Shahid Malik Summed Up

Shahid Malik's expenses claims scandal just will not die.

Whilst those of senior Tories have mysteriously vanished into the night soon after being acknowledged, the media want Malik's blood - and quite right, too.

The fact that he is once again on the frontbench so soon after resigning as Justice Minister is particularly galling.

Yesterday Malik was branded a 'crafty bastard' by an elderly council tenant whose home Malik wished to buy. It is a label stunning in its simplicity - and accuracy.

That's exactly what I thought when he posed for photos soon before his resignation, explaining why he refused to pay back taxpayers' money which, among other things, he had spent on a fine for late payment of his council tax. Surreptitiously in the front of the photograph was an England mug.

Must be what he sips his builder's tea from whilst his bacon and eggs are frying.

It was revealed two days ago that Malik had twice tried to claim taxpayers' cash for remembrance wreaths, despite being told it was not allowed under Commons' rules.

The Mail on Sunday has a new raft of revelations about him:

Scandal-hit Minister Shahid Malik was branded a ‘crafty b*****’ after new allegations concerning his use of Commons expenses were disclosed last night.

He was reappointed to the Government last week, as Communities Minister, after an inquiry cleared him of any wrong-doing over the discounted rent he pays on his constituency home.

But Gordon Brown’s judgment in restoring the former Justice Minister so swiftly is set to be questioned after a Mail on Sunday investigation uncovered allegations that Mr Malik:

• Allowed three of his brothers to use his taxpayer-funded second home in London as student digs.
• Tried to buy his flat at a knockdown price from the elderly council tenant who lived there.
• Is refusing to release papers to allow a heavily pregnant neighbour to move to her new home

Also, Mr Malik paid his father Rafique £7,000-a-year from his Commons expenses to work as an assistant in his constituency in Dewsbury, Yorkshire.

Mr Malik came under further pressure as some constituents launched a petition to try to have him deselected.

Since becoming an MP in 2005, Mr Malik has claimed the maximum £66,827 expenses on his flat in Peckham, South London. It includes £2,600 for a home cinema system, £65 for a court summons for not paying council tax, £730 on a massage chair, £671 for a fireplace and £510 for a fitted wardrobe.

The two-bedroom flat – the bottom two floors of a four-storey building – was bought by Mr Malik from Southwark Council for £85,000 in 2001. His elder brother Zahid was living in the privately owned flat on the top two floors. He sold it for £234,000 in 2003.

The previous occupant of Shahid Malik’s flat said Zahid tried to persuade her to exercise her right to buy the flat at a reduced rate from the council and then sell it to the Maliks.

Ivy Luchford, 71, who moved to Welling, Kent, said: ‘As I had lived in the flat for a long time, and my mother had lived there before me, I could have bought it for £9,000 and sold it on. It was a nice flat with a lovely garden, but I didn’t want to do that. I just left without telling them.’

When told that Mr Malik had bought her old flat from the council for £85,000, an astonished Ms Luchford said: ‘What a crafty b*****. He got that flat for next to nothing. How did he persuade the council to sell him it for that?’

One of Mr Malik’s neighbours, who did not want to be identified, said that when Ms Luchford moved out, Zahid Malik lobbied Southwark Council to buy it. Land Registry records confirm that soon afterwards, Shahid Malik bought the flat, including the freehold covering the whole building.

‘I was very angry,’ said the neighbour.

‘There was a long list of locals desperate for affordable accommodation, but the council was happy to sell it to the Maliks. It needed a bit of damp treatment and they were persuaded it would be easier to off-load it to the Maliks rather than carry out the repairs.’

When Mr Malik, 41, bought the flat, now said to be worth up to £300,000, he had just been elected to Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee.

A Southwark Council spokeswoman refused to comment directly on the
sale of the flat. ‘Councils can dispose of any surplus or void properties,’ she said.

‘When sales take place a valuation is compiled and there are strict rules
in place which ensure nobody is offered a “bargain”.’

