to be. Like an MP I can find my career cut short and at 50+ years I'll find getting back into equivalent employment quite difficult. Again, why should MPs have it better than the rest of us?

Message to Mr Howarth: If you think you would be better off in banking, may I respectfully ask that you do leave politics and go back to banking.

   Dear Mr Howarth I wholeheartedly endorse Christian Willis's comments. I will not vote for you at the next election because I too am shocked and disappointed at your arrogance and lack of understanding of how a large proportion of your constituents feel about the revelations in the media about expenses claims. Can you imagine how your views are received by families that face home repossession because of redundancy or even people like myself who have been forced, by economic factors, back to the workplace to find it impossible to find work. I think you have demonstrated very clearly you are not the person I would like to have as my parliamentary representative and will be making efforts to bring your comments to other voters attention for them to consider.

   Dear Mr Howarth

I am getting very tired of hearing MP's like you state repeatedly that you have "acted within the rules" laid out by the house on claims for expenses. As a local constituent and voter, I frankly do not care whether you have acted within the rules. The rules were set out by you and your colleagues in the House of Commons and it appears that many of you saw it as an opportunity to squeeze the taxpaying public for as much as you could get. In the scheme of things I have to admit that you claims are not anywhere near as outrageous as that of Sir Anthony Steen for example, but the underlying fact remains.

The political classes appear to have lost sight of the one obligation that you are in power to carry out, and that is to serve the electorate who put you there, whether they voted for you or not. You are not spending your time doing the job that you are paid over £60,000 per annum for. We should simply be able to trust that our “Honourable Members” will always act in the best interests of the electorate, their constituency and the country.

You sir, are a public servant and being elected is a difficult and demanding profession to take up and I cannot believe that you were not aware of this before you embarked upon it as a career. You cannot please all of the people all of the time and we all accept that, but if you are serious about serving us honourably and if you always keep in the forefront of you mind that you are a servant to us with a job to get on with we will invariably support you. When you show the kind of stupendous arrogance that you have demonstrated recently, then how can you be surprised that we get angry?

Mr Howarth, your supreme arrogance in stating that you could have earned a lot more staying in you job as a banker, only demonstrates more clearly how out of touch you truly are with voters, many of who are scraping along on benefits and low paid jobs which is the full remuneration from which their have to pay for all their housing improvements, furniture and whatever other life expenses come along. MP’s appear to be living in this cloud cuckoo-land where almost every indulgence or whim has been paid for out of the public purse. As has been said before and no doubt as will be said again, you and other like you are not sorry for what you have done, you are only sorry that you got caught, but we have a few honest MP’s to thank for that, because many of your colleagues tried to block the freedom of information act publishing MP’s expenses, I would be interested in finding out which camp you were in on that?

As the old saying goes; “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” You only have yourself to blame. Frankly the best thing you and your local colleagues can do now is stand down at the next election and perhaps let someone else with an unsullied reputation stand as an “Honourable Member”. By the way, I wish you all the best in reviving you career in the banking sector, I am sure you’ll get a job, hopefully as bank teller. That way at least you will find out how the real world works.

   Politicians are not stupid people, they are in general intelligent and financially astute. They do not need to break or even bend the rules as they make their own rules.

They are merely selfish and greedy.

It is a shame because I had respect for Gerald Howarth.

With their financial accumen perhaps many MP's should become merchant bankers.

Perhaps many are already.

   Dear Mr Howarth,

I have to say that I find your comments regarding your expenses quite shocking. What has the fact that you could earn more as a city banker got to do with anything? Do you think that gives you the right to exploit expenses?

Furthermore, I find it incredulous that you can buy furniture and have building works at your Farnborough home. Tell me any other job that allows an individual to furnish or add to their house as a business expense. This would be seen as a benefit in kind, and would be taxable - I trust yours is, and has had tax paid as such at least.

"Acting within the rules" may be one thing, but "reasonable expenses incurred doing your job" is something else in my opinion.

With an attitude as displayed in the Farnborough News & Mail this week, I don't see how we can have confidence in you, and you certainly can't rely on my vote if you stand by these claims. I'm sure many others in the local electorate will feel the same way.

Don't be under any illusion that your blinkered and selfish attitude won't affect your party's performance in the forthcoming local and European elections either.

   Presumably Mr Howarth knew the remuneration of MPs before deciding to seek election. As such he can hardly complain that it is insufficient. However, if he believes that it is then he may care to consider a return to the banking sector. Perhaps he could give Lehman Brothers a try.

   there is only one thing to do then! lets vote him out next time!!!!

   Poor dear. Fancy having to pay for some thing out of his salary. They are all at it from every side, they are only sorry they got caught. You know it has been happening for years as there is so many and they all made a mistake. So what are they, dishonest or stupid? has to be one or the other. Either way they think they can run the country...... We don't stand a chance. I don't think he is the only one who would be better off if he went back to being a banker.

   MPs need reminding The 'HoP rules' are not the Law. Has false accounting or fraud taken place? We look forward to seeing the full expenses, and a deep investigation into backbenchers and ministers.

   The arrogance of this man is unbelievable. Perhaps he might consider standing down at the next election if he is so financially burdened by his chosen career path. I didn't realise that acting as our MP was such a chore for poor Mr. Howarth.