I asked the question who are the good MPs when it comes to expenses and PaddyGrace responds with Laura Moffatt.

I have always believed it is wrong for public servants to make money out of the public purse and I do not defend anyone who does so.

In the 12 years that I have been an MP I rented a flat for about 2½ years when the late night/early morning commuting became too much but gave it up because the annual cost did not sit comfortably with me.

I completely sympathise with the anger felt by many in the UK about the kinds of things some MPs have claimed for.

For myself, I never travel first class when commuting and since getting rid of my flat I more often sleep on a camp bed in my office when the House sits late (more than once a week) rather than book into a hotel and have only made one claim for personal goods in 2007/08, under £20 I think, to replace some towels.

Whilst not defending any of the controversial claims currently being reported – it is important to emphasise that we only know about these payments because this Labour Government, for the first time in our history, put this information in the public domain.

Without the Freedom of Information Act 2000, opposed by the Tories, none of us would have access to any of this information.

The record shows that I have consistently voted against pay rises for MPs in the Commons and this year gave my entire pay rise to charity. Laura Moffatt.

If you I was a voter in Crawley you know who I’d vote for.

I’m fed up with MP’s complaining about their salaries – this morning on Radio 4 we had Nadine Dorries claiming the expense scandal

Was because no prime minister had ever had the political courage to give MPs an appropriate pay rise.

Now the pay for a backbench MP is £64,766 which taking the UK median of £479 a week which equates to around £30,000 a year – now why should MPs be paid any more than double the average? The current financial crisis blows a hole in the theory that huge salaries attract the best – or if that’s the best then what’s the worse? Personally I believe MPs are paid too much, we don’t want career politicians we want people who enter politics because of their beliefs and convictions it’s why I was once a member of the Labour Party and why I’m no longer a member.

Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre remains closed for a second day after a chemical scare which led to more than 30 people needing medical treatment.

The air in the centre was monitored overnight after it closed on Thursday.

The centre opened on Friday morning but was evacuated after seven people showed symptoms. It will remain closed until further notice, a spokeswoman said.

Police said any contamination remained “unexplained” and it was not known if was from an accident or malicious act.

Ten people were taken to hospital on Thursday with many complaining of feeling dizzy and nauseous.

The centre was opened for access before the latest evacuation on Friday morning but the shops had not reopened.

A spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said seven people had been “showing symptoms” on Friday. They were treated at the scene.

Louise Hamer Brown from Bull Ring Marketing said: “We are evacuated at the moment and emergency services are performing further investigations.” Edgbaston Street remains closed between Park Street and Pershore Street.

A West Midlands Police spokesman said the incident may have been caused by “some sort of petroleum-based substance” potentially contaminating the shopping centre’s ventilation or air-conditioning system.

Six security workers were treated for the effects of fumes shortly before 0400 BST on Thursday. Later, more staff complained of fumes and the centre was closed.

A triage centre was set up away from the building to treat people for symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and water eyes and dizziness, the ambulance service said. BBC.

Mobile phone companies make their tariffs as complex as they can in the hope that we’ll choose the wrong tariff and end up paying more than we need, there’s also plenty of web sites claiming to find us the best tariff, but they’re interested in commission – so what to do?

Ofcom today said BillMonitor was awarded its price accreditation scheme logo after meeting the terms of a rigorous independent audit, which checks whether information given to consumers is accessible, accurate, transparent, comprehensive and up to date. Miles Brignall, The Guardian.

Now we know where to go to find the best deal.

In 2005 Richard Werner published The New Paradigm in Macroeconomics: Solving the Riddle of Japanese Macroeconomic Performance. And although it’s published four-years-ago the books prologue, even though it’s almost 30 pages long is worth reading – it describes and debunks neo-classic economics, which we’ve been subjected to for more than 50-years – longer than I’ve been alive.

A large number of prominent national and international bureaucrats, journalists, politicians and other ‘opinion-makers’ had either been trained in the discipline or had otherwise become its followers. As a result, the views proposed by it came to dominate public policy debate by the mid-1980s, permeating the discussion of issues affecting individuals, communities, companies, the nation and the international community. This school of thought is better known by its key tenets than by its name. Its key beliefs are that the pursuit of individual self-interest will lead to a better society, that government intervention beyond the narrow maintenance of law and order should be minimized if not eliminated and that the powers of unfettered markets should be unleashed in virtually every part of society, at home and abroad. For this purpose, structural reforms are recommended to deregulate, liberalize, privatize and open up as many industries and aspects of the economy as possible, as the beneficial forces of the invisible hand, if only allowed to operate freely, would improve people’s lives, create wealth, produce prosperity and lead to maximum happiness.

The name of this school is less well-known: neoclassical economics.