Mr Malik is the only MP who has employed his father in his office. Rafique Malik was paid about £7,000 a year as a two-day-a-week case worker in 2005. A former Mayor of Burnley, he is thought to have worked for his son as recently as last November.

More on the Shahid Malik Expenses Scandal

Yesterday I wrote about how, despite being the first minister to resign and one of the highest claimants, despite claiming for a fine for late payment of council tax, Shahid Malik MP is back on the frontbench - and Gordon Brown refused to publish the report which supposedly exonerates him of wrongdoing.

Well, the Telegraph has now revealed that Malik claimed £6,500 for a mysterious second office.

Here is the report:

This newspaper has already reported how Mr Malik, the new Communities Minister, billed the taxpayer for the £6,000-a-year cost of renting his main constituency office in Dewsbury, West Yorks, from a local landlord, Tahir "Terry" Zaman.

However, according to documents seen by this newspaper, he has also been claiming an additional £200 a month for approximately three years - a total of at least £6,500 - to pay for a second, unspecified office he calls "Office 2". He has claimed this money back on his office expenses.

Mr Malik last night said the "Office 2" claims were for "additional office space".

He declined to say where that office space was. He also refused to answer questions about who he rents it from.

According to Mr Malik's website, he holds occasional surgeries in the Asda supermarket in Dewsbury and in a library in Mirfield, near Dewsbury.

However, Asda made clear it did not charge MPs for using its stores, saying: "We would not charge MPs to use our stores. We're part of the community and want to help people contact their representatives." A source at the library, meanwhile, said that renting a room there would cost less than £20 a month.

Office expenses are intended to reimburse MPs for the cost of running an office in their constituency, however it is unclear why Mr Malik would need a second office in a town the size of Dewsbury.

Mr Malik came under scrutiny after The Daily Telegraph reported that, according to Mr Zaman, he paid less than £100 a week to rent a house in Dewsbury from him. Mr Zaman is his neighbour and the owner of 100 properties in the region.

Mr Malik was investigated by Sir Philip Mawer, Gordon Brown's independent adviser on expenses, after Mr Zaman claimed the MP was paying less than the market rate for the house while claiming tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded expenses on his designated second home in London.

Mr Malik also rents his main constituency office from Mr Zaman, claiming back the cost on his office expenses.

The £200-a-month claims for another office, "Office 2", have apparently been submitted with no other paperwork - and there is no reference to a second office on Mr Malik's official website.

In a statement last night, Mr Malik said: "This is a claim for additional office space that I used for constituency business the details of which were properly logged with the House authorities. The amount claimed covers the rent of the property. It was necessary for me to have an additional office space to carry out my duties effectively."

Mr Malik regularly claims a further £250 a month for "petty cash", which is allowed under parliamentary rules. In total, Mr Malik has claimed £82,603 on office expenses and £66,827 on the second home allowance.

The election results didn't quite seem to get the message across, so I would encourage you to send an email to the greedy, grasping little worm at maliks@parliament.uk, and tell him exactly what you think about his 'teflon man' status.

Brown Refuses to Publish Report into Malik's Finances

Gordon Brown has stoked fresh anger over the expenses row by refusing to publish a report which allegedly clears Shahid Malik MP of any wrongdoing over his expenses claims.

Malik, who resigned as Justice Minister over the scandal, has been promoted back to the frontbench as a junior minister for the Department of Communities and Local Government - a role created specially for him.

Malik, you may recall, is not only the lying, cheating scumbag who claimed a fine for paying his council tax late from the public purse, he is also the man who called for a Muslim Prime Minister, inshallah.

Here is more information from the Telegraph:

The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Mr Malik's landord said he was paying well below the market rate for his constituency home in West Yorkshire.

Downing Street said he was reappointed because Sir Philip Mawer, Mr Brown's adviser on ministerial behaviour, had investigated and found nothing wrong with Mr Malik's arrangements.

