https://sputnikglobe.com/20211113/lib-dem-leadership-hopeful-used-parliamentary-office-for-second-job-1090713099.html
Lib Dem Leadership Hopeful Used Parliamentary Office for Second Job
Lib Dem Leadership Hopeful Used Parliamentary Office for Second Job
Sputnik International
Opposition parties have been making hay over recent misconduct allegations against Conservative MPs and even Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But Labour and the... 13.11.2021, Sputnik International
2021-11-13T19:04+0000
2021-11-13T19:04+0000
2021-11-13T19:04+0000
boris johnson
uk liberal democrats
british conservative party
british labour party
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A leading Liberal Democrat MP has admitted breaking Parliamentary standards rules by using her publicly-funded office for private work.Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokeswoman, earned £3,000 from law firm Bindmans for 40 hours work — £75 per hour — topping up her £80,000-a-year Parliamentary salary.Part of that work involved an online Zoom video-conferencing meeting, which she attended from her Parliamentary office.Conservative MP and former attorney-general Geoffrey Cox has faced calls to resign over allegations he used his own House of Commons office for private legal work that netted him around £1 million, while at least three Labour MPs have been accused of using their facilities as bases for partisan election campaign work without declaring them as expenses in kind.Moran tried to excuse herself by claiming the legal work she was paid for was to help “political prisoners” in Saudi Arabia, that it happened during the COVID-19 lockdown and by implicating two other MPs.The other MPs were identified as Conservatives Crispin Blunt, a former Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman, and Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who was suspended from the party in June after he was charged with an alleged sex offence dating back to 2008.The prisoners in question are two royal princes, Muhammad Bin Nayef and Ahmed Abdulaziz, who were arrested in March 2020 and charged with treason over an alleged US-backed coup d'etat plot against King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Moran ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of her small party in 2020, after incumbent Jo Swinson lost her seat to the Scottish National Party. Her rival Sir Ed Davey won with nearly two-thirds of the vote of party membersMoran has been on the wrong side of the law before. In 2013 she was arrested at the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow for hitting her boyfriend in an argument in their hotel room over a lost computer cable. In 2020 she revealed she was in a relationship with a woman, as she became the first British MP to publicly identified herself as "pansexual".Tory BluesThe latest sleaze scandal has taken its toll on the Tories, with Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party taking a rare lead in the polls according to Savanta ComRes — although the more-reliable YouGov put the two biggest parties neck and neck.The second jobs row came hot on the heels of last week's knife-edge Commons vote to overturn the suspension of MP Owen Paterson — who resigned the next day — and replace the semi-independent Parliamentary Standards Committee with a new one composed entirely of MPs.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was forced to defend himself from similar allegations this week, denying that he had "talks" on moonlighting for legal firm Mishcon de Reya while serving in his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet — only "discussions".
https://sputnikglobe.com/20211112/dominic-cummings-accuses-uk-pm-johnson-of-second-jobs-hypocrisy-amid-paterson-and-cox-row-1090690488.html
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Lib Dem Leadership Hopeful Used Parliamentary Office for Second Job
Opposition parties have been making hay over recent misconduct allegations against Conservative MPs and even Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But Labour and the Liberal Democrats have turned out to be far from blameless themselves.
A leading Liberal Democrat MP has admitted breaking Parliamentary standards rules by using her publicly-funded office for private work.
Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokeswoman, earned £3,000 from law firm Bindmans for 40 hours work — £75 per hour — topping up her £80,000-a-year Parliamentary salary.
Part of that work involved an online Zoom video-conferencing meeting, which she attended from her Parliamentary office.
Conservative MP and former attorney-general
Geoffrey Cox has faced calls to resign over allegations he used his own House of Commons office for private legal work that netted him around £1 million, while at least
three Labour MPs have been accused of using their facilities as bases for partisan election campaign work without declaring them as expenses in kind.
Moran tried to excuse herself by claiming the legal work she was paid for was to help “political prisoners” in Saudi Arabia, that it happened during the COVID-19 lockdown and by implicating two other MPs.
"With MPs from other parties, I worked on the detention of political prisoners in Saudi Arabia with Bindmans," Moran told The Times. "I deeply regret that I Zoomed in for one meeting from my office in parliament when Covid restrictions were in place. I take full responsibility for this and it will not happen again."
The other MPs were identified as Conservatives Crispin Blunt, a former Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman, and Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who was suspended from the party in June after he was charged with an alleged sex offence dating back to 2008.
The prisoners in question are two royal princes, Muhammad Bin Nayef and Ahmed Abdulaziz, who were arrested in March 2020 and charged with treason over an alleged US-backed coup d'etat plot against King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Moran ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of her small party in 2020, after incumbent Jo Swinson lost her seat to the Scottish National Party. Her rival Sir Ed Davey won with nearly two-thirds of the vote of party members
Moran has been on the wrong side of the law before. In 2013 she was arrested at the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow for hitting her boyfriend in an argument in their hotel room over a lost computer cable. In 2020 she revealed she was in a relationship with a woman, as she became the first British MP to publicly identified herself as "pansexual".
12 November 2021, 17:22 GMT
The latest sleaze scandal has taken its toll on the Tories, with Sir Keir Starmer's Labour Party taking a rare lead in the polls according to Savanta ComRes — although the more-reliable YouGov put the two biggest parties neck and neck.
The second jobs row came hot on the heels of last week's knife-edge Commons vote to overturn the suspension of MP
Owen Paterson — who resigned the next day — and replace the semi-independent Parliamentary Standards Committee with a
new one composed entirely of MPs.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was forced to defend himself from similar allegations this week, denying that he had "talks" on moonlighting for legal firm Mishcon de Reya while serving in his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet — only "discussions".
