I don't understand.

[tiggerblue10]

Why is the Home Secretary Jacqui (sp) Smith's residences in question? Why should it matter to anyone how many houses she has? Or have I missed the point!

[icemaiden]

According to GMTV, the sister gets paid �500 per week for letting Jacqui stay there. �500 per week!

Speechless.

[Octavius]

Definitely Ice, I would want much more than that for letting her live in our house. In fact, they couldn't pay me enough.

[kempie]

j-t-p - Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling manage to utilise "grace and favour" residences without issue.

Bringing arch-troughsnuffler Prescott into the argument is interesting. His abuses include his occupation of two "grace and favour" residences (Dorneywood and an apartment in Admiralty House) after being stripped of Ministerial responsibility, along with the slight issue of failing to pay 8 years of Council Tax for the apartment, the irony being for a large period of that time his department (ODPM) oversaw Council Tax policy. This was partly the result of "misunderstandings" based on his thinking Admiralty House was his secondary residence. However he was simultaneously declaring his Hull residence as "secondary".

So the Home Secretary wished to distance herself from "grace and favour" a la Prescott by choosing to declare her family residence as secondary a la Prescott.

Some politicians (no matter the affiliation) just could not bear scrutiny of their actions.

[annie0000]

Hi jtp - I am not a Tory looking to sling mud at labour, I am actually a Labour supporter, but I hate that kind of attitude that it is okay to do something if it is "technically" within the rules, but obviously morally wrong, when you are supposed to be setting a standard within the community.

I would be happy for them all to stand up to what they are doing. At the end of the day, we pay their wages and they are happy to think that it is okay to pay pensioners �80 a week or whatever it is that they get nowadays, but line their own pockets at the same time.

Its a disgrace.

[fredpuli47]

icemaiden, The Times has now reported that Jacqui Smith's spokesman denied that she'd been paying anything to her sister, explaining that the two sisters 'shared' the house.I'm pretty sure that initially, Jacqui Smith or her spokesman was saying that she only used the one room and was paying. That prompted the press to find out the going rate for a lodger to pay.

Hmm. It sounds as though someone suddenly realised that paying anything in cash or other contribution for the right to be a lodger was a) income b) tax free income for the sister ! (See 'rent a room' tax allowance of first �4,250) That would be doubly embarrassing. On the other hand, if she's paying nothing it's even harder to see how she can cal this " her" main residence!