…

Probably the most important of the premises needed by neoclassical economics for its tenets to hold is the assumption of perfect information. It is so crucial, because even simple market clearing – a very fundamental tenet of much of modern economics – requires it. Joseph Stiglitz, who became the most influential economist to turn against mainstream neoclassical economics, started out his research by ‘relaxing’ just this one assumption that was presented as fairly innocuous by neoclassical models. Many trained economists had become so familiar with the assumption of ‘perfect information’ that ‘relaxing’ it seemed an unusual thing for them.

Since the fiction of ‘perfect information’ is a standard assumption, most economists have become thoroughly hardened to its enormity. To assume perfect information is a monstrous distortion of reality. It creates a fictional world that is not just a little different from reality, but one that is diametrically opposed to what constitutes the very essence of the world we live in. All economic activity is based on the very fact that information is not perfectly and equally distributed. To realize the far-reaching implications of the assumption of perfect information, consider what a world would look like if the neoclassical assumption of ‘perfect information’ indeed held true.

If there was perfect information…

* There would not be meetings at companies, government agencies and other institutions. In actual fact, much activity at any organization is taken up by holding meetings in order to inform, communicate, discuss, decide, motivate, and so on;

* There would be no need for firms to exchange information. In actual fact, gathering information is crucial for businesses. Since medieval times, trade fares, product shows, conferences, symposia and events are well documented as important engines of growth and innovation: such growth depends on information flows, on firms getting to know other firms, meeting customers, and so on;

Richard Werner.

Werner has plenty more examples and ends his extensive list writing the list could go on.

Reading the prologue, how on earth did socialist parties such as the UK’s Labour party ever become enthralled to this economic model? It belies commonsense.

Hat Tip: Duncan’s Economic Blog.

Alternative prologue download here.

Some books are just to expensive for me to purchase, particularly educational and business books, so instead of buying a new book I turn to second-hand and Abe Books, however what I should be using is Used Book Search, which not only searches Abe Books but another 10 websites – the results show the number of books available and the best price available at each website – very useful.

Wolfram Alpha is a new search engine, unlike Google it’s a search for facts and not websites. For instance type in your favourite artist, in my case Ani DiFranco, unlike Google which gives a list of websites the first of which is Righteous Babe Records – Wolfram Alpha however returns:

There’s also a side link to Ani DiFranco’s Wikipedia page, unfortunately it’s not perfect type in “Henry VIII’s wives” and Wolfram Alpha returns Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input, whilst Google’s first result is The Six Wives of Henry VIII from the Tudor History website.

As I said Wolfram Alpha isn’t perfect, but it looks promising and offers something different, and don’t forget what Google was like in it’s early days – I’ll be using Wolfram Alpha over the next few months to evaluate how useful I find it.

Hat Tip: The Guardian.

What would Britain be like if the BNP ruled the UK – here’s a short guide from Hope not Hate.

The BNP would kick out all those people who were not born in Britain. What if every other country in the world kicked out the Brits? A staggering 5.5 million people would be sent back here – far more than would leave our shores. This includes 800,000 from Spain, most of whom are pensioners.

What if … In a BNP Britain If non-white people were ordered out of Britain then the NHS would collapse overnight. 16% of nurses are from minority ethnic communities, as are 40% of new dentists and 58% of new doctors!

The BNP would introduce apartheid into Britain. The BNP call for whites to be given first preference in housing, education and jobs. This is no different from apartheid South Africa, a racist regime which the BNP supported.

Mixed-race relationships would be outlawed. The BNP constitution opposes any racial integration. Articles in BNP journals condemn mixed-race relationships as “mongrelising the white race”.

The BNP’s answer to violent crime is to allow every household to have a gun. We kid you not. This barmy idea was in the BNP’s 2005 general election manifesto.

Do people really know what they are voting for? I hope they don’t .

Hat Tip: Pickled Politics.

A specialist interest perhaps, but the eagerly awaited, well eagerly awaited here, seventh album from Wilco imaginatively titled The Album is due out on the 29th June. If you can’t wait until then the whole album is streaming now at Wilco’s website – click here to listen. If you’ve never heard Wilco then I’d recommend you start now.

Hat Tip: Drowned in Sound.

A former Labour minister claimed more than £16,000 for the mortgage interest on his constituency home for more than 18 months after repaying the loan. Nicholas Watt, The Guardian.

I find Morley’s mistake hard to believe, now I don’t know about you, but I suspect like myself and millions of others we are all too aware when our mortgages finish, because that’s the day when we can start enjoying ourselves as we can stop worrying about making those huge monthly payments. So, that leaves me with two conclusions the either Eric Morley is a liar and a cheat or secondly MP’s are so rich that they don’t notice an extra £800 a month – or is it both?