There is an old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity and if this is the case, the folk of my former home town should be grateful for the efforts of fraudster, Conservative MP, Maria Miller, for getting the town of Basingstoke on the national news.

Miller: Crook

To many people, the news of an MP stealing tax payers money is not nearly as important as Bruce Forsyth retiring from Strictly, but all the same, it is big news for Basingstoke and the local Gazette newspaper should be grateful for something else to write about as a distraction from the on-going drama surrounding the employment of a new station master at Overton train station.

Basingstoke has a patchy record for having famous or indeed, infamous people, that come from the area, though fans of John Arlott (cricketer) Elizabeth Hurly (plastic punk/actress) Jet from Gladiators and 1980’s singer songwriter, Tinata Tikaram, may disagree.

Basingstoke’s Tinata Tikaram singing ‘Good Tradition’

Miller was given the Basingstoke seat as it has traditionally been, despite, the working class London overspill estates surrounding it, a safe Tory bet in general elections; it was a way of fast-tracking her as her through Government as even in the New Labour years, when the Conservatives were in disarray under the leadership of a series of world stage political heavyweights such as Ian Duncan Smith and William Hague, Basingstoke was staunchly Tory.

I used to read Miller’s weekly article in the Basingstoke Gazette, the local rag that fawned over her to embarrassing levels and I always found her opinions pretty much vitriolic, often blatantly picking on benefit scroungers or other minority groups to stir people up and get them onside.

She is not a nice character.

I wont go into to detail about the crimes that she has committed because anyone who is interested will know all about her theft of tax payers money followed by the blatant lobbying and bullying she carried out in a desperate bid to save her bacon.

Make no bones about, Maria Miller should be in prison, serving a sentence that you, I, and the next person would serve if we had committed a similar offence.

Anyone who runs a small business, particularly in contracting,  is constantly on red alert because of IR (Inland Revenue) changes toward false self-employment and we spend good money on accountants ensuring that we are operating within the law and correctly paying our tax an NI obligations.

We accept that, it’s the way it is but what I can’t accept that if I pay my tax a day late, I get I fined and threatened, whilst at the same time an MP can claim £90k in false mortgage interest and get away with an apology. It stinks.

What makes it worse is that for some reason, David Cameron seems to think that because Miller has apologised, “It is best left there.”

What?

Imagine if you committed 90k of fraud and then, to make it worse, you aggressively tried to worm your way out of the crime by bullying and threatening people?

What would happen? Why you would be laughed out of court of course; all the way to a five year stretch behind bars.A slightly off the wall friend of mine made an unsavoury comment on Facebook that Cameron was allegedly “Doing Miller up the dirtbox” which I would regard as an unlikely  allegation but I got his point.

Why on earth would he back her? There is an election next year, the economy is making a robust recovery, for some at least, and he chooses to lend his support to a fraudster?

It does make you wonder.

Whatever the case, the people from Basingstoke can add Miller to their list of local “Personalities” though one would suspect, they probably won’t vote for her in the next election.

They will be voting for the next “Cameron Cutie” placed in Basingstoke as a way of fast tracking them to the front bench. You can guarantee that whoever it is, they will have something in common with Maria Miller.

They wont give a toss about Basingstoke.