A spokesman said that Sir Philip had reached his judgment on “on the basis of an independent valuation of the properties".

Asked when the report would be published, spokesman for the Prime Minister said: "It is not our intention to publish the report. It goes into quite a lot of detail about Mr Malik's personal affairs."

Asked whether Downing Street would publish a redacted version of the report, removing personal details, the spokesman said: “No."

But he admitted that Mr Malik had agreed to put his tenancy arrangements on a more formal footing.

The Prime Minister ordered Sir Philip's inquiry after The Daily Telegraph reported that Mr Malik's landlord had claimed he was benefiting from a secret cut-price rental deal on his constituency home, which he has designated as his “main home”.

He claimed tens of thousands of pounds in parliamentary expenses to cover his designated second home in London while allegedly renting his constituency home for less than £100 a week.

Mr Malik's landlord, local businessman Tahir Zaman, had claimed that Mr Malik was paying well below the market rent for his designated main home in Dewsbury.

Meanwhile, he had claimed more than £66,000 in expenses – the maximum allowable amount – on his designated “second home” in London since he became an MP in 2005.

Mr Malik had to step down after the Prime Minister ordered Sir Philip's inquiry into the rental agreement on the home in Dewsbury, where his landlord claimed he paid well below the market rate.

The ministerial code of conduct states that members of the Government must not accept any “gift or hospitality” which risks putting them under an “obligation”. The arrangement had not been formally declared to officials at the Justice Ministry.

Mr Malik claimed that Sir Philip had found no breach of the ministerial code.

Sir Philip was not required to investigate Mr Malik’s expenses claims.

"I always welcomed Sir Philip's inquiry as an opportunity to clear my name and I am delighted that this has now been achieved," he said.

The MP, who was Britain's first Muslim minister, claimed the inquiry concluded that he was "paying the market rate" after receiving evidence from The Daily Telegraph, the MP and commissioning independent valuations.

He said he would now focus on serving his constituents.

The No 10 spokesman said the Prime Minister "would support whatever Mr Malik believed was the right thing to do" in relation to repaying the expenses money.

Mr Malik was the first Government minister to step down in the wake of The Telegraph’s investigation into MPs’ expenses.

Yep, first to step down, first to be re-appointed. You can argue that this government is so devoid of talent that it needs anyone who will serve, but I think they've cut a deal - Brown needs all the support he can muster.

The fact that this thief and liar is untouchable does say an awful lot about our current situation, however.

Shahid Malik MP is the Biggest Fiddler of All

It has just been announced that Shahid Malik MP, he who so desires an Islamified Britain, has resigned as Justice Minister.

This despite the fact that hours earlier he was claiming that he had done absolutely nothing wrong.

It has been revealed that Malik is the MP who made the highest expenses claims.

Here he is on Sky News trying to pretend that the Telegraph has some sort of racist agenda because it investigated him:

Here are the full details of his theft:

Mr Malik told the parliamentary authorities that the Dewsbury house was his main home, enabling him to claim generous taxpayer-funded allowances on his “second” home in London, which he had bought in 2001 for £85,000.

In the first year after he was elected, Mr Malik set about furnishing and refurbishing his London flat, claiming £21,634 in allowances while having modest mortgage interest repayments of £347.50 per month. Some of his expenses claims brought him into conflict with the fees office.

He submitted a bill for £2,100 for a Sony 40in flatscreen TV, only to be told that the maximum allowable claim for televisions was £750. He told the fees office that he was “very upset” at their stance, saying that no one had told him there was a limit on what he could spend.

Internal emails between officials in the fees office show that civil servants were taken aback.
“I do not remember him asking if there were limits on a television, just if he could purchase one,” wrote one. “He did not say he was purchasing a £2,100 TV, let alone a 40in plasma one.” A more senior official agreed that “£2,100 for a television is luxurious by anyone’s standards”.

