Human Rights

[personchester]

Following the recent scandal in the British parliament when it was discovered by the British Press "The Daily Telegraph" that Members of parliament heavily abused the financial claims they were allowed to make for their so called second homes and their upkeep.

As a result the government is proposing new regulations in order to avoid any repeat of those scams which they have to do of course since the British public was outraged when the scandal was published.

The MP's however are not very pleased with this, they stated that those proposed changes affects their human rights, well perhaps that may be so since we do not know the precise details of the changes.

They are of course entitled to protect their human rights, but what about the British "expats" and their human rights, in regard to their frozen state pension the matter went three times before parliament in order to end this shameful situation but it was defeated three times by those MP"s as a result of which British expats over 400.000 in numbers who live in various countries across the globe have to live in poverty, and now depend on the "European Court of Human Rights" to get their "Human Rights" back in this respect, a human right that has been refused several times by those current Members of parliament.

Apart from the hardship this causes to British expat pensioners this is also a disgraceful situation for the image of Britain and whilst the MP's have a right to protect their human rights, they also have a "duty' to protect the human right of their retired expats who worked and fought for their country, and should be given what they deserve fairness and decency, therefore all you retired British chaps in Thailand write to the MP in your old constituency at home and remind him/her of their duties in this respect

[PattayaParent]

When did lying, cheating, stealing and fraud become a Human Right?

Madhoff should appeal on that basis.

[alant]

Shocked that this has had so little a response!

maybe we are just so used to being had by those in power that we have forgotten what it means to us as ex pats......

work and pay your national insurance =

"go away you far off toad we still give you some pension...If you are rich enough to live overseas you dont need our benefit system".......I thought it was insurance you know like an endowment policy, save up then when it (or in this case you) matures, you get it back"....."you silly oik..anyway just look at what happened to endowments" and the story goes on........"sorry you cant have any treatment on the nhs"...."but I paid for it, I paid all my national insurance and tax"..."tut tut silly you! shame you couldnt have claimed health care as an expense. as I said its the national health service, if you dont live in the nation you dont get the service... serves you right for living abroad and not paying tax, that'll teach you"... "but i pay tax on my private pension, you still tax that on the basis of my tax liability when i worked in the UK, why isnt it the same for health care? why do you stop paying that?".....

"Because we can...ha ha now bugger orf you silly oaf"

[Crossy]

I think this got so little response because the OP hid it away in the Housing forum.

I'll move it to General where it will attract a much wider audience

[jackdanielsesq]

Perchance nobody cares?!

BR>Jack

[dudemeister]

Hey, but wait a minute, does it not depend on which foreign country the British expat is expatting in?

I never understood this logic, why in some countries the pension wont be freezed and in others it is.

Surely its coming out of the same UK government coffers. (the coffers which we duly paid into with our NI contributions)

What is their official excuse on that one?

[personchester]

Following the recent scandal in the British parliament when it was discovered by the British Press "The Daily Telegraph" that Members of parliament heavily abused the financial claims they were allowed to make for their so called second homes and their upkeep.

As a result the government is proposing new regulations in order to avoid any repeat of those scams which they have to do of course since the British public was outraged when the scandal was published.

The MP's however are not very pleased with this, they stated that those proposed changes affects their human rights, well perhaps that may be so since we do not know the precise details of the changes.

They are of course entitled to protect their human rights, but what about the British "expats" and their human rights, in regard to their frozen state pension the matter went three times before parliament in order to end this shameful situation but it was defeated three times by those MP"s as a result of which British expats over 400.000 in numbers who live in various countries across the globe have to live in poverty, and now depend on the "European Court of Human Rights" to get their "Human Rights" back in this respect, a human right that has been refused several times by those current Members of parliament.

Apart from the hardship this causes to British expat pensioners this is also a disgraceful situation for the image of Britain and whilst the MP's have a right to protect their human rights, they also have a "duty' to protect the human right of their retired expats who worked and fought for their country, and should be given what they deserve fairness and decency, therefore all you retired British chaps in Thailand write to the MP in your old constituency at home and remind him/her of their duties in this respect

It would seem that the British MP's have now won themselves their Human rights case since, it has just been reported by "The Daily Telegraph" that the proposals in respect of the new regulations put forward by "Brown & Co" to prevent further financial scandals and fraud by members of parliament has been defeated by the very members of parliament that were involved it, surprise, surprise, What !

[personchester]

Yes, no surprise at all, "the days of wine and roses" have long gone in regard to the current existing morality in the 'House of Commons" based on the recent financial scandal by both male and female MP's.

In 1963 the then Secretary of State for War "John Profumo" an able and prominent minister resigned from both his position in government, and as an MP because it came to light that he had told the 'house' a "lie" regarding his affair with then night club hostess Christine Keeler, in was an honorable act, but also expected in those days from a member of parliament, unforunately, this is no longer the case today moral standards have dropped, hence the recent financial scandal committed by members of parliament and they seem to regard it as part of their human rights since they voted against the new proposed regulation that were meant to prevent a re-occurence of it.

Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the ... well unfortunately, those days are gone.

[personchester]

Yes, Dudemeister about 50% of retired British expats live in countries

where the state pension is indexed that is to say increased like in the UK itself, but the other 50% around 400,000 live in countries (including Thailand) where the pension increase is frozen, the reason has never been explained, British MP's when asked by the media outside the "house" agree that it is disgusting, extremely unfair and unexplainable, but inside the "house" they obviously have to follow the orders of their chief whip and vote against it.

In addition, the British "Works and Pension Department" actually opposes the unfreezing of the pension and has done so in four court cases (three in the UK and one in the EU) the judges in each case pointed out that his is a political matter for parliament to decide, and not for the courts, but the EU court (after their judgment) has allowed an appeal and that appeal takes place on Sept. 2. 2009 in the "Grand Chamber" (17 judges) of The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and that will be the court case of last resort, so "Brit-expats" affected by this keep you fingers crossed for victory, because should the outcome be negative again then that will be the end of story and expats have to depend again entirely on MP's for this to be resolved and the outlook for this is rather grim, expats would then be well advised to purchase a guitar in order to boost their income by playing the pavements in various cities.