The Talking Clock: CPS: Three Labour MPs charged, one Conservative peer

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Friday, 5 February 2010

CPS: Three Labour MPs charged, one Conservative peer

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, has just announced the names of the politicians who are being charged over expenses claims.

In his statement, Mr. Starmer detailed how a panel had looked carefully at the cases received.

All four politicians named have been charged under "section 17 of the Theft Act 1968 for false accounting".

The MPs facing criminal charges are:

Elliot Morley MP (Labour), David Chaytor MP (Labour), and Jim Devine MP (Labour).

One peer, Paul White - Lord Hanningfield (Conservative), is also being charged.

Mr Starmer warned that, as these are now criminal cases and all concerned are entitled to a fair trial, those reporting on the issue must allow them a fair trial.

Mr. Starmer also spoke on the question of Parliamentary privilege and has said that the CPS would want this tested in court.

The Labour peer Lord Clarke of Hampstead was named as being a fifth case that the CPS had received, but he is not being charged with any offence due to there being "insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of a conviction".

A sixth politician is still at the centre of an ongoing investigation.

The exact text of the DPP's statement is at the CPS website, under the 'news' section.

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UPDATE: Jim Devine MP has just given a lengthy doorstep interview, carried by the BBC. Every blogger has to very careful to make sure not to comment, but Mr. Devine made some very interesting points which you'll no doubt see carried on news bulletins through the rest of the day.

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Forever... Diana

...genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

"And when I look at people in public life... I'm not a political animal but I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love - for a minute, for an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I'm very happy to do that and I want to do that."
- Diana, Princess of Wales, 1996

"I think the British people need someone in public life to give affection, to make them feel important, to support them, to give them light in their dark tunnels. I see it as a possibly unique role, and yes, I've had difficulties, as everybody has witnessed over the years, but let's now use the knowledge I've gathered to help other people in distress."
- Diana, Princess of Wales, 1996

"Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard-bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a truly British girl who transcended nationality."
- Earl Spencer

"..she was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated. She will always be remembered for her amazing public works. But behind the media glare, to us, just two loving children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world."
- Prince Harry

The People's Sovereignty

"...our membership of the European Union has removed our democracy; it has taken away the right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which millions have died over hundreds of years, has been frittered away. It no longer serves the people. That is why the time has come to give power back to the people. They deserve it anyway; it is their power and it belongs to them. Before long their anger will overflow if they do not get it back."

- Former UKIP leader Lord Pearson in the House of Lords, 5th February 2009

British resistance and liberty

"We British have in a very special way contributed to Europe. Over the centuries we have fought to prevent Europe from falling under the dominance of a single power. We have fought and we have died for her freedom. Only miles from here, in Belgium, lie the bodies of 120,000 British soldiers who died in the First World War.

Had it not been for that willingness to fight and to die, Europe would have been united long before now - but not in liberty, not in justice. It was British support to resistance movements throughout the last War that helped to keep alive the flame of liberty in so many countries until the day of liberation."

- Margaret Thatcher, Bruges, 1992

Friday, 5 February 2010

CPS: Three Labour MPs charged, one Conservative peer

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