Mr Malik pursued the matter and wrote a letter in March 2006 in which he stated that because no one had told him there was a limit on what he could spend, “from a natural justice perspective I feel a justifiable exception would be the fairest manner to deal with the current situation”.

The fees office refused to reimburse him in full but eventually agreed to give him £1,050: half the cost of the plasma TV, together with £250 for a home cinema system which had cost him £500. His total spending on furnishings in 2005-6 was £6,147, including £240 for wardrobes, £240 for hi-fi speakers and £239 for a dishwasher. In 2006-7 another £1,521 was claimed for furnishings and fittings, including a £671 fireplace, then in 2007-8 Mr Malik spent another £6,274 on household items, including £1,420 for a bathroom, £730 for a massage chair and £510 for a fitted wardrobe.

In total, Mr Malik has spent £66,827 on his second home in London, while paying less than £100 a week for his main home in Dewsbury.

Mr Zaman’s wife Noreen raised questions over the validity of Mr Malik’s claim that Dewsbury was his main home when she told the Telegraph that the house was normally occupied during the week by a constituency worker called Paul. When the Telegraph called at Mr Malik’s constituency office, a Labour party volunteer called Paul Moore would only say: “I don’t live there. It’s as simple as that.”

It's all someone else's fault, naturally. He claimed £1,050 for a 40 inch plasma TV. Yet he insists that the Tory MPs who claimed for things like controlling moles or dredging moats are more in the wrong than him - despite the fact that he spent nearly as much, in many cases more, and actually tried to wrangle the full amount.

Unbelievable.

Shahid Malik MP Calls for a Muslim Dominated Britain

The above video was uploaded to YouTube on the 18th of March 2009. In it, you can see Shahid Malik MP, Britain's first Muslim minister, talking about the number of Muslims in the British Parliament.

He was addressing the Global Peace and Unity Conference in October 2008. However, as far as I'm aware, traditional media outlets did not cover the conference, or at least did not show this clip.

Malik talks about how the proportion of Muslim MPs has grown since the first one was elected in 1997. He jokes that 'at this rate the whole Parliament will be Muslim', but then says in all seriousness there should be at least 20 Muslim MPs.

Peppering his speech with 'inshallah', 'God willing', he even predicts that in 30 years Britain could have a Muslim Prime Minister, again 'inshallah'.

I must confess, I have a bit of a problem with all of this. Firstly, why is it the case that if I am represented by a Muslim MP I am supposed to see it as progress, a great leap forwards - but the very implication of being concerned about the number of Muslim MPs is that if Muslims are represented by an MP who is not Muslim, it is some sort of insufferable, unbearable slight?

The '20 Muslim MPs' remark is a call for what he sees as fair representation. I disagree, but fair enough. However, the 'Muslim Prime Minister' remark is totally different, and reveals his true agenda - he wants not only a Muslim dominated Britain, but a Muslim orientated Britain. If led by a Muslim, no matter what percentage of the country's population was Muslim, our foreign policy would be Islam-friendly overnight. This would isolate us from our natural, cultural and spiritual allies.

This sort of talk encourages division. The only white MPs who represent heavily Muslim constituencies these days are shameless apologists like George Galloway. If a Sikh or Hindu candidate stands in a largely Muslim constituency, they will generally lose.

Malik himself is the MP for Dewsbury, a heavily Muslim constituency in West Yorkshire. In 2005, Malik won for Labour. The Conservative candidate, also a Muslim, came second, taking 29% of the vote to Malik's 41%. The Lib Dems came third with around 14%, and the BNP fourth with around 13%.

George Galloway's constituency, Bethnal Green & Bow, is also largely Muslim. In the next election, Galloway will stand for a newly created seat next door, and the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and Galloway's Respect party will all field Muslim candidates.

This seems to be the way forward in Muslim areas. If these trends continue, the idea of a Muslim Prime Minister does not seem so ridiculous.

Should that be a problem?

Well, if the potential PM is anything like Shahid Malik, then I'm afraid it is a problem. Malik isn't just an MP who happens to be Muslim - he is a Muslim who happens to be an MP in Britain. Is there a difference?

I think so. Malik has exactly the sort of CV you would expect from a 'professional Muslim' - involvement in operation Black Vote, chief group executive of the Pakistan Muslim Centre in Sheffield, a position with the Commission for Racial Equality.

Malik came to national prominence in 2001; son of the Deputy Mayor of Burnley, he was arrested during the Burnley Race Riots, and shown on TV handcuffed, his face covered in blood. Lancashire Police later accepted he was working as a 'peacemaker' in the crowd and apologised to him.

He is a supporter of Holocaust Memorial Day, despite being a fierce critic of Israel. He observed the Palestinian elections in 2005, and in 2006 toured the areas of Lebanon bombed by Israel in retaliation for Hezbollah attacks. However Malik did not see it this way, and was sharply critical of the UK Government's silence and foreign policy towards Israel.

In 2007 he accused the US immigration authorities of wrongly detaining him for 40 minutes whilst they searched for explosives. They dispute his claims.

The job of an MP is to represent their constituents, and I suppose he does that - but the job of the Prime Minister is to lead, work for and represent the people of this country, at home and abroad.

Malik clearly cares more about being a Muslim than he does British, so why should I believe he would put my interests first? Or those of Britain as a whole? He has had his shining moments - like refusing to support a teacher who claimed discrimination because she could not wear her niqab to work, and calling for the swift removal of failed asylum seekers.

However, it is hard to tell whether he does such things because he believes them, or because he is trying to improve Islam's image and score points from the BNP.

However, the idea that any opposition to Islamification or call for immigrants to accept British values is hatred is taking root and growing.

On the same day this video appeared on YouTube, an article was published in the Sun newspaper. The main picture of the double page spread is 9 English school children gathered around an Imam in a Mosque in Stoke.

It begins: 'This could be a scene straight from a Taliban training school in Pakistan’s lawless badlands.But these are not young people being brainwashed into hating the West — they are non-Muslim teens from Stoke taking part in a challenge which could help change the face of race relations in the UK.'

Er, well they're certainly being brainwashed into something.

They are taking part in the 'Step Up' campaign, run by Pakistani tycoon Mo Chaudry and English darts legend Phil Taylor. Its premise is to help community relations and harmony, and stop the growth of the BNP among the white working-class voters who have been abandoned by mainstream politics.

It works by getting a number of white children involved in learning about different cultures in the area. At the end of the programme the 'most accepting' six after 'cultural coaching' will get work placements with top London firms. They are (and I'm not joking) given a test on 'entrepreneurial skills and race-relations'.

Chaudry says: "We all have to live together so we might as well get on with it."

Right. So you'll be taking Muslim kids to church then, will you? Thought not.

Ultimately this is not a Muslim country. I'm all for tolerance and respect, but it must work both ways or it won't work at all. Why should I respect cultural mores that wish to subvert my own? Living together is hard because so many groups refuse to at least try to conform to the mainstream, not because no English kids attend mosques.

One of the teenagers on the scheme, Michaela Bills, 15, said: "I was so nervous about stepping inside a mosque but actually Muslims have a lot of the same ideas as Christians, they are the same as us. Everyone was so happy inside and the colours were really bright. This scheme offers to teach us things our parents can't."

'The colours were really bright' - I thought this scheme aimed to overcome ignorance? Is that the only basis on which we judge a religion?

For all the anti-BNP scaremongering, I still can't see any of the three main parties addressing the concerns of ordinary British people. Filling the heads of young people with nonsense such as this should be very high on that list of concerns, however.

If this sort of thing steps up, if you'll pardon the pun, Malik won't have to wait 30 years for a Muslim Prime Minister - nor will one be needed for our descent into abject Dhimmitude to be